“But do you know, girlie—­why, he cut a woman’s throat the year before last—­that same Prokhor.  Honest to God!”

“Is that so?  Did she die?”

“No, she didn’t.  She got by,” says Niura, as though with regret.  “But just the same she lay for two months in the Alexandrovskaya Hospital.  The doctors said, that if it were only this teen-weeny bit higher—­then it would have been all over.  Bye-bye!”

“Well, what did he do that to her for?”

“How should I know?  Maybe she hid money from him or wasn’t true to him.  He was her lover—­her pimp.”

“Well, and what did he get for it?”

“Why, nothing.  There was no evidence of any kind.  There had been a free-for-all mix-up.  About a hundred people were fighting.  She also told the police that she had no suspicions of any sort.  But Prokhor himself boasted afterwards:  ‘I,’ says he, ’didn’t do for Dunka that time, but I’ll finish her off another time.  She,’ says he, ‘won’t get by my hands.  I’m going to give her the works.’”

A shiver runs all the way down Liuba’s back.

“They’re desperate fellows, these pimps!” she pronounces quietly, with horror in her voice.

“Something terrible!  I, you know, played at love with our Simeon for a whole year.  Such a Herod, the skunk!  I didn’t have a whole spot on me.  I always went about in black and blue marks.  And it wasn’t for any reason at all, but just simply so—­he’d go in the morning into a room with me, lock himself in, and start in to torture me.  He’d wrench my arms, pinch my breasts, grab my throat and begin to strangle me.  Or else he’d be kissing, kissing, and then he’d bite the lips so that the blood would just spurt out ...  I’d start crying—­but that’s all he was looking for.  Then he’d just pounce an me like a beast—­simply shivering all over.  And he’d take all my money away—­well, now, to the very last little copper.  There wasn’t anything to buy ten cigarettes with.  He’s stingy, this here Simeon, that’s what, always into the bank-book with it, always putting it away into the bank-book...  Says when he gets a thousand roubles together—­he’ll go into a monastery.”

“Go on!”

“Honest to God.  You look into his little room:  the twenty-four hours round, day and night, the little holy lamp burns before the images.  He’s very strong for God ...  Only I think that he’s that way because there’s heavy sins upon him.  He’s a murderer.”

“What are you saying?”

“Oh, let’s drop talking about him, Liubochka.  Well, let’s go on further: 

“I’ll go to the drug store, buy me some poison, And I will poison then meself,”

Niura starts off in a very high, thin voice.