"From the landlady, indeed!"

She set before him her own cracked teapot full of weak and stale tea and
laid two yellow lumps of sugar by the side of it.

"Here, Nastasya, take it please," he said, fumbling in his pocket (for
he had slept in his clothes) and taking out a handful of coppers--"run
and buy me a loaf. And get me a little sausage, the cheapest, at the
pork-butcher's."

"The loaf I'll fetch you this very minute, but wouldn't you rather have
some cabbage soup instead of sausage? It's capital soup, yesterday's. I
saved it for you yesterday, but you came in late. It's fine soup."

When the soup had been brought, and he had begun upon it, Nastasya
sat down beside him on the sofa and began chatting. She was a country
peasant-woman and a very talkative one.

"Praskovya Pavlovna means to complain to the police about you," she
said.

He scowled.

"To the police? What does she want?"

"You don't pay her money and you won't turn out of the room. That's what
she wants, to be sure."

"The devil, that's the last straw," he muttered, grinding his teeth,