“Do you imagine he’ll marry you—­is that it?  You’d better drop any such fancies.  Students are forbidden to marry.  And do you suppose he comes to see you with honourable intentions?  A likely idea!  Why, these fine students don’t look on us as human beings . . . they only go to see shopkeepers and dressmakers to laugh at their ignorance and to drink.  They’re ashamed to drink at home and in good houses, but with simple uneducated people like us they don’t care what any one thinks; they’d be ready to stand on their heads.  Yes!  Well, which feather trimming will you take?  And if he hangs about and carries on with you, we know what he is after. . . .  When he’s a doctor or a lawyer he’ll remember you:  ‘Ah,’ he’ll say, ’I used to have a pretty fair little thing!  I wonder where she is now?’ Even now I bet you he boasts among his friends that he’s got his eye on a little dressmaker.”

Polinka sits down and gazes pensively at the pile of white boxes.

“No, I won’t take the feather trimming,” she sighs.  “Mamma had better choose it for herself; I may get the wrong one.  I want six yards of fringe for an overcoat, at forty kopecks the yard.  For the same coat I want cocoa-nut buttons, perforated, so they can be sown on firmly. . . .”

Nikolay Timofeitch wraps up the fringe and the buttons.  She looks at him guiltily and evidently expects him to go on talking, but he remains sullenly silent while he tidies up the feather trimming.

“I mustn’t forget some buttons for a dressing-gown . . .” she says after an interval of silence, wiping her pale lips with a handkerchief.

“What kind?”

“It’s for a shopkeeper’s wife, so give me something rather striking.”

“Yes, if it’s for a shopkeeper’s wife, you’d better have something bright.  Here are some buttons.  A combination of colours—­red, blue, and the fashionable gold shade.  Very glaring.  The more refined prefer dull black with a bright border.  But I don’t understand.  Can’t you see for yourself?  What can these . . . walks lead to?”

“I don’t know,” whispers Polinka, and she bends over the buttons; “I don’t know myself what’s come to me, Nikolay Timofeitch.”

A solid shopman with whiskers forces his way behind Nikolay Timofeitch’s back, squeezing him to the counter, and beaming with the choicest gallantry, shouts: 

“Be so kind, madam, as to step into this department.  We have three kinds of jerseys:  plain, braided, and trimmed with beads!  Which may I have the pleasure of showing you?”

At the same time a stout lady passes by Polinka, pronouncing in a rich, deep voice, almost a bass: 

“They must be seamless, with the trade mark stamped in them, please.”