Gladishev blinked for a second.  It seemed to him that he was feeling upon himself, upon his face, upon his entire body, this intensely fixed gaze, which seemed to touch his face and tickle it, like the cobwebby contact of a comb, which you first rub against a cloth—­the sensation of a thin, imponderous, living matter.

He opened his eyes and saw altogether near him the large, dark, uncanny eyes of the woman, who seemed to him now an entire stranger.

“What are you looking at, Jennie?” he asked quietly.  “What are you thinking of?”

“My dear little boy! ...They call you Kolya:  isn’t that so?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t be angry at me, carry out a certain caprice of mine, please:  shut your eyes again... no, even tighter, tighter...  I want to turn up the light and have a good look at you.  There now, so...  If you only knew how beautiful you are now... right now... this second.  Later you will become coarse, and you will begin giving off a goatish smell; but now you give off an odour of fur and milk... and a little of some wild flower.  But shut them—­shut your eyes!”

She added light, returned to her place, and sat down in her favourite pose—­Turkish fashion.  Both kept silent.  In the distance, several rooms away, a broken-down grand piano was tinkling; somebody’s vibrating laughter floated in; while from the other side—­a little song, and rapid, merry talking.  The words could not be heard.  A cabby was rumbling by somewhere through the distant street...

“And now I will infect him right away, just like all the others,” pondered Jennka, gliding with a deep gaze over his well-made legs, his handsome torso of a future athlete, and over his arms, thrown back, upon which, above the bend of the elbow, the muscles tautened—­bulging, firm.  “Why, then, am I so sorry for him?  Or is it because he is such a good-looking little fellow?  No.  I am long since a stranger to such feelings.  Or is it because he is a boy?  Why, only a little over a year ago I shoved apples in his pocket, when he was going away from me at night.  Why have I not told him then that which, I can, and dare, tell him now?  Or would he not have believed me, anyway?  Would have grown angry?  Would have gone to another?  For sooner or later this turn awaits every man...  And that he bought me for money—­can that be forgiven?  Or did he act just as all of them do—­blindly? ...”

“Kolya!” she said quietly, “Open your eyes.”

He obeyed, opened his eyes, turned to her; entwined her neck with his arm, drew her a little to him, and wanted to kiss her in the opening of her chemise—­on the breast.  She again tenderly but commandingly repulsed him.

“No, wait a while, wait a while—­hear me out... one little minute more.  Tell me, boy, why do you come here to us—­to the women?”

Kolya quietly and hoarsely began laughing.

“How silly you are!  Well, what do they all come for?  Am I not also a man?  For, it seems, I’m at that age when in every man ripens... well, a certain need... for woman.  For I’m not going to occupy myself with all sorts of nastiness!”