have spared
her? Well, if she had only said to you: take me, but only give me two
roubles--what would you have said to her?"

"I don't understand you, Jennka!" Gladishev suddenly grew angry. "What
are you putting on airs for! What sort of comedy are you trying to put
over! Honest to God, I'll dress myself at once and go away."

"Wait a while, wait a while, Kolya! One more, one more, the last, the
very, very last question."

"Oh, you!" growled Kolya displeased.

"And could you never imagine... well, imagine it right now, even for a
second... that your family has suddenly grown poor, become ruined.
You'd have to earn your bread by copying papers; or, now, let's say,
through carpenter or blacksmith work; and your sister was to go wrong,
like all of us... yes, yes, yours, your own sister... if some blockhead
seduced her and she was to go travelling... from hand to hand... what
would you say then?"

"Bosh! ... That can't be..." Kolya cut her short curtly. "But, however,
that's enough--I'm going away!"

"Go away, do me that favour! I've ten roubles lying there, near the
mirror, in a little box from chocolates--take them for yourself. I
don't need them, anyway. Buy with them a tortoise powder box with a
gold setting for your mamma; and if you have a little sister, buy her a
good doll. Say: in memory from a certain wench that died. Go on, little
boy!"

Kolya, with a frown, angry, with one shove of a well-knit body jumped
off the bed, almost without touching it. Now he was standing on the
little mat near the bed, naked, well-formed, splendid in all the
magnificence of his blooming, youthful body.

"Kolya!" Jennka called him quietly, insistently and caressingly.
"Kolechka!"

He turned around to her call, and drew in the air in a short, jerky
gust, as though he had gasped: he had never yet in his life met
anywhere, even in pictures, such a beautiful expression of tenderness,
sorrow, and womanly silent reproach, as the one he was just now
beholding in the eyes of Jennka, filled with tears. He sat down on the
edge of the bed, and impulsively embraced her around the bared, swarthy
arms.

"Let's not quarrel, then, Jennechka," he said tenderly.

And she twined herself around him, placed her arms on his neck, while
her head she pressed against his breast. They kept silent so for
several seconds.

"Kolya," Jennie suddenly asked dully, "but were you never afraid of
becoming infected?"

Kolya shivered. Some chill, loaths