You hear,
Tamara, I apologize before you. I've often laughed over your being
in love with your thief Senka. But here, now, I'll say that of all
the men the most decent is a thief or a murderer. He doesn't hide
the fact that he loves a girlie, and, if need be, will commit a
crime for her--a theft or a murder. But these--the rest of them!
All lying, falsehood, petty cunning, depravity on the sly. The
nasty beast has three families, a wife and five children. A
governess and two children abroad. The eldest daughter from the
first marriage, and a child by her. And this everybody, everybody
in town knows, save his little children. And even they, perhaps,
guess it and whisper among themselves. And, just imagine, he's a
respected person, honoured by the whole world ... My children, it
seems we've never had occasion to enter into confidences with each
other, and yet I'll tell you, that I when I was ten and a half,
was sold by my own mother in the city of Zhitomir to Doctor
Tarabukin. I kissed his hands, implored him to spare me, I cried
out to him: 'I'm little!' But he'd answer me: 'That's nothing,
that's nothing: you'll grow up.
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