“What a tongue she has!” thought the lieutenant, and answered:  “The difficulty is that an officer is not allowed by law to marry till he is twenty-eight; if you choose to marry, you have to leave the Service or else pay a deposit of five thousand.”

“Ah, now I understand.  Listen.  You said just now that every one has his own way of looking at things. . . .  Perhaps your fiancee is some one special and remarkable, but . . . but I am utterly unable to understand how any decent man can live with a woman.  I can’t for the life of me understand it.  I have lived, thank the Lord, twenty-seven years, and I have never yet seen an endurable woman.  They’re all affected minxes, immoral, liars. . . .  The only ones I can put up with are cooks and housemaids, but so-called ladies I won’t let come within shooting distance of me.  But, thank God, they hate me and don’t force themselves on me!  If one of them wants money she sends her husband, but nothing will induce her to come herself, not from pride—­no, but from cowardice; she’s afraid of my making a scene.  Oh, I understand their hatred very well!  Rather!  I openly display what they do their very utmost to conceal from God and man.  How can they help hating me?  No doubt you’ve heard bushels of scandal about me already. . . .”

“I only arrived here so lately . . .”

“Tut, tut, tut! . . .  I see from your eyes!  But your brother’s wife, surely she primed you for this expedition?  Think of letting a young man come to see such an awful woman without warning him—­how could she?  Ha, ha! . . .  But tell me, how is your brother?  He’s a fine fellow, such a handsome man! . . .  I’ve seen him several times at mass.  Why do you look at me like that?  I very often go to church!  We all have the same God.  To an educated person externals matter less than the idea. . . .  That’s so, isn’t it?”

“Yes, of course . . .” smiled the lieutenant.

“Yes, the idea. . . .  But you are not a bit like your brother.  You are handsome, too, but your brother is a great deal better-looking.  There’s wonderfully little likeness!”

“That’s quite natural; he’s not my brother, but my cousin.”

“Ah, to be sure!  So you must have the money to-day?  Why to-day?”

“My furlough is over in a few days.”

“Well, what’s to be done with you!” sighed Susanna Moiseyevna.  “So be it.  I’ll give you the money, though I know you’ll abuse me for it afterwards.  You’ll quarrel with your wife after you are married, and say:  ’If that mangy Jewess hadn’t given me the money, I should perhaps have been as free as a bird to-day!” Is your fiancee pretty?”

“Oh yes. . . .”

“H’m! . . .  Anyway, better something, if it’s only beauty, than nothing.  Though however beautiful a woman is, it can never make up to her husband for her silliness.”

“That’s original!” laughed the lieutenant.  “You are a woman yourself, and such a woman-hater!”