The wash-up, the beauty of the gold and blue southern sky, and the
naive, partly submissive, partly displeased face of Liubka, as
well as the consciousness that after all he was a man, and that he
and not she had to answer for the porridge he had cooked--all this
together braced up his nerves and compelled him to take himself in
hand. He opened the door and roared into the darkness of the
stinking corridor:
"Al-lexa-andra! A samova-ar! Two lo-oaves, bu-utter, and sausage!
And a small bottle of vo-odka!"
The patter of slippers was heard in the corridor, and an aged
voice, even from afar, began to speak thickly:
"What are you bawling for? What are you bawling for, eh? Ho, ho,
ho! Like a stallion in a stall. You ain't little, to look at you;
you're grown up already, yet you carry on like a street boy! Well,
what do you want?"
Into the room walked a little old woman, with red-lidded eyes,
like little narrow cracks, and with a face amazingly like
parchment, upon which a long, sharp nose stuck downward, morosely
and ominously. This was Alexandra, the servant of old of the
student bird-houses; the friend and creditor of all the students;
a woman of sixty-five, argumentative, and a grumbler.
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