lt that if I kept silence any longer I was
really bound to weep... And it would have been shameful to have done
this before a woman, especially as she was not weeping herself. I
resolved to speak to her.

"Who was it that knocked you about?" I asked. For the moment I could
not think of anything more sensible or more delicate.

"Pashka did it all," she answered in a dull and level tone.

"And who is he?"

"My lover... He was a baker."

"Did he beat you often?"

"Whenever he was drunk he beat me... Often!"

And suddenly, turning towards me, she began to talk about herself,
Pashka, and their mutual relations. He was a baker with red moustaches
and played very well on the banjo. He came to see her and greatly
pleased her, for he was a merry chap and wore nice clean clothes. He
had a vest which cost fifteen rubles and boots with dress tops. For
these reasons she had fallen in love with him, and he became her
"creditor." And when he became her creditor he made it his business to
take away from her the money which her other friends gave to her for
bonbons, and, getting drunk on this money, he would fall to beating
her; but that would have been nothing if he hadn't also begun to "run
after" other girls before her very eyes.

"Now, wasn't that an insult? I am not worse than the others. Of course
that meant that he was laughing at me, the blackguard. The day before
yesterday I asked leave of my mistress to go out for a bit, went to
him, and there I found Dimka sitting beside him drunk. And he, too,
was half seas over. I said, 'You scoundrel, you!' And he gave me a
thorough hiding. He kicked me and dragged me by the hair. But that was
nothing to what came after. He spoiled everything I had on--left me
just as I am now! How could I appear before my mistress? He spoiled
everything ... my dress and my jacket too--it was quite a new one; I
gave a fiver for it ... and tore my kerchief from my head... Oh, Lord!
What will become of me now?" she suddenly whined in a lamentable
overstrained voice.

The wind howled, and became ever colder and more boisterous... Again
my teeth began to dance up and down, and she, huddled up to avoid the
cold, pressed as closely to me as she could, so that I could see the
gleam of her eyes through the darkness.

"What wretches all you men are! I'd burn you all in an oven; I'd cut
you in pieces. If any one of you was dying I'd spit in his mouth, and
not pity him a bit. Mean skunks! You wheedle and