well give up the work."

And he made up his mind at all costs to overcome his innate laziness,
and to learn French and German; and began to look out for a teacher.

One winter noon, as Vorotov was sitting in his study at work, the
servant told him that a young lady was inquiring for him.

"Ask her in," said Vorotov.

And a young lady elaborately dressed in the last fashion walked in.
She introduced herself as a teacher of French, Alice Osipovna
Enquete, and told Vorotov that she had been sent to him by one of
his friends.

"Delighted! Please sit down," said Vorotov, breathing hard and
putting his hand over the collar of his nightshirt (to breathe more
freely he always wore a nightshirt at work instead of a stiff linen
one with collar). "It was Pyotr Sergeitch sent you? Yes, yes . . .
I asked him about it. Delighted!"

As he talked to Mdlle. Enquete he looked at her shyly and with
curiosity. She was a genuine Frenchwoman, very elegant and still
quite young. Judging from her pale, languid face, her short curly
hair, and her unnaturally slim waist, she might have been eighteen;
but looking at her broad, well-developed shoulders, the elegant
lines of her back and her severe eyes, Vorotov thought that she was
not less than three-and-twenty and might be twenty-five; but then
again he began to think she was not more than eighteen. Her face
looked as cold and business-like as the face of a person who has
come to speak about money. She did not once smile or frown, and
only once a look of perplexity flitted over her face when she learnt
that she was not required to teach children, but a stout grown-up
man.

"So, Alice Osipovna," said Vorotov, "we'll have a lesson every
evening from seven to eight. As regards your terms--a rouble a
lesson--I've nothing to say against that. By all means let it be
a rouble. . . ."

And he asked her if she would not have some tea or coffee, whether
it was a fine day, and with a good-natured smile, stroking the baize
of the table, he inquired in a friendly voice who she was, where
she had studied, and what she lived on.

With a cold, business-like expression, Alice Osipovna answered that
she had completed her studies at a private school and had the diploma
of a private teacher, that her father had died lately of scarlet
fever, that her mother was alive and made artificial flowers; that
she, Mdlle. Enquete, taught in a private school till dinnertime,
and after dinner was busy till evening