I looked from the stoop, on purpose; just as soon as he walked
out, he looked around, and right away into his mouth with the
caramel. The little swine!"

"But with old men it's still worse," says Little Manka in a tender
voice, and slyly looks at Zoe. "What do you think, Zoinka?"

Zoe, who had already finished playing, and was just about to yawn,
now cannot in any way give rein to her yawns. She does not know
whether she wants to be angry or to laugh. She has a steady
visitor, some little old man in a high station, with perverted
erotic habits. The entire establishment makes fun of his visits to
her.

Zoe at last succeeds in yawning.

"To the devil's dam with all of you," she says, with her voice
hoarse after the yawn; "may he be damned, the old anathema!"

"But still, the worst of all," Jennie continues to discourse,
"worse than your director, Zoinka, worse than my cadet, the worst
of all--are your lovers. What can there be joyous in this: he
comes drunk, poses, makes sport of you, wants to pretend there's
something in him--only nothing comes of it all. Wha-at a lad-die,
to be sure! The scummiest of the scum, dirty, beaten-up, stinking,
his whole body in scars, there's only one glory about him: the
silk shirt which Tamarka will embroider for him. He curses one's
mother, the son of a bitch, always aching for a fight. Ugh! No!"
she suddenly exclaimed in a merry provoking voice, "The one I love
truly and surely, for ever and ever, is my Mannechka, Manka the