and cynically malicious.  In her relation to the other girls of the establishment she occupies the same place that in private educational institutions is accorded to the first strong man, the man spending a second year in the same grade, the first beauty in the class—­tyrannizing and adored.  She is a tall, thin brunette, with beautiful hazel eyes, a small proud mouth, a little moustache on the upper lip and with a swarthy, unhealthy pink on her cheeks.

Without letting the cigarette out of her mouth and screwing up her eyes from the smoke, all she does is to turn the pages constantly with a moistened finger.  Her legs are bare to the knees; the enormous balls of the feet are of the most vulgar form; below the big toes stand out pointed, ugly, irregular tumours.

Here also, with her legs crossed, slightly bent, with some sewing, sits Tamara—­a quiet, easy-going, pretty girl, slightly reddish, with that dark and shining tint of hair which is to be found on the back of a fox in winter.  Her real name is Glycera, or Lukeria, as the common folk say it.  But it is already an ancient usage of the houses of ill-fame to replace the uncouth names of the Matrenas, Agathas, Cyclitinias with sonorous, preferably exotic names.  Tamara had at one time been a nun, or, perhaps, merely a novice in a convent, and to this day there have been preserved on her face timidity and a pale puffiness—­a modest and sly expression, which is peculiar to young nuns.  She holds herself aloof in the house, does not chum with any one, does not initiate any one into her past life.  But in her case there must have been many more adventures besides having been a nun:  there is something mysterious, taciturn and criminal in her unhurried speech, in the evasive glance of her deep and dark-gold eyes from under the long, lowered eyelashes, in her manners, her sly smiles and intonations of a modest but wanton would-be saint.  There was one occurrence when the girls, with well-nigh reverent awe, heard that Tamara could talk fluently in French and German.  She has within her some sort of an inner, restrained power.  Notwithstanding her outward meekness and complaisance, all in the establishment treat her with respect and circumspection—­the proprietress, and her mates, and both housekeepers, and even the doorkeeper, that veritable sultan of the house of ill-fame, that general terror and hero.

“I’ve covered it,” says Zoe and turns over the trump which had been lying under the pack, wrong side up.  “I’m going with forty, going with an ace of spades—­a ten-spot, Mannechka, if you please.  I’m through.  Fifty-seven, eleven, sixty-eight.  How much have you?”

“Thirty,” says Manka in an offended tone, pouting her lips; “oh, it’s all very well for you—­you remember all the plays.  Deal ...  Well, what’s after that, Tamarochka?” she turns to her friend.  “You talk on—­I’m listening.”

Zoe shuffles the old, black, greasy cards, allows Manya to cut, then deals, having first spat upon her fingers.