Razumov remained outwardly impassive.  “What is the meaning of this performance?” he was asking himself.  But with a preliminary sound of bumping outside some door behind him, the lady companion, in a threadbare black skirt and frayed blouse, came in rapidly, walking on her heels, and carrying in both hands a big Russian samovar, obviously too heavy for her.  Razumov made an instinctive movement to help, which startled her so much that she nearly dropped her hissing burden.  She managed, however, to land it on the table, and looked so frightened that Razumov hastened to sit down.  She produced then, from an adjacent room, four glass tumblers, a teapot, and a sugar-basin, on a black iron tray.

The rasping voice asked from the sofa abruptly—­

“Les gateaux?  Have you remembered to bring the cakes?”

Peter Ivanovitch, without a word, marched out on to the landing, and returned instantly with a parcel wrapped up in white glazed paper, which he must have extracted from the interior of his hat.  With imperturbable gravity he undid the string and smoothed the paper open on a part of the table within reach of Madame de S—­’s hand.  The lady companion poured out the tea, then retired into a distant corner out of everybody’s sight.  From time to time Madame de S—­ extended a claw-like hand, glittering with costly rings, towards the paper of cakes, took up one and devoured it, displaying her big false teeth ghoulishly.  Meantime she talked in a hoarse tone of the political situation in the Balkans.  She built great hopes on some complication in the peninsula for arousing a great movement of national indignation in Russia against “these thieves—­thieves thieves.”

“You will only upset yourself,” Peter Ivanovitch interposed, raising his glassy gaze.  He smoked cigarettes and drank tea in silence, continuously.  When he had finished a glass, he flourished his hand above his shoulder.  At that signal the lady companion, ensconced in her corner, with round eyes like a watchful animal, would dart out to the table and pour him out another tumblerful.

Razumov looked at her once or twice.  She was anxious, tremulous, though neither Madame de S—­ nor Peter Ivanovitch paid the slightest attention to her.  “What have they done between them to that forlorn creature?” Razumov asked himself.  “Have they terrified her out of her senses with ghosts, or simply have they only been beating her?” When she gave him his second glass of tea, he noticed that her lips trembled in the manner of a scared person about to burst into speech.  But of course she said nothing, and retired into her corner, as if hugging to herself the smile of thanks he gave her.

“She may be worth cultivating,” thought Razumov suddenly.

He was calming down, getting hold of the actuality into which he had been thrown—­for the first time perhaps since Victor Haldin had entered his room...and had gone out again.  He was distinctly aware of being the object of the famous—­or notorious—­Madame de S—­’s ghastly graciousness.