Susanna laughed and put the little key in the lock of the portfolio.  The lieutenant took out of his pocket a little roll of IOUs and laid them with a notebook on the table.

“Nothing betrays a Jew as much as his accent,” Susanna went on, looking gaily at the lieutenant.  “However much he twists himself into a Russian or a Frenchman, ask him to say ‘feather’ and he will say ‘fedder’ . . . but I pronounce it correctly:  ’Feather! feather! feather!’”

Both laughed.

“By Jove, she’s very jolly!” thought Sokolsky.

Susanna put the portfolio on a chair, took a step towards the lieutenant, and bringing her face close to his, went on gaily: 

“Next to the Jews I love no people so much as the Russian and the French.  I did not do much at school and I know no history, but it seems to me that the fate of the world lies in the hands of those two nations.  I lived a long time abroad. . . .  I spent six months in Madrid. . . .  I’ve gazed my fill at the public, and the conclusion I’ve come to is that there are no decent peoples except the Russian and the French.  Take the languages, for instance. . . .  The German language is like the neighing of horses; as for the English . . . you can’t imagine anything stupider.  Fight—­feet—­foot!  Italian is only pleasant when they speak it slowly.  If you listen to Italians gabbling, you get the effect of the Jewish jargon.  And the Poles?  Mercy on us!  There’s no language so disgusting!  ’Nie pieprz, Pietrze, pieprzem wieprza bo mozeoz przepieprzye wieprza pieprzem.’  That means:  ’Don’t pepper a sucking pig with pepper, Pyotr, or perhaps you’ll over-pepper the sucking pig with pepper.’  Ha, ha, ha!”

Susanna Moiseyevna rolled her eyes and broke into such a pleasant, infectious laugh that the lieutenant, looking at her, went off into a loud and merry peal of laughter.  She took the visitor by the button, and went on: 

“You don’t like Jews, of course . . . they’ve many faults, like all nations.  I don’t dispute that.  But are the Jews to blame for it?  No, it’s not the Jews who are to blame, but the Jewish women!  They are narrow-minded, greedy; there’s no sort of poetry about them, they’re dull. . . .  You have never lived with a Jewess, so you don’t know how charming it is!” Susanna Moiseyevna pronounced the last words with deliberate emphasis and with no eagerness or laughter.  She paused as though frightened at her own openness, and her face was suddenly distorted in a strange, unaccountable way.  Her eyes stared at the lieutenant without blinking, her lips parted and showed clenched teeth.  Her whole face, her throat, and even her bosom, seemed quivering with a spiteful, catlike expression.  Still keeping her eyes fixed on her visitor, she rapidly bent to one side, and swiftly, like a cat, snatched something from the table.  All this was the work of a few seconds.  Watching her movements, the lieutenant saw five fingers crumple up his IOUs and caught a glimpse of the white rustling paper as it disappeared in her clenched fist.  Such an extraordinary transition from good-natured laughter to crime so appalled him that he turned pale and stepped back. . . .