four partitions, forming four tiny compartments. In the first, the
entrance slip, which had four bunks, there were two persons--an old
man and a woman. Immediately adjoining this, was a rather long slip
of a room; in it was the landlord, a young fellow, dressed in a
sleeveless gray woollen jacket, a good-looking, very pale citizen.
{8} On the left of the first corner, was a third tiny chamber; there
was one person asleep there, probably a drunken peasant, and a woman
in a pink blouse which was loose in front and close-fitting behind.
The fourth chamber was behind the partition; the entrance to it was
from the landlord's compartment.

The student went into the landlord's room, and I remained in the
entrance compartment, and questioned the old man and woman. The old
man had been a master-printer, but now had no means of livelihood.
The woman was the wife of a cook. I went to the third compartment,
and questioned the woman in the blouse about the sleeping man. She
said that he was a visitor. I asked the woman who she was. She
replied that she was a Moscow peasant. "What is your business?" She
burst into a laugh, and did not answer me. "What do you live on?" I
repeated, thinking that she had not understood my question. "I sit
in the taverns," she said. I did not comprehend, and again I
inquired: "What is your means of livelihood?" She made no reply and
laughed. Women's voices in the fourth compartment which we had not
yet entered, joined in the laugh. The landlord emerged from his
cabin and stepped up to us. He had evidently heard my questions and
the woman's replies. He cast a stern glance at the woman and turned
to me: "She is a prostitute," said he, apparently pleased that he
knew the word in use in the language of the authorities, and that he
could pronounce it correctly. And having said this, with a
respectful and barely perceptible smile of satisfaction addressed to