“Anaemic debility . . .” he thought; “she’s probably as nervous as a turkey.”

“Here I am!  Come along!” she said, going on rapidly ahead of him and pulling off the yellow leaves from the plants as she passed.

“I’ll give you the money directly, and if you like I’ll give you some lunch.  Two thousand three hundred roubles!  After such a good stroke of business you’ll have an appetite for your lunch.  Do you like my rooms?  The ladies about here declare that my rooms always smell of garlic.  With that culinary gibe their stock of wit is exhausted.  I hasten to assure you that I’ve no garlic even in the cellar.  And one day when a doctor came to see me who smelt of garlic, I asked him to take his hat and go and spread his fragrance elsewhere.  There is no smell of garlic here, but the place does smell of drugs.  My father lay paralyzed for a year and a half, and the whole house smelt of medicine.  A year and a half!  I was sorry to lose him, but I’m glad he’s dead:  he suffered so!”

She led the officer through two rooms similar to the drawing-room, through a large reception hall, and came to a stop in her study, where there was a lady’s writing-table covered with little knick-knacks.  On the carpet near it several books lay strewn about, opened and folded back.  Through a small door leading from the study he saw a table laid for lunch.

Still chatting, Susanna took out of her pocket a bunch of little keys and unlocked an ingeniously made cupboard with a curved, sloping lid.  When the lid was raised the cupboard emitted a plaintive note which made the lieutenant think of an AEolian harp.  Susanna picked out another key and clicked another lock.

“I have underground passages here and secret doors,” she said, taking out a small morocco portfolio.  “It’s a funny cupboard, isn’t it?  And in this portfolio I have a quarter of my fortune.  Look how podgy it is!  You won’t strangle me, will you?”

Susanna raised her eyes to the lieutenant and laughed good-naturedly.  The lieutenant laughed too.

“She’s rather jolly,” he thought, watching the keys flashing between her fingers.

“Here it is,” she said, picking out the key of the portfolio.  “Now, Mr. Creditor, trot out the IOU.  What a silly thing money is really!  How paltry it is, and yet how women love it!  I am a Jewess, you know, to the marrow of my bones.  I am passionately fond of Shmuls and Yankels, but how I loathe that passion for gain in our Semitic blood.  They hoard and they don’t know what they are hoarding for.  One ought to live and enjoy oneself, but they’re afraid of spending an extra farthing.  In that way I am more like an hussar than a Shmul.  I don’t like money to be kept long in one place.  And altogether I fancy I’m not much like a Jewess.  Does my accent give me away much, eh?”

“What shall I say?” mumbled the lieutenant.  “You speak good Russian, but you do roll your r’s.”