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Anyuta put down her sewing, took off her blouse, and straightened herself up. Klotchkov sat down facing her, frowned, and began counting her ribs. "H'm! . . . One can't feel the first rib; it's behind the shoulder-blade . . . . This must be the second rib. . . . Yes . . . this is the third . . . this is the fourth. . . . H'm! . . . yes. . . . Why are you wriggling?" "Your fingers are cold!"
Anyuta shivered, and was afraid the student, noticing it, would leave off drawing and sounding her, and then, perhaps, might fail in his exam. "Now it's all clear," said Klotchkov when he had finished. "You sit like that and don't rub off the crayon, and meanwhile I'll learn up a little more." And the student again began walking to and fro, repeating to himself.
"Can I come in?" asked a voice at the door. Anyuta quickly threw a woollen shawl over her shoulders. Fetisov, the artist, walked in. "I have come to ask you a favour," he began, addressing Klotchkov, and glaring like a wild beast from under the long locks that hung over his brow. "Do me a favour; lend me your young lady just for a couple of hours!
There was a fine future before him, no doubt, and Klotchkov probably would become a great man, but the present was anything but bright; Klotchkov had no tobacco and no tea, and there were only four lumps of sugar left. She must make haste and finish her embroidery, take it to the woman who had ordered it, and with the quarter rouble she would get for it, buy tea and tobacco.
"The right lung consists of three parts . . ." Klotchkov repeated. "Boundaries! Upper part on anterior wall of thorax reaches the fourth or fifth rib, on the lateral surface, the fourth rib . . . behind to the spina scapulæ. . ." Klotchkov raised his eyes to the ceiling, striving to visualise what he had just read.
Klotchkov took his crayon and drew on Anyuta's chest several parallel lines corresponding with the ribs. "First-rate. That's all straightforward. . . . Well, now I can sound you. Stand up!" Anyuta stood up and raised her chin. Klotchkov began sounding her, and was so absorbed in this occupation that he did not notice how Anyuta's lips, nose, and fingers turned blue with cold.
I'm painting a picture, you see, and I can't get on without a model." "Oh, with pleasure," Klotchkov agreed. "Go along, Anyuta." "The things I've had to put up with there," Anyuta murmured softly. "Rubbish! The man's asking you for the sake of art, and not for any sort of nonsense. Why not help him if you can?" Anyuta began dressing. "And what are you painting?" asked Klotchkov.
"H'm! . . . Excuse me, Klotchkov, but you do live like a pig! It's awful the way you live!" "How do you mean? I can't help it. . . . I only get twelve roubles a month from my father, and it's hard to live decently on that." "Yes . . . yes . . ." said the artist, frowning with an air of disgust; "but, still, you might live better. . . . An educated man is in duty bound to have taste, isn't he?
Now they had all finished their studies, had gone out into the world, and, of course, like respectable people, had long ago forgotten her. One of them was living in Paris, two were doctors, the fourth was an artist, and the fifth was said to be already a professor. Klotchkov was the sixth. . . . Soon he, too, would finish his studies and go out into the world.
Anyuta put on her coat again, in silence wrapped up her embroidery in paper, gathered together her needles and thread: she found the screw of paper with the four lumps of sugar in the window, and laid it on the table by the books. "That's . . . your sugar . . ." she said softly, and turned away to conceal her tears. "Why are you crying?" asked Klotchkov.