“He examined my chest. ‘No,’ says he, ‘you must not drink at all; you have very weak lungs.’ ‘How can we help drinking?’ I asked. ‘We cannot get along without it.’ And it is really impossible, Viéra Pavlovna. ‘Then you must give up the life that you are leading.’ ‘Why should I give it up? It’s such a gay life.’ ‘No,’ says he, ‘there’s very little gayety in it. Nu!’ says he, ‘I am very busy now, and you had better leave me.’ And I left him, feeling very angry because I had wasted my evening; and I felt very much offended because he was such a passionless fellow, because we have our ambition in such matters, you know.
“And then in a month it occurred to me to go to the same place again. ‘Come on,’ says I, ‘I’ll go and see that stick again; I’ll see if I can’t wake him up.’ This was just before dinner. I had gone to bed the previous night, and I had not been drinking; he was sitting with a book. ‘Hullo, old stick,’ says I. ‘How do you do? What do you want?’ Then I began again to do ridiculous things. ‘I shall put you out,’ he says; ‘stop, I told you that I did not like it. You are not drunk now, and you can understand; and you had better heed what I say; your face shows that you are sicker than you were before; you must give up wine; just fix your dress and we will have a little talk.’ Well, the fact was that my chest had already begun to pain me; he examined me again; he said that my lungs were in a worse state than before; he had a great deal to say; yes, and my chest did pain me, and so I began to get sentimental, and I burst into tears. I did not want to die, and he was all the time threatening me with consumption. And I say, ‘How can I give up my mode of life? My khozyáïka will not let me go. I owe her seventeen silver rubles.’ We were always kept in debt, you know, so that we could not have any voice in the matter. ‘Nu!’ says he, ‘I have no seventeen silver rubles with me, but you come and see me day after tomorrow.’ That seemed so strange, because I did not mean to give him any hint; and how could I have expected it? I did not believe my ears, and I wept still more violently, for I thought he was making fun of me. ‘It is a sin and a shame to insult a poor girl when you see that she is weeping’; and I did not believe him for a long time, until at last I saw that he was in earnest. And what do you think? he raised the money, and gave it to me two days later; and even then I somehow did not believe it. ‘How is it you do this when you do not want to take any favors from me?’ I said. I paid off my khozyáïka, and rented a separate room; but I had nothing to do, and I had no money. And so I went on living as before, that is, not exactly as before; what an improvement it was, Viéra Pavlovna! I used to receive only my acquaintances, my good friends, those who did not offend me. And I had no wine either. And therefore what an improvement. And do you know how easy it was for me in comparison with what it had been before? no; after all, it was hard; and I want to tell you this. You know me; am I not a modest girl? Who ever hears anything bad of me now? And here in the shop how much care I take of the children! and they all love me; and those old women cannot say that I am teaching them anything bad. And so I lived in this way. Three months or so went by, and during this time I took good care of myself, because my life was peaceful; and though I was ashamed on account of the money, I did not look upon myself as a bad girl. Only at that time Sáshenka used to come to see me, and sometimes I used to go and see him. And now I am coming to speak of the subject that I wanted to tell you about. He did not come to see me as the others did, but he looked after me to see that I did not return to my former weakness, or get to drinking wine. And really the first days he helped me because I had a strong inclination for wine. And I was ashamed on his account; supposing he should come in and see that I was drinking! And possibly if it had not been for that, I should not have resisted, because my friends, very good young fellows, used to say, ‘I am going to send out for wine’; but as I was ashamed on his account, I used to say, ‘No, it must not be.’ But otherwise I should have been tempted; the mere thought that wine was
