When she
laughed--which happened rarely and never lasted long--they were all
suddenly displayed, big and white as almonds. I remember her gait, too,
light, elastic, with a little skip at each step. It always seemed to me
that she was going down a flight of steps, even when she was walking on
level ground. She held herself erect with her arms folded tightly over
her bosom. And whatever she was doing, whatever she undertook, if she
were only threading a needle or ironing a petticoat--the effect was
always beautiful and somehow--you may not believe it--touching. Her
Christian name was Raissa, but we used to call her Black-lip: she had
on her upper lip a birthmark; a little dark-bluish spot, as though she
had been eating blackberries; but that did not spoil her: on the
contrary. She was just a year older than David. I cherished for her a
feeling akin to respect, but we were not great friends. But between
her and David a friendship had sprung up, a strange, unchildlike but
good friendship. They somehow suited each other. Sometimes they did not exchange a word for hours together, but both
felt that they were happy and happy because they were together. I had
never met a girl like her, really. There was something attentive and
resolute about her, something honest and mournful and charming. I
never heard her say anything very intelligent, but I never heard her
say anything commonplace, and I have never seen more intelligent eyes. After the rupture between her family and mine I saw her less
frequently: my father sternly forbade my visiting the Latkins, and she
did not appear in our house again. But I met her in the street, in
church and Black-lip always aroused in me the same feeling--respect
and even some wonder, rather than pity. She bore her misfortunes very
well indeed. "The girl is flint," even coarse-witted, Trankvillitatin
said about her once, but really she ought to have been pitied: her
face acquired a careworn, exhausted expression, her eyes were hollow
and sunken, a burden beyond her strength lay on her young shoulders. David saw her much oftener than I did; he used to go to their house. My father gave him up in despair: he knew that David would not obey
him, anyway. And from time to time Raissa would appear at the hurdle
fence of our garden which looked into a lane and there have an
interview with David; she did not come for the sake of conversation,
but told him of some new difficulty or trouble and asked his advice. The paralysis that had attacked Latkin was of a rather peculiar kind. His arms and legs had grown feeble, but he had not lost the use of
them, and his brain indeed worked perfectly; but his speech was
muddled and instead of one word he would pronounce another: one had to
guess what it was he wanted to say.... "Tchoo--tchoo--tchoo," he
would stammer with an effort--he began every sentence with
"Tchoo--tchoo--tchoo, some scissors, some scissors," ... and the word
scissors meant bread.... My father, he hated with all the strength left
him--he attributed all his misfortunes to my father's curse and called
him alternately the butcher and the diamond-merchant. "Tchoo, tchoo,
don't you dare to go to the butcher's, Vassilyevna." This was what he
called his daughter though his own name was Martinyan. Every day he
became more exacting; his needs increased.... And how were those needs
to be satisfied? Where could the money be found? Sorrow soon makes one
old: but it was horrible to hear some words on the lips of a girl of
seventeen. XIII

I remember I happened to be present at a
conversation with David over the fence, on the
very day of her mother's death. "Mother died this morning at daybreak," she
said, first looking round with her dark expressive eyes and then
fixing them on the ground. "Cook undertook to get a coffin cheap but she's not to be trusted; she
may spend the money on drink, even. You might come and look after her,
Davidushka, she's afraid of you." "I will come," answered David. "I will see to it. And how's your
father?" "He cries; he says: 'you must spoil me, too.' Spoil must mean bury. Now he has gone to sleep." Raissa suddenly gave a deep sigh. "Oh,
Davidushka, Davidushka!" She passed her half-clenched fist over her
forehead and her eyebrows, and the action was so bitter ... and as
sincere and beautiful as all her actions. "You must take care of yourself, though," David observed; "you haven't
slept at all, I expect.... And what's the use of crying? It doesn't
help trouble." "I have no time for crying," answered Raissa. "That's a luxury for the rich, crying," observed David. Raissa was going, but she turned back. "The yellow shawl's being sold, you know; part of mother's dowry. They
are giving us twelve roubles; I think that is not much." "It certainly is not much." "We shouldn't sell it," Raissa said after a brief pause, "but you see
we must have money for the funeral." "Of course you must. Only you mustn't spend money at random. Those
priests are awful! But I say, wait a minute. I'll come. Are you going? I'll be with you soon. Goodbye, darling." "Good-bye, Davidushka, darling." "Mind now, don't cry!" "As though I should cry! It's either cooking the dinner or crying. One
or the other." "What! does she cook the dinner?" I said to David, as soon as Raissa
was out of hearing, "does she do the cooking herself?" "Why, you heard that the cook has gone to buy a coffin." "She cooks the dinner," I thought, "and her hands are always so clean
and her clothes so neat.... I should like to see her there at work in
the kitchen.... She is an extraordinary girl!" I remember another conversation at the fence. That time Raissa brought
with her her little deaf and dumb sister. She was a pretty child with
immense, astonished-looking eyes and a perfect mass of dull, black
hair on her little, head (Raissa's hair, too, was black and hers, too,
was without lustre). Latkin had by then been struck down by paralysis. "I really don't know what to do," Raissa began. "The doctor has
written a prescription. We must go to the chemist's; and our peasant
(Latkin had still one serf) has brought us wood from the village and a
goose. And the porter has taken it away, 'you are in debt to me,' he
said." "Taken the goose?" asked David. "No, not the goose. He says it is an old one; it is no good for
anything; he says that is why our peasant brought it us, but he is
taking the wood." "But he has no right to," exclaimed David. "He has no right to, but he has taken it. I went up to the garret,
there we have got a very, very old trunk. I began rummaging in it and
what do you think I found? Look!" She took from under her kerchief a rather large field glass in a
copper setting, covered with morocco, yellow with age. David, as a
connoisseur of all sorts of instruments, seized upon it at once. "It's English," he pronounced, putting it first to one eye and then to
the other. "A marine glass." "And the glasses are perfect," Raissa went on.