hanging upon the very abdomen.

"Ladies! ..." she began impressively, "I must ... Stand up!" she
suddenly called out commandingly. "When I speak, you must hear me out
standing."

They all exchanged glances with perplexity: such an order was a novelty
in the establishment. However, the girls got up one after another,
irresolutely, with eyes and mouths gasping.

"Sie sollen ... you must from this day show me that respect which you
are bound to show to your mistress," importantly and weightily began
Emma Edwardovna. "Beginning from to-day, the establishment in a legal
manner has passed from our good and respected Anna Markovna to me, Emma
Edwardovna Titzner. I hope that we will not quarrel, and that you will
behave yourselves like sensible, obedient, and well-brought-up girls. I
will be to you like in place of your own mother, but only remember,
that I will not stand for laziness, or drunkenness, or notions of any
sort; or any kind of disorder. The kind Madam Shaibes, it must be said,
held you in too loose reins. O--o, I will be far more strict.
Discipline uber alles ... before everything. It's a great pity, that
the Russian people are lazy, dirty and stoopid, do not understand this
rule; but don't you trouble yourself, I will teach you this for your
own good. I say 'for your own good,' because my main thought is to kill
the competition of Treppel. I want that my client should be a man of
substance, and not some charlatan and ragamuffin, some kind of student,
now, or ham actor. I want that my ladies should be the most beautiful,
best brought-up, the healthiest and gayest in the whole city. I won't
spare any money in order to set up swell furnishings; and you will have
rooms with silk furniture and with genuine, beautiful rugs. Your guests
will no longer be demanding beer, but only genteel Bordeaux and
Burgundy wines and champagne. Remember, that a rich, substantial,
elderly man never likes your common, ordinary, coarse love. He requires
Cayenne pepper; he requires not a trade, but an art, and you will soon
acquire this. At Treppel's they take three roubles for a visit and ten
roubles for a night ... I will establish it so, that you will receive
five roubles for a visit and twenty-five for a night. They will present
you with gold and diamonds. I will contrive it so, that you won't have
to pass on into establishments of a lower sort, und so weiter ... right
down to the soldiers' filthy den. No! Deposits will be put away an