Her eyes suddenly blazed up, vividly and gaily.

“There’s a devil dwells in me!”

“It’s all very well for you,” pensively and with weariness pronounced Jennie.  “You at least desire something, but my soul is some sort of carrion ...  I’m twenty-five years old, now; but my soul is like that of an old woman, shrivelled up, smelling of the earth ...  And if I had only lived sensibly! ...  Ugh! ...  There was only some sort of slush.”

“Drop it, Jennka; you’re talking foolishly.  You’re smart, you’re original; you have that special power before which men crawl and creep so willingly.  You go away from here, too.  Not with me, of course—­I’m always single—­but go away all by your own self.”

Jennka shook her head and quietly, without tears, hid her face in her palms.

“No, she responded dully, after a long silence,” no, this won’t work out with me:  fate has chewed me all up! ...  I’m not a human being any more, but some sort of dirty cud ...  Eh!” she suddenly made a gesture of despair.  ’Let’s better drink some cognac, Jennechka,’” she addressed herself, “’and let’s suck the lemon a little! ...’  Brr ... what nasty stuff! ...  And where does Annushka always get such abominable stuff?  If you smear a dog’s wool with it, it will fall off ...  And always, the low-down thing, she’ll take an extra half.  Once I somehow ask her—­’What are you hoarding money for?’ ‘Well, I,’ she says, ’am saving it up for a wedding.  What sort,’ she says, ’of joy will it be for my husband, that I’ll offer him up my innocence alone!  I must earn a few hundreds in addition.’  She’s happy! ...  I have here, Tamara, a little money in. the little box under the mirror; you pass it on to her, please...”

“And what are you about, you fool; do you want to die, or what?” sharply, with reproach, said Tamara.

“No, I’m saying it just so, if anything happens ...  Take it, now, take the money!  Maybe they’ll take me off to the hospital ...  And how do you know what’s going to take place there?  I left myself some small change, if anything happens ...  And supposing that I wanted to do something to myself in downright earnest, Tamarochka —­is it possible that you’d interfere with me?”

Tamara looked at her fixedly, deeply, and calmly.  Jennie’s eyes were sad, and as though vacant.  The living fire had become extinguished in them, and they seemed turbid, just as though faded, with whites like moonstone.

“No,” Tamara said at last, quietly but firmly.  “If it was on account of love, I’d interfere; if it was on account of money, I’d talk you out of it:  but there are cases where one must not interfere.  I wouldn’t help, of course; but I also wouldn’t seize you and interfere with you.”

At this moment the quick-limbed housekeeper Zociya whirled through the corridor with an outcry: 

“Ladies, get dressed!  The doctor has arrived ...  Ladies, get dressed! ...  Lively, ladies! ...”