“But what’s that to you?” responded the convicts laughing.
“I beg to inform you, Alexandr Petrovitch, that I was very handsome and that the wenches were awfully fond of me . . .” Varlamov began suddenly, apropos of nothing.
“He’s lying! He’s lying again!” Bulkin broke in with a squeal. The convicts laughed.
“And didn’t I swell it among them! I’d a red shirt and velveteen breeches; I lay at my ease like that Count Bottle, that is, as drunk as a Swede; anything I liked in fact!”
“That’s a lie!” Bulkin protested stoutly.
“And in those days I had a stone house of two storeys that had been my father’s. In two years I got through the two storeys, I’d nothing but the gate left and no gate posts. Well, money is like pigeons that come and go.”
“That’s a lie,” Bulkin repeated more stoutly than ever.
“So the other day I sent my parents a tearful letter; I thought maybe they’d send me something. For I’ve been told I went against my parents. I was disrespectful to them! It’s seven years since I sent it to them.”
“And haven’t you had an answer?” I asked laughing.
“No, I haven’t,” he answered suddenly laughing too, bringing his nose nearer and nearer to my face. “And I’ve a sweetheart here, Alexandr Petrovitch . . .”
“Have you? A sweetheart?”
“Onufriev said the other day: ‘My girl may be pock-marked and plain, but look what a lot of clothes she’s got; and yours may be pretty, but she is a beggar and goes about with a sack on her back.’”
“And is it true?”
“It’s true she is a beggar!” he answered, and he went off into a noiseless laugh; there was laughter among the other convicts too. Every one knew indeed that he had picked up with a beggar girl and had only given her ten kopecks in the course of six months.
“Well, what of it?” I asked, wanting to get rid of him at last.
He paused, looked at me feelingly and pronounced tenderly:
“Why, things being so, won’t you be kind enough to stand me a glass? I’ve been drinking tea all day, Alexandr Petrovitch,” he added with feeling, accepting the money I gave him, “I’ve been swilling tea till I am short of breath, and it’s gurgling in my belly like water in a bottle.”
