observed Nezhdanov. 'You know the saying. "If you choose to be a mushroom, you must go in the basket with the rest."'
'I know . . . I know; but the baskets nowadays are so narrow and hard to creep out of!'
'Have you any children?' Marianna asked, to change the conversation.
'Yes; a son. He begins to go to school. I had a little girl too; but she's no more, poor darling! She met with an accident; fell under a wheel. And if only it had killed her at once! But no, she lingered in suffering a long while. Since then I've grown tender-hearted; before then I was as hard as a tree!'
'Why, what of your man Pavel Yegoritch? didn't you love him?'
'Eh! that was a different matter; the feeling of a girl. And how about you, now—do you love your man?'
'Yes.'
'Very much?'
'Yes.'
'Yes?. . .' Tatyana looked at Nezhdanov, then at Marianna, and said no more.
It was again Marianna's lot to change the conversation. She told Tatyana she had given up smoking; the latter approved of her resolution. Then Marianna asked her again about
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