“And I will wind ’em up!  Wait one little week more, dearie!  Did you get the powders?”

“The powders are a trifle!” discontentedly answered Senka.  “And it isn’t powders at all, but pills.”

“And you’re sure when you say that they’ll dissolve at once in water?”

“Sure, I saw it myself.”

“But he won’t die?  Listen, Senya:  he won’t die?  Is that right? ...”

“Nothing will happen to him ...  He’ll only snooze for a while ...  Oh, Tamara!” exclaimed he in a passionate whisper; and even suddenly stretched himself hard from an unbearable emotion, so that his joints cracked.  “Finish it, for God’s sake, as soon as possible! ...  Let’s do the trick and—­bye-bye!  Wherever you want to go to, sweet-heart!  I am all at your will:  if you want to, we start off for Odessa; if you want to—­abroad.  Finish it up as soon as possible! ...”

“Soon, soon...”

“You just wink at me, and I’m all ready ... with powders, with instruments, with passports ...  And then—­choo-choo!  The machine is off!  Tamarochka!  My angel! ...  My precious, my sparkler! ...”

And he, always restrained, having forgotten that he could be seen by strangers, already wanted to embrace and hug Tamara to himself.

“Now, now! ... rapidly and deftly, like a cat, Tamara jumped off the chair.  “Afterwards ... afterwards, Senechka, afterwards, little dearie! ...  I’ll be all yours—­there won’t be any denial, nor forbiddance.  I’ll myself make you weary of me ...  Good-bye, my little silly!”

And with a quick movement of her hand having rumpled up his black curls, she hastily went out of the coffee-house.

CHAPTER VIII.

On the next day, on Monday, toward ten o’clock in the morning, almost all the inmates of the house—­formerly Madam Shaibes’, but now Emma Edwardovna Titzner’s—­rode off in cabs to the centre of the city, to the anatomical theatre—­all, except the far-sighted, much-experienced Henrietta; the cowardly and insensible Ninka; and the feeble-minded Pashka, who for two days now had not gotten up from her bed, kept silent, and to questions directed at her answered by a beatific, idiotical smile and with some sort of inarticulate animal lowing.  If she were not given to eat, she would not even ask; but if food were brought, she would eat with greediness, right with her hands.  She became so slovenly and forgetful, that it was necessary to remind her of certain necessary functions in order to avoid unpleasantness.  Emma Edwardovna did not send out Pashka to her steady guests, who asked for Pashka every day.  Even before, she had had such periods of a detriment of consciousness; however, they had not lasted long, and Emma Edwardovna in any case determined to tide it over:  Pashka was a veritable treasure for the establishment, and its truly horrible victim.

The anatomical theatre represented a long, one-storied, dark-gray building, with white frames around the windows and doors.  There was in its very exterior something low, pressed down, receding into the ground, almost weird.  The girls one after the other stopped near the gates and timidly passed through the yard into the chapel; nestled down at the other end of the yard, in a corner, painted over in the same dark gray colour, with white frame-work.