bka. She, during the past month and a half of
comparative freedom, had had time to grow unaccustomed to the
inspections of every week; and when the doctor turned up the chemise
over her breast, she suddenly turned as red as only very bashful women
can--even with her back and breast.

After her was the turn of Zoe; then of Little White Manka; after that
of Tamara and Niurka--the last, the doctor found, had gonorrhoea, and
ordered her to be sent off to a hospital.

The doctor carried out the inspection with amazing rapidity. It was now
nearly twenty years that every week, on Saturdays, he had to inspect in
such a manner several hundred girls; and he had worked out that
habitual technical dexterity and rapidity, a calm carelessness of
movements, which is; frequently to be found in circus artists, in card
sharpers, in furniture movers and packers, and in other professionals.
And he carried out his manipulations with the same calmness with which
a drover or a veterinary inspects several hundred head of cattle in a
day.

Did he ever think that before him were living people; or that he
appeared as the last and most important link of that fearful chain
which is called legalized prostitution?

No! And even if he did experience this, then it must have been in the
very beginning of his career. Now before him were only naked abdomens,
naked backs, and opened mouths. Not one exemplar of all this faceless
herd of every Saturday would he have recognized subsequently on the
street. The main thing was the necessity of finishing as soon as
possible the inspection in one establishment, in order to pass on to
another, to a third, a ninth, a twentieth...

"Susannah Raitzina!" the doctor finally called out.

No one walked up to the table.

All the inmates of the house began to exchange glances and to whisper.

"Jennka ... Where's Jennka? ..."

But she was not among the girls.

Then Tamara, just released by the doctor, moved a little forward and
said:

"She isn't here. She hasn't had a chance to get herself ready yet.
Excuse me, Mr. Doctor, I'll go right away and call her."

She ran into the corridor and did not return for a long time. After her
went, at first Emma Edwardovna, then Zociya, several girls, and even
Anna Markovna herself.

"PFUI! What indecency is this! ..." the majestic Emma Edwardovna was
saying in the corridor, making an indignant face. "And eternally this
Jennka! ... Always this Jennka! ... It seems my patie