ow they
had all finished their studies, had gone out into the world, and,
of course, like respectable people, had long ago forgotten her. One
of them was living in Paris, two were doctors, the fourth was an
artist, and the fifth was said to be already a professor. Klotchkov
was the sixth. . . . Soon he, too, would finish his studies and go
out into the world. There was a fine future before him, no doubt,
and Klotchkov probably would become a great man, but the present
was anything but bright; Klotchkov had no tobacco and no tea, and
there were only four lumps of sugar left. She must make haste and
finish her embroidery, take it to the woman who had ordered it, and
with the quarter rouble she would get for it, buy tea and tobacco.

"Can I come in?" asked a voice at the door.

Anyuta quickly threw a woollen shawl over her shoulders. Fetisov,
the artist, walked in.

"I have come to ask you a favour," he began, addressing Klotchkov,
and glaring like a wild beast from under the long locks that hung
over his brow. "Do me a favour; lend me your young lady just for a
couple of hours! I'm painting a picture, you see, and I can't get
on without a model."

"Oh, with pleasure," Klotchkov agreed. "Go along, Anyuta."

"The things I've had to put up with there," Anyuta murmured softly.

"Rubbish! The man's asking you for the sake of art, and not for any
sort of nonsense. Why not help him if you can?"

Anyuta began dressing.

"And what are you painting?" asked Klotchkov.

"Psyche; it's a fine subject. But it won't go, somehow. I have to
keep painting from different models. Yesterday I was painting one
with blue legs. 'Why are your legs blue?' I asked her. 'It's my
stockings stain them,' she said. And you're still grinding! Lucky
fellow! You have patience."

"Medicine's a job one can't get on with without grinding."

"H'm! . . . Excuse me, Klotchkov, but you do live like a pig! It's
awful the way you live!"

"How do you mean? I can't help it. . . . I only get twelve roubles
a month from my father, and it's hard to live decently on that."

"Yes . . . yes . . ." said the artist, frowning with an air of
disgust; "but, still, you might live better. . . . An educated man
is in duty bound to have taste, isn't he? And goodness knows what
it's like here! The bed not made, the slops, the dirt . . . yesterday's
porridge in the plates. . . Tfoo!"

"That's true," said the student in confusion; "but Anyuta has had
no time to-day t