ct the money
by farthings from idle people who have music lessons to while away
their time, as to borrow it from your friends."

"I haven't any friends," she said irritably. "And please don't talk
nonsense. The working class to which I belong has one privilege:
the consciousness of being incorruptible--the right to refuse to
be indebted to wretched little shopkeepers, and to treat them with
scorn. No, indeed, you don't buy me! I'm not a Yulitchka!"

Laptev did not attempt to pay the driver, knowing that it would
call forth a perfect torrent of words, such as he had often heard
before. She paid herself.

She had a little furnished room in the flat of a solitary lady who
provided her meals. Her big Becker piano was for the time at Yartsev's
in Great Nikitsky Street, and she went there every day to play on
it. In her room there were armchairs in loose covers, a bed with a
white summer quilt, and flowers belonging to the landlady; there
were oleographs on the walls, and there was nothing that would have
suggested that there was a woman, and a woman of university education,
living in it. There was no toilet table; there were no books; there
was not even a writing-table. It was evident that she went to bed
as soon as she got home, and went out as soon as she got up in the
morning.

The cook brought in the samovar. Polina Nikolaevna made tea, and,
still shivering--the room was cold--began abusing the singers
who had sung in the ninth symphony. She was so tired she could
hardly keep her eyes open. She drank one glass of tea, then a second,
and then a third.

"And so you are married," she said. "But don't be uneasy; I'm not
going to pine away. I shall be able to tear you out of my heart.
Only it's annoying and bitter to me that you are just as contemptible
as every one else; that what you want in a woman is not brains or
intellect, but simply a body, good looks, and youth. . . . Youth!"
she pronounced through her nose, as though mimicking some one, and
she laughed. "Youth! You must have purity, _reinheit! reinheit!_"
she laughed, throwing herself back in her chair. "_Reinheit!_"

When she left off laughing her eyes were wet with tears.

"You're happy, at any rate?" she asked.

"No."

"Does she love you?"

Laptev, agitated, and feeling miserable, stood up and began walking
about the room.

"No," he repeated. "If you want to know, Polina, I'm very unhappy.
There's no help for it; I've done the stupid thing, and the