both housekeepers, and even the doorkeeper, that veritable sultan
of the house of ill-fame, that general terror and hero.

"I've covered it," says Zoe and turns over the trump which had
been lying under the pack, wrong side up. "I'm going with forty,
going with an ace of spades--a ten-spot, Mannechka, if you please.
I'm through. Fifty-seven, eleven, sixty-eight. How much have you?"

"Thirty," says Manka in an offended tone, pouting her lips; "oh,
it's all very well for you--you remember all the plays. Deal ...
Well, what's after that, Tamarochka?" she turns to her friend.
"You talk on--I'm listening."

Zoe shuffles the old, black, greasy cards, allows Manya to cut,
then deals, having first spat upon her fingers.

Tamara in the meanwhile is narrating to Manya in a quiet voice,
without dropping her sewing.

"We embroidered with gold, in flat embroidery--altar covers,
palls, bishops' vestments... With little grasses, with flowers,
little crosses. In winter, you'd be sitting near a casement; the
panes are small, with gratings, there isn't much light, it smells
of lamp oil, incense, cypress; you mustn't talk--the mother
superior was strict. Some one from weariness would begin droning a
pre-Lenten first verse of a hymn ... 'When I consider thy heavens
...' We sang fine, beautifully, and it was such a quiet life, and
the smell was so fine; you could see the flaky snow out the
windows--well, now, just like in a dream..."