ce that I fear!"

Trying to open her purse, the catch of which had gone wrong, Anna
Akimovna was confused and turned red. She felt ashamed that people
should be standing before her, looking at her hands and waiting,
and most likely at the bottom of their hearts laughing at her. At
that instant some one came into the kitchen and stamped his feet,
knocking the snow off.

"The lodger has come in," said Madame Tchalikov.

Anna Akimovna grew even more confused. She did not want any one
from the factory to find her in this ridiculous position. As ill-luck
would have it, the lodger came in at the very moment when, having
broken the catch at last, she was giving Tchalikov some notes, and
Tchalikov, grunting as though he were paraylzed, was feeling about
with his lips where he could kiss her. In the lodger she recognized
the workman who had once clanked the sheet-iron before her in the
forge, and had explained things to her. Evidently he had come in
straight from the factory; his face looked dark and grimy, and on
one cheek near his nose was a smudge of soot. His hands were perfectly
black, and his unbelted shirt shone with oil and grease. He was a
man of thirty, of medium height, with black hair and broad shoulders,
and a look of great physical strength. At the first glance Anna
Akimovna perceived that he must be a foreman, who must be receiving
at least thirty-five roubles a month, and a stern, loud-voiced man
who struck the workmen in the face; all this was evident from his
manner of standing, from the attitude he involuntarily assumed at
once on seeing a lady in his room, and most of all from the fact
that he did not wear top-boots, that he had breast pockets, and a
pointed, picturesquely clipped beard. Her father, Akim Ivanovitch,
had been the brother of the factory owner, and yet he had been
afraid of foremen like this lodger and had tried to win their favour.

"Excuse me for having come in here in your absence," said Anna
Akimovna.

The workman looked at her in surprise, smiled in confusion and did
not speak.

"You must speak a little louder, madam . . . ." said Tchalikov
softly. "When Mr. Pimenov comes home from the factory in the evenings
he is a little hard of hearing."

But Anna Akimovna was by now relieved that there was nothing more
for her to do here; she nodded to them and went rapidly out of the
room. Pimenov went to see her out.

"Have you been long in our employment?" she asked in a loud voice,
with