h him; and on the road, while
walking, he had frequently shoved his hand into his pocket and had
there felt the chill contact of the metal. He expected affront,
violence, and was prepared to meet them in a suitable manner. But, to
his amazement, all that he had presupposed and had feared proved a
timorous, fantastic fiction. The business was far more simple, more
wearisome and more prosaic, and at the same time more unpleasant.

"JA, MEIN HERR," said the housekeeper indifferently and somewhat
loftily, settling into a low chair and lighting a cigarette. "You pay
for one night and instead of that took already the girl for one more
night and one more day. ALSO, you owe twenty-five more roubles yet.
When we let off a girlie for a night we take ten roubles, and for the
twenty-four hours twenty-five roubles. That's a tax, like. Don't you
want a smoke, young man?" she stretched out her case, and Lichonin,
without himself knowing why, took a cigarette.

"I wanted to talk with you about something else entirely."

"O! Don't trouble yourself to speak: I understand everything very well.
Probably the young man wants to take these girl, those Liubka,
altogether to himself to set her up, or in order to--how do you
Russians call it?--in order to safe her? Yes, yes, yes, that happens.
Twenty-two years I live in a brothel, and I know, that this happens
with very foolish young peoples. But only I assure you, that from this
will come nothing out."

"Whether it will come out or whether it won't come out--that is already
my affair," answered Lichonin dully, looking down at his fingers,
trembling on his knees.

"O, of course, it's your affair, my young student," and the flabby
cheeks and majestic chins of Emma Edwardovna began to jump from
inaudible laughter. "From my soul I wish for you love and friendship;
but only trouble yourself to tell this nasty creature, this Liubka,
that she shouldn't dare to show even her nose here, when you throw her
out into the street like a little doggie. Let her croak from hunger
under a fence, or go into a half-rouble establishment for the soldiers!"

"Believe me, she won't return. I ask you merely to give me her
certificate, without delay."

"The certificate? ACH, if you please! Even this very minute. Only I
will first trouble you to pay for everything that she took here on
credit. Have a look, here is her account book. I took it along with me
on purpose. I knew already with what our conversation woul