The other one is called Zociya. She has just struggled out of the
ranks of the common girls. The girls, as yet, call her
impersonally, flatteringly and familiarly, "little housekeeper."
She is spare, spry, just a trifle squinting, with a rosy
complexion, and hair dressed in a little curly pompadour; she
adores actors--preferably stout comedians. Toward Emma Edwardovna
she is ingratiating.

The fifth person, finally, is the local district inspector,
Kerbesh. This is an athletic man; he is kind of bald, has a red
beard like a fan, vividly blue slumbrous eyes, and a thin,
slightly hoarse, pleasant voice. Everybody knows that he formerly
served in the secret service division and was the terror of
crooks, thanks to his terrible physical strength and cruelty in
interrogations.

He has several shady transactions on his conscience. The whole
town knows that two years back he married a rich old woman of
seventy, and that last year he strangled her; however, he was
somehow successful in hushing up this affair. But for that matter,
the remaining four have also seen a thing or two in their
chequered life. But, just as the bretteurs of old felt no twinges
of conscience at the recollection of their victims, even so do
these people regard the dark and bloody things in their past, as
the unavoidable little unpleasantness of their professions.

They are drinking coffee with rich, boiled cream--the inspector
with Benedictine. But he, strictly speaking, is not drinking, but
merely conveying the impression that he is doing it to oblige.