you, wants to pretend there's something in him--only
nothing comes of it all. Wha-at a lad-die, to be sure! The scummiest of
the scum, dirty, beaten-up, stinking, his whole body in scars, there's
only one glory about him: the silk shirt which Tamarka will embroider
for him. He curses one's mother, the son of a bitch, always aching for
a fight. Ugh! No!" she suddenly exclaimed in a merry provoking voice,
"The one I love truly and surely, for ever and ever, is my Mannechka,
Manka the white, little Manka, my Manka-Scandalistochka."

And unexpectedly, having embraced Manya by the shoulders and bosom, she
drew her toward herself, threw her down on the bed, and began to kiss
deeply and vigorously her hair, eyes, lips. Manka with difficulty tore
herself away from her, with dishevelled, bright, fine, downy hair, all
rosy from the resistance, and with eyes downcast and moist from shame
and laughter.

"Leave off, Jennechka, leave off. Well, now, what are you doing? Let me
go!"

Little Manya is the meekest and quietest girl in the entire
establishment. She is kind, yielding, can never refuse anybody's
request, and involuntarily everybody treats her with great gentleness.
She blushes over every trifle, and at such time becomes especially
attractive, as only very tender blondes with a sensitive skin can be
attractive. But it is sufficient for her to drink three or four glasses
of Liqueur Benedictine, of which she is very fond, for her to become
unrecognizable and to create brawls, such, that there is always
required the intervention of the housekeepers, the porter, at times
even the police. It is nothing for her to hit a guest in the face or to
throw in his face a glass filled with wine, to overturn the lamp, to
curse out the proprietress, Jennie treats her with some strange, tender
patronage and rough adoration.

"Ladies, to dinner! To dinner, ladies!" calls Zociya the housekeeper,
running along the corridor. On the run she opens the door into Manya's
room and drops hurriedly:

"To dinner, to dinner, ladies!"

They go again to the kitchen, all still in their underwear, all
unwashed, in slippers and barefoot. A tasty vegetable soup of pork
rinds and tomatoes, cutlets, and pastry-cream rolls are served. But no
one has any appetite, thanks to the sedentary life and irregular sleep,
and also because the majority of the girls, just like school-girls on a
holiday, had already managed during the day to send to the store for
halvah