dirty and
greasy in all his person as though he had just been pulled out of a
cesspool, wiped his lips and asked hoarsely:

"How many kopecks' bread?" "As much as it comes to." Then he started
laughing:

"Bring as much as possible--we'll reckon it up later... and some bread
cider!"

"Well, Jennie, say what your trouble is...I can already see by your
face that there's trouble, or something distasteful in general...Go
ahead and tell it!"

Jennka for a long time plucked her handkerchief and looked at the tips
of her slippers, as though, gathering her strength. Timorousness had
taken possession of her--the necessary and important words would not
come into her mind, for anything. Platonov came to her aid: "Don't be
embarrassed, my dear Jennie, tell all there is! For you know that I'm
like one of the family, and will never give you away. And perhaps I may
really give you some worth-while advice. Well, dive off with a splash
into the water--begin!"

"That's just it, I don't know how to begin," said Jennka irresolutely.
"Here's what, Sergei Ivanovich, I'm a sick woman...Understand?--sick in
a bad way...With the most nasty disease...Do you know which?"

"Go on!" said Platonov, nodding his head.

"And I've been that way for a long time...more than a month...a month
and a half, maybe...Yes, more than a month, because I found out about
this on the Trinity..."

Platonov quickly rubbed his forehead with his hand. "Wait a while, I've
recalled it...This was that day I was there together with the
students...isn't that so?"

"That's right, Sergei Ivanovich, that's so..."

"Ah, Jennka," said Platonov reproachfully and with regret. "For do you
know, that after this two of the students got sick...Wasn't it from
you?"

Jennka wrathfully and disdainfully flashed her eyes.

"Perhaps even from me...How should I know? There were a lot of them...I
remember there was this one, now, who was even trying to pick a fight
with you all the time ...A tall sort of fellow, fair-haired, in
pince-nez..."

"Yes, yes...That's Sobashnikov. They passed the news to me...That's
he...that one was nothing--a little coxcomb! But then the other--him
I'm sorry for. Although I've known him long, somehow I never made the
right inquiries about his name...I only remember that he comes from
some city or other--Poliyansk...Zvenigorodsk... His comrades called him
Ramses...When the physicians--he turned to several physicians--when
they told him irrevocably t