studies getting on? Have you made any
progress in your truly philanthropical art? Is it very hard to help an
inexperienced citizen on his first appearance in this world?

"It is not at all hard if he happens to be no bigger than you are!"
Mashurina retorted with a self-satisfied smile. (She had quite recently
passed her examination as a midwife. Coming from a poor aristocratic
family, she had left her home in the south of Russia about two years
before, and with about twelve shillings in her pocket had arrived in
Moscow, where she had entered a lying-in institution and had worked
very hard to gain the necessary certificate. She was unmarried and
very chaste.) "No wonder!" some sceptics may say (bearing in mind the
description of her personal appearance; but we will permit ourselves to
say that it was wonderful and rare).

Paklin laughed at her retort.

"Well done, my dear! I feel quite crushed! But it serves me right for
being such a dwarf! I wonder where our host has got to?"

Paklin purposely changed the subject of conversation, which was rather a
sore one to him. He could never resign himself to his small stature, nor
indeed to the whole of his unprepossessing figure. He felt it all the
more because he was passionately fond of women and would have given
anything to be attractive to them. The consciousness of his pitiful
appearance was a much sorer point with him than his low origin and
unenviable position in society. His father, a member of the lower middle
class, had, through all sorts of dishonest means, attained the rank of
titular councillor. He had been fairly successful as an intermediary
in legal matters, and managed estates and house property. He had made a
moderate fortune, but had taken to drink towards the end of his life and
had left nothing after his death.

Young Paklin, he was called Sila--Sila Samsonitch, [Meaning strength,
son of Samson] and always regarded this name as a joke against himself,
was educated in a commercial school, where he had acquired a good
knowledge of German. After a great many difficulties he had entered an
office, where he received a salary of five hundred roubles a year,
out of which he had to keep himself, an invalid aunt, and a humpbacked
sister. At the time of our story Paklin was twenty-eight years old.
He had a great many acquaintances among students and young people,
who liked him for his cynical wit, his harmless, though biting,
self-confident speeches, his one-sided