Page:Dostoyevsky - The House of the Dead, Collected Edition, 1915.djvu/43

 “Why didn’t you turn up yesterday?” said the convict with a self-satisfied smile.

“Upon my word I did, but not a sign to be seen of you,” answered the lively woman.

"I was wanted, or you may be sure I’d have been there The day before yesterday all your lot came to see me."

“Who did?”

“Maryashka came, Havroshka came, Tchekunda came, Twopenny-halfpenny came.”

“What does it mean?” I asked Akim Akimitch. “Is it possible?”

“It does happen,” he answered, dropping his eyes discreetly, for he was an extremely chaste man.

It certainly did happen, but very rarely, and in spite of immense difficulties. On the whole, men were much more keen on drinking, for instance, than on that sort of thing, in spite of its being naturally difficult for them to live in the way they were forced to do. Women were difficult to get hold of. The time and place had to be found, arrangements had to be made, meetings had to be fixed, seclusion had to be sought, which was particularly difficult, the guards had to be won over, which was still more difficult, and altogether a sum of money—immense, relatively speaking—had to be spent. Yet I happened sometimes, later on, to be a witness of amatory scenes. I remember one day in the summer we were three of us in a shed on the bank of the Irtish, heating some sort of kiln; the guards were good-natured fellows. At last two “frillies,” as the convicts called them, made their appearance.

“Well, where have you been so long? I bet you’ve been at the Zvyerkovs,” was how they were greeted by the convict whom they had come to see and who had been expecting them a long time.

“I’ve been so long? Why, I haven’t been there longer than a magpie on a pole,” the girl answered gaily.

She was the dirtiest girl imaginable. She was the one called Tchekunda. With her came Twopenny-halfpenny. The latter was beyond all description.

“I’ve not seen you for a long time either,” the gallant went on, addressing Twopenny-halfpenny; “how is it you seem to be thinner?”

“Maybe. I used to be ever so fat, but now one would think I’d swallowed a needle.”