ook of which she never turned a page, or
when she shuddered and turned pale at Polya's crossing the room, I
suffered with her, and the idea occurred to me to lance this festering
wound as quickly as possible by letting her know what was said here
at supper on Thursdays; but--how was it to be done? More and more
often I saw her tears. For the first weeks she laughed and sang to
herself, even when Orlov was not at home, but by the second month
there was a mournful stillness in our flat broken only on Thursday
evenings.

She flattered Orlov, and to wring from him a counterfeit smile or
kiss, was ready to go on her knees to him, to fawn on him like a
dog. Even when her heart was heaviest, she could not resist glancing
into a looking-glass if she passed one and straightening her hair.
It seemed strange to me that she could still take an interest in
clothes and go into ecstasies over her purchases. It did not seem
in keeping with her genuine grief. She paid attention to the fashions
and ordered expensive dresses. What for? On whose account? I
particularly remember one dress which cost four hundred roubles.
To give four hundred roubles for an unnecessary, useless dress while
women for their hard day's work get only twenty kopecks a day without
food, and the makers of Venice and Brussels lace are only paid half
a franc a day on the supposition that they can earn the rest by
immorality! And it seemed strange to me that Zinaida Fyodorovna was
not conscious of it; it vexed me. But she had only to go out of the
house for me to find excuses and explanations for everything, and
to be waiting eagerly for the hall porter to ring for me.

She treated me as a flunkey, a being of a lower order. One may pat
a dog, and yet not notice it; I was given orders and asked questions,
but my presence was not observed. My master and mistress thought
it unseemly to say more to me than is usually said to servants; if
when waiting at dinner I had laughed or put in my word in the
conversation, they would certainly have thought I was mad and have
dismissed me. Zinaida Fyodorovna was favourably disposed to me, all
the same. When she was sending me on some errand or explaining to
me the working of a new lamp or anything of that sort, her face was
extraordinarily kind, frank, and cordial, and her eyes looked me
straight in the face. At such moments I always fancied she remembered
with gratitude how I used to bring her letters to Znamensky Street.
When sh