He grew silent again, and lay for a long time with closed eyes.

“Yes…we’ll go away from here…and start over again.”

“Where will we go?” asked Aksinya.

“Some place.…I’ll sue the trolley company for my injury.…They’ve got to pay, it’s the law. Besides, I have money of my own, about six hundred rubles.”

“How much?” asked Aksinya.

“About six hundred rubles.”

“You don’t say!” said the girl, and yawned.

“Yes…with that money alone you can open a house of your own…and if I make the company cough up some money too…We’ll go to Simbirsk, or Samara…and there we’ll open a place.…It will be the best house in the city.…We’ll get the best girls.…We’ll charge five rubles admission.”

“How you talk!” Aksinya smiled “Why not? That’s how it will be.…”

“Really!…”

“That’s how it will be…if you like, we’ll get married.”

“Wha-at?!” Aksinya exclaimed, blinking stupidly.

“We’ll get married,” Vaska repeated, with some agitation.

“You and I?”

“Why, yes.”

Aksinya laughed aloud. Swinging back and forth on her chair, she held her sides, now uttering a thick low laugh, now squeaking, which sounded quite unnatural from her.

“What’s the matter with you?” asked Vaska, and again the hungry look came into his eyes. She kept on guffawing. “What’s the matter?” he repeated.

Finally, somehow, through her squeaks and her laughter, she managed to say:

“It’s about the wedding. Is that for the likes of us? I haven’t been inside a church for three years, maybe more. What a funny fellow you are! Me, your wife.…Do you expect me to give you children too? Ha! ha! ha!”

The idea of children threw her into a fresh spasm of hearty laughter. Vaska looked at her in silence.

“And do you think I’ll go anywhere with you? What an idea! You’ll take me somewhere and do me in. Everybody knows how you torture people.”

“Oh, keep still,” said Vaska softly.

But she kept on talking to him about his cruelty, recalling various incidents.

“Keep still,” he begged her. And when she did not obey him, he shouted hoarsely: “Keep still, I say!”