Tamara carefully and tenderly stroked Jennka’s head.  “Can it be that you’ll go the limit, Jennechka?”

“Yes.  And without any mercy.  All of you, however, don’t have to be afraid of me.  I choose the man myself.  The stupidest, the handsomest, the richest and the most important, but not to one of you will I let them go afterward.  Oh!  I make believe I’m so passionate before them, that you’d burst out laughing if you saw.  I bite them, I scratch, I cry and shiver like an. insane woman.  They believe it, the pack of fools.”

“It’s your affair, it’s your affair, Jennechka,” meditatively uttered Tamara, looking down.  “Perhaps you’re right, at that.  Who knows?  But tell me, how did you get away from the doctor?”

Jennka suddenly turned away from her, pressed her face against the angle of the window frame and suddenly burst into bitter, searing tears—­the tears of wrath and vengefulness—­and at the same time she spoke, gasping and quivering: 

“Because ... because ...  Because God has sent me especial luck:  I am sick there where, in all probability, no doctor can see.  And ours, besides that, is old and stupid...”

And suddenly, with some unusual effort of the will Jennka stopped her tears just as unexpectedly as she had started crying.

“Come to me, Tamarochka,” she said.  “Of course, you won’t chatter too much?”

“Of course not.”

And they returned into Jennka’s room, both of them calm and restrained.

Simeon walked into the room.  He, contrary to his usual brazenness, always bore himself with a shade of respect toward Jennka.  Simeon said: 

“Well, now, Jennechka, their Excellency has come to Vanda.  Allow her to go away for ten minutes.”

Vanda, a blue-eyed, light blonde, with a large red mouth, with the typical face of a Lithuanian, looked imploringly at Jennka.  If Jennka had said “No” she would have remained in the room, but Jennka did not say anything and even shut her eyes deliberately.  Vanda obediently went out of the room.

This general came accurately twice a month, every two weeks (just as to Zoe, another girl, came daily another honoured guest, nicknamed the Director in the house).

Jennka suddenly threw the old, tattered book behind her.  Her brown eyes flared up with a real golden fire.

“You’re wrong in despising this general,” said she.  “I’ve known worse Ethiopians.  I had a certain guest once—­a real blockhead.  He couldn’t make love to me otherwise than ... otherwise than ... well, let’s say it plainly:  he pricked me with pins in the breast ...  While in Vilno a Polish Catholic priest used to come to me.  He would dress me all in white, compel me to powder myself, lay me down on the bed.  He’d light three candles near me.  And then, when I seemed to him altogether like a dead woman, he’d throw himself upon me.”

Little White Manka suddenly exclaimed: