rned out that he had just fulfilled his
caprice, had gotten what he wanted, and was now trying to back out.
They are all like that, the men!

Lichonin hastily got up, splashed a few handfuls of water in his face,
and dried himself with an old napkin. Then he raised the blinds and
threw open both window shutters. The golden sunlight, the azure sky,
the rumble of the city, the foliage of the thick linden trees and the
chestnuts, the bells of the horse trams, the dry smell of the hot,
dusty street--all this at once burst into the tiny garret room.
Lichonin walked up to Liubka and amicably patted her on the shoulder.

"Never mind, my joy ... What's done can't be undone, but it's a lesson
for the future. You haven't yet asked tea for yourself, Liubochka?"

"No, I was waiting for you all the while. Besides, I didn't know who to
ask. And you're all right, too. Why, I heard you, after you went off
with your friend, come back and stand a while near the door. But you
never even said good-bye to me. Is that right?"

"The first family quarrel," thought Lichonin, but thought it without
malice, in jest.

The wash-up, the beauty of the gold and blue southern sky, and the
naive, partly submissive, partly displeased face of Liubka, as well as
the consciousness that after all he was a man, and that he and not she
had to answer for the porridge he had cooked--all this together braced
up his nerves and compelled him to take himself in hand. He opened the
door and roared into the darkness of the stinking corridor:

"Al-lexa-andra! A samova-ar! Two lo-oaves, bu-utter, and sausage! And a
small bottle of vo-odka!"

The patter of slippers was heard in the corridor, and an aged voice,
even from afar, began to speak thickly:

"What are you bawling for? What are you bawling for, eh? Ho, ho, ho!
Like a stallion in a stall. You ain't little, to look at you; you're
grown up already, yet you carry on like a street boy! Well, what do you
want?"

Into the room walked a little old woman, with red-lidded eyes, like
little narrow cracks, and with a face amazingly like parchment, upon
which a long, sharp nose stuck downward, morosely and ominously. This
was Alexandra, the servant of old of the student bird-houses; the
friend and creditor of all the students; a woman of sixty-five,
argumentative, and a grumbler.

Lichonin repeated his order to her and gave her a rouble note. But the
old woman would not go away; shuffled in one place, snorted, che