This new acquaintance, whom we will call Emilie, led
him through a dark, damp little lobby into a fairly
large but low-pitched and untidy room with a huge
cupboard against the further wall and a sofa covered
with American leather; above the doors and between
the windows hung three portraits in oils with the
paint peeling off, two representing bishops in clerical
caps and one a Turk in a turban; cardboard boxes were
lying about in the corners; there were chairs of different
sorts and a crooked legged card table on which a man’s
cap was lying beside an unfinished glass of kvass.
Kuzma Vassilyevitch was followed into the room by
the old woman in the red dress, whom he had noticed
at the gate, and who turned out to be a very unprepossessing
Jewess with sullen pig-like eyes and a grey moustache
over her puffy upper lip. Emilie indicated her
to Kuzma Vassilyevitch and said:
“This is my aunt, Madame Fritsche.”
Kuzma Vassilyevitch was a little surprised but thought
it his duty to introduce himself. Madame Fritsche
looked at him from under her brows, made no response,
but asked her niece in Russian whether she would like
some tea.
“Ah, yes, tea!” answered Emilie.
“You will have some tea, won’t you, Mr.
Officer? Yes, auntie, give us some tea! But
why are you standing, Mr. Officer? Sit down!
Oh, how ceremonious you are! Let me take off my
fichu.”
When Emilie talked she continually turned her head
from one side to another and jerked her shoulders;
birds make similar movements when they sit on a bare
branch with sunshine all round them.
Kuzma Vassilyevitch sank into a chair and assuming
a becoming air of dignity, that is, leaning on his
cutlass and fixing his eyes on the floor, he began
to speak about the theft. But Emilie at once
interrupted him.
“Don’t trouble yourself, it’s all
right. Auntie has just told me that the principal
things have been found.” (Madame Fritsche mumbled
something to herself and went out of the room.) “And
there was no need to go to the police at all; but
I can’t control myself because I am so ...
You don’t understand German? ... So quick,
immer so rasch! But I think no more about it
... aber auch gar nicht!”
Kuzma Vassilyevitch looked at Emilie. Her face
indeed showed no trace of care now. Everything
was smiling in that pretty little face: the eyes,
fringed with almost white lashes, and the lips and
the cheeks and the chin and the dimples in the chin,
and even the tip of her turned-up nose. She went
up to the little looking glass beside the cupboard
and, screwing up her eyes and humming through her teeth,
began tidying her hair. Kuzma Vassilyevitch followed
her movements intently.... He found her very
charming.
“You must excuse me,” she began again,
turning from side to side before the looking glass,
“for having so ... brought you home with me.
Perhaps you dislike it?”
