“As you please.”

Vorotov rummaged in his bookcase and picked out a dog’s-eared French book.

“Will this do?”

“It’s all the same,” she said.

“In that case let us begin, and good luck to it!  Let’s begin with the title . . .  ‘Memoires.’”

“Reminiscences,” Mdlle.  Enquete translated.

With a good-natured smile, breathing hard, he spent a quarter of an hour over the word “Memoires,” and as much over the word de, and this wearied the young lady.  She answered his questions languidly, grew confused, and evidently did not understand her pupil well, and did not attempt to understand him.  Vorotov asked her questions, and at the same time kept looking at her fair hair and thinking: 

“Her hair isn’t naturally curly; she curls it.  It’s a strange thing!  She works from morning to night, and yet she has time to curl her hair.”

At eight o’clock precisely she got up, and saying coldly and dryly, “Au revoir, monsieur,” walked out of the study, leaving behind her the same tender, delicate, disturbing fragrance.  For a long time again her pupil did nothing; he sat at the table meditating.

During the days that followed he became convinced that his teacher was a charming, conscientious, and precise young lady, but that she was very badly educated, and incapable of teaching grown-up people, and he made up his mind not to waste his time, to get rid of her, and to engage another teacher.  When she came the seventh time he took out of his pocket an envelope with seven roubles in it, and holding it in his hand, became very confused and began: 

“Excuse me, Alice Osipovna, but I ought to tell you . . .  I’m under painful necessity . . .”

Seeing the envelope, the French girl guessed what was meant, and for the first time during their lessons her face quivered and her cold, business-like expression vanished.  She coloured a little, and dropping her eyes, began nervously fingering her slender gold chain.  And Vorotov, seeing her perturbation, realised how much a rouble meant to her, and how bitter it would be to her to lose what she was earning.

“I ought to tell you,” he muttered, growing more and more confused, and quavering inwardly; he hurriedly stuffed the envelope into his pocket and went on:  “Excuse me, I . . .  I must leave you for ten minutes.”

And trying to appear as though he had not in the least meant to get rid of her, but only to ask her permission to leave her for a short time, he went into the next room and sat there for ten minutes.  And then he returned more embarrassed than ever:  it struck him that she might have interpreted his brief absence in some way of her own, and he felt awkward.