"Tell me, where were you born? Germany, in all probability?"

"No, gnadige Frau, I am from Riga."

"What compels you to serve here, then? Not poverty, I hope?"

"Of course not, gnadige Frau. But, you understand, my bridegroom, Hans, works as a kellner in a restaurant-automat, and we are too poor to be married now. I bring my savings to a bank, and he does the same. When we have saved the ten thousand roubles we need, we will open our own beer-hall, and, if G.o.d will bless us, then we shall allow ourselves the luxury of having children. Two children. A boy and a girl."

"But, listen to me, mein Fraulein!" Rovinskaya was amazed. "You are young, handsome, know two languages ..."

"Three, madam," proudly put in the German. "I know Esthonian as well. I finished the munic.i.p.al school and three cla.s.ses of high school."

"Well, then, you see, you see ..." Rovinskaya became heated. "With such an education you could always find a place with everything found, and about thirty roubles. Well, in the capacity of a housekeeper, bonne, senior clerk in a good store, a cashier, let's say ... And if your future bridegroom ... Fritz ..."

"Hans, madam ..."

"If Hans proved to be an industrious and thrifty man, then it would not be at all hard for you to get up on your feet altogether, after three or four years. What do you think?"

"Ah, madam, you are a little mistaken. You have overlooked that, in the very best of positions, I, even denying myself in everything, will not be able to put aside more than fifteen, twenty roubles a month; whereas here, with a prudent economy, I gain up to a hundred roubles and at once carry them away with a book into the savings bank. And besides that, just imagine, gnadige Frau, what a humiliating position to be the servant in a house! Always to depend on the caprice or the disposition of the spirits of the masters! And the master always pesters you with foolishness. Pfui! .. And the mistress is jealous, picks, and scolds."

"No ... I don't understand ..." meditatively drawled Rovinskaya, without looking the German in the eyes, but casting hers on the floor.

"I've heard a great deal of your life here, in these ... what do you call them? .. these houses. They say it is something horrible. That you're forced to love the most repulsive, old and hideous men, that you are plucked and exploited in the most cruel manner ..."

"Oh, never, madam ... Each one of us has an account book, wherein is written accurately the income and expense. During last month I earned a little more than five hundred roubles. As always, two-thirds went to the proprietress for board, quarters, fuel, light, linen ... There remains to me more than a hundred and fifty, it is not so? Fifty I spent on costumes and all sorts of trifles. A hundred I save. What exploitation is it, then, madam, I ask you? And if I do not like a man at all--true, there are some who are exceedingly nasty--I can always say I am sick, and instead of me will go one of the newest girls ..."

"But then ... pardon me, I do not know your name ..."

"Elsa."

"They say, that you're treated very roughly ... beaten at times ...

compelled to do that which you don't want to and which is repulsive to you?"

"Never, madam!" dropped Elsa haughtily. "We all live here as a friendly family of our own. We are all natives of the same land or relatives, and G.o.d grant that many should live so in their own families as we live here. True, on Yamskaya Street there happen various scandals and fights and misunderstandings. But that's there ... in these ... in the rouble establishments. The Russian girls drink a lot and always have one lover. And they do not think at all of their future."

"You are prudent, Elsa," said Rovinskaya in an oppressed tone. "All this is well. But, what of the chance disease? Infection? Why, that is death? And how can you guess?"

"And again--no, madam. I won't let a man into my bed before I make a detailed medical inspection of him ... I am guaranteed, at the least, against seventy-five per cent."

"The devil!" suddenly exclaimed Rovinskaya with heat and hit the table with her fist. "But, then, what of your Albert ..."

"Hans," the German corrected her meekly.

"Pardon me ... Your Hans surely does not rejoice greatly over the fact that you are living here, and that you betray him every day?"

Elsa looked at her with sincere, lively amazement.

"But gnadige Frau ... I have never yet betrayed him! It is other lost wenches, especially Russian, who have lovers for themselves, on whom they spend their hard-earned money. But that I should ever let myself go as far as that? Pfui!"

"A greater fall I have not imagined!" said Rovinskaya loudly and with aversion, getting up. "Pay gentlemen, and let's go on from here."

When they had gone out into the street, Volodya took her arm and said in an imploring voice:

"For G.o.d's sake, isn't one experiment enough for you?"

"Oh, what vulgarity! What vulgarity!"

"That's why I'm saying, let's drop this experiment."

"No, in any case I am going through with it to the finish. Show me something simpler, more of the medium."

Volodya Chaplinsky, who was all the time in a torment over Ellena Victorovna, offered the most likely thing--to drop into the establishment of Anna Markovna, which was only ten steps away.

But it was just here that strong impressions awaited them. Simeon did not want to let them in, and only several gold pieces, which Ryazanov gave him, softened him. They took up a cabinet, almost the same as at Treppel's, only somewhat shabbier and more faded. At the command of Emma Edwardovna, the girls were herded into the cabinet. 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. Rovinskaya no longer risked asking "How did you come to this life?" But it must be said, that the inmates of the house met her with an outward hospitality. Ellena Victorovna asked them to sing their usual canonical songs, and they willingly sang:

Monday now is come again, They're supposed to get me out; Doctor Kra.s.sov won't let me out, Well, the devil take him then.

And further:

Poor little, poor little, poor little me, The public house is closed, My head's aching me...

The love of a loafer Is spice, is spice; But the prost.i.tute Is as cold as ice.

Ha-ha-ha!

They came together Matched as well as might be, She is a prost.i.tute, A pickpocket he.

Ha-ha-ha!

Now morning has come, He is planning a theft; While she lies in her bed And laughs like she's daft.

Ha-ha-ha!

Comes morning, the laddie Is led to the pen; But for the prost.i.tute His pals await then.

Ha-ha-ha! ...

[12] While there can be but little doubt that these four stanzas are an actual transcript from life, Heinrich Heine's "Ein Weib" is such a striking parallel that it may be reproduced here as a matter of interest. The translation is by Mr. Louis Untermeyer.--Trans.

A WOMAN

They loved each other beyond belief-- She was a strumpet, he was a thief; Whenever she thought of his tricks, thereafter She'd throw herself on the bed with laughter.

The day was spent with a reckless zest; At night she lay upon his breast.

So when they took him, a while thereafter She watched at the window--with laughter.

He sent word pleading "Oh come to me, I need you, need you bitterly, Yes, here and in the hereafter."

Her little head shook with laughter.

At six in the morning they swung him high; At seven the turf on his grave was dry; At eight, however, she quaffed her Red wine and sang with laughter!

And still further a convict song: