low price for admission, and hits the public fancy,
one may put a hundred thousand in one's pocket the first year. . . .
You don't understand, but I am talking sense. . . . You see you
are fond of hoarding capital; you are no better than that fool
Zagvozdkin, you heap it up and don't know what for. . . . You won't
listen, you don't want to. . . . If you were to put it into
circulation, you wouldn't have to be rushing all over the place
. . . . You see for a private theatre, five thousand would be enough
for a beginning. . . . Not like Lentovsky, of course, but on a
modest scale in a small way. I have got a manager already, I have
looked at a suitable building. . . . It's only the money I haven't
got. . . . If only you understood things you would have parted with
your Five per cents . . . your Preference shares. . . ."

"No, _merci_. . . . You have fleeced me enough already. . . . Let
me alone, I have been punished already. . . ."

"If you are going to argue like a woman, then of course . . ." sighs
Nikitin, getting up. "Of course. . . ."

"Let me alone. . . . Come, go away and don't keep me awake. . . .
I am sick of listening to your nonsense."

"H'm. . . . To be sure . . . of course! Fleeced. . . plundered. . . .
What we give we remember, but we don't remember what we take."

"I have never taken anything from you."

"Is that so? But when we weren't a celebrated singer, at whose
expense did we live then? And who, allow me to ask, lifted you out
of beggary and secured your happiness? Don't you remember that?"

"Come, go to bed. Go along and sleep it off."

"Do you mean to say you think I am drunk? . . . if I am so low in
the eyes of such a grand lady. . . I can go away altogether."

"Do. A good thing too."

"I will, too. I have humbled myself enough. And I will go."

"Oh, my God! Oh, do go, then! I shall be delighted!"

"Very well, we shall see."

Nikitin mutters something to himself, and, stumbling over the chairs,
goes out of the bedroom. Then sounds reach her from the entry of
whispering, the shuffling of goloshes and a door being shut. _Mari
d'elle_ has taken offence in earnest and gone out.

"Thank God, he has gone!" thinks the singer. "Now I can sleep."

And as she falls asleep she thinks of her _mari d'elle_, what sort
of a man he is, and how this affliction has come upon her. At one
time he used to live at Tchernigov, and had a situation there as a
book-keeper. As an ordinary obscure individual