me to me,
I need you, need you bitterly,
Yes, here and in the hereafter."
Her little head shook with laughter.

At six in the morning they swung him high;
At seven the turf on his grave was dry;
At eight, however, she quaffed her
Red wine and sang with laughter!

And still further a convict song:

I'm a ruined laddie,
Ruined for alway;
While year after year
The days go away.

And also:

Don't you cry, my Mary,
You'll belong to me;
When I've served the army
I will marry thee.

But here suddenly, to the general amazement, the stout Kitty, usually
taciturn, burst into laughter. She was a native of Odessa.

"Let me sing one song, too. It's sung by thieves and badger queens in
the drink shops on our Moldavanka and Peresip."

And in a horrible bass, in a rusty and unyielding voice, she began to
sing, making the most incongruous gestures, but, evidently, imitating
some cabaret cantatrice of the third calibre that she had sometime seen:

"Ah, I'll go to Dukovka,
Sit down at the table,
Now I throw my hat off,
Toss it under table.
Then I athk my dearie,
'What will you drink, sweet?'
But all the answer that she makes:
'My head aches fit to split.'
'I ain't a-athking you
What your ache may be,
But I am a-athking you
What your drink may be:
Will it be beer, or for wine shall I call,
Or for violet wine, or nothing else at all?'"

And all would have turned out well, if suddenly Little White Manka, in
only her chemise and in white lace drawers, had not burst into the
cabinet. Some merchant, who the night before had arranged a
paradisaical night, was carousing with her, and the ill-fated
Benedictine, which always acted upon the girl with the rapidity of
dynamite, had brought her into the usual quarrelsome condition. She was
no longer "Little Manka" and "Little White Manka," but she was "Manka
the Scandaliste." Having run into the cabinet, she suddenly, from
unexpectedness, fell down on the floor, and, lying on her back, burst
into such sincere laughter that all the rest burst out laughing as
well. Yes. But this laughter was not prolonged ... Manka suddenly sat
up on the floor and began to shout:

"Hurrah! new wenches have joined our place!"

This was altogether an unexpected thing. The baroness did a still
greater tactlessness. She said:

"I am a patroness of a convent for fallen girls, and th