bátiushka and matushka, I am ready as a son to respect you, but I haven't got any cash, for you.' What a cute rascal, to be sure! It's pleasant to talk with such a man, especially, when finding out that Matrióna has got back you make an excuse to go to your bed-room for a clean handkercher, and peek into the kitchen, and find that she's bought more than twelve rubles' worth of wine. We'll only use a third of it at dinner; and a pirog [pie] which must have cost a ruble and a half. Nu! as far as the pirog goes, you might say 'twas money thrown away. Yet I reckon some o' that'll be left over. It'll be a good thing to treat my cronies with instead of jam. Oh no, it's no loss; it's a gain.")
XVI.
But Viérotchka was sitting in her room.
"Did I do well to make him come in? Mámenka looked so sharply! And what an awkard position I have put him in! How can he stay to dinner? Bozhe moï! what will become of poor me?
"He says there's one way. No, my love, there's no way at all. Yes, there is one way, the window; when it becomes absolutely unendurable, I will throw myself out. How foolish I am! When it becomes unendurable! How is it now? And when you throw yourself out of the window, how quick, quick you fly, not as though you were falling, but as though you really had wings; that must be very delightful. Only—afterwards you strike against the sidewalk—akh! how terribly it must hurt! No, I don't believe you'd have time to feel it; but—only it must be very hard. But it would be over in a twinkling; and then before you struck—how soft the air is—like a feather cushion—it takes you up so gently, so tenderly. No, it must be good. Yes, but what then! Everybody would be gazing; one's skull broken, face torn, in blood, in mud. No, if clean sand could only be scattered over the spot; but down there the sand is all filthy. No, if it were white and clean, it would be good; one's face would not be torn; it would be clean, and not disgust people. And in Paris young girls stifle themselves with coal gas; that's a good idea, a very good idea: but it is not good to jump out of the window. The other's a good way, though. How loud they are talking out there! What are they talking about? No, I can't catch what they are
