United States or Belize ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Again Kerbesh came, again whispered for a long time with the proprietress in her little bit of a cabinet, and again crunched in his pocket a new hundred-rouble bill. The protocol was made in five minutes; and Jennka, just as half-naked as she had hung herself, was carted away in a hired wagon into an anatomical theatre, wrapped up in and covered with two straw mats.
It was precisely he with whom Jennka during the past winter had played either at maternal relations, or at dolls; and thrust upon him a little apple or a couple of bon-bons on his way, when he would be going away from the house of ill repute, squirming from shame.
But it was the same as letting a goat into a truck-garden or mixing soda and acid. The main mistake, however, was that they let Jennka in there as well wrathful, irritated, with impudent fires in her eyes. The modest, quiet Tamara was the last to walk in, with her shy and depraved smile of a Monna Lisa. In the end, almost the entire personnel of the establishment gathered in the cabinet.
"PFUI! What indecency is this! ..." the majestic Emma Edwardovna was saying in the corridor, making an indignant face. "And eternally this Jennka! ... Always this Jennka! ... It seems my patience has already burst ..." But Jennka was nowhere neither in her room, nor in Tamara's. They looked into other chambers, in all the out-of-the-way corners ... But she did not prove to be even there.
And the lips were then cold and dry, while the damp mist of the morning lay upon the hair. Silence seized Tamara; silence seized Manka the Scandaliste; and suddenly Jennka, the most untamable of all the girls, ran up to the artiste, fell down on her knees, and began to sob at her feet. And Rovinskaya, touched herself, put her arms around her head and said: "My sister, let me kiss you!"
"And here's the end!" said Tamara to her comrades, when they were left alone. "Oh, well, girls an hour earlier, an hour later! ... I'm sorry for Jennka! ... Horribly sorry! ... We won't ever find such another. And yet, my children, it's far better for her in her pit than for us in ours ... Well, let's cross ourselves for the last time and home! ..."
"Well, Jennie, say what your trouble is...I can already see by your face that there's trouble, or something distasteful in general...Go ahead and tell it!" Jennka for a long time plucked her handkerchief and looked at the tips of her slippers, as though, gathering her strength. Timorousness had taken possession of her the necessary and important words would not come into her mind, for anything.
But in the way in which he so carefully, with a certain force, seated her in her place could be seen a broad, good-natured endearment. "How do you do, Tamarochka! Haven't seen you in a long time I grew weary ... Do you want coffee?" "No! Business first ... To-morrow we bury Jennka ... She hanged herself..." "Yes, I read it in a newspaper," carelessly drawled out Senka through his teeth.
"That's enough, Jennie, stop it, darling!" in a tone of sincere suffering retorted Kolya. "I understand everything, everything, it's not necessary now ... Don't be finishing me off, then! ..." "I don't understand anything of what's happened," the frivolous Manka spread out her hands. "Maybe you'll treat a poor little girl to something?" "Well, go on, go on!" Jennka sent her away gently.
Jennka was reserved, sad, and apparently troubled over something. Platonov at once understood and sensed this. "You excuse me, Jennechka, I must have dinner right away," said he, "so, perhaps, you'll go together with me and tell me what's the matter, while I'll manage to eat at the same time. There's a modest little inn not far from here.
Word Of The Day