Page:The Bet and Other Stories.djvu/222

210 hat or a modish jacket. She walked along the street spitting blood and each red spittle told her about her life, a bad, hard life; about the insults she had suffered and had still to suffer—to-morrow, a week, a year hence—her whole life, till death. ..

"Oh, how terrible it is!" she whispered. "My God, how terrible!"

But the next day she was at the Renaissance and she danced there. She wore a new, immense red hat, a new jacket à la mode and a pair of brown shoes. She was treated to supper by a young merchant from Kazan.