Indeed it is high time. My poor nerves will not stand many
more such scenes as last night, and as for my poor husband, I believe he
has lost as much money through the Count and his friends as he has paid to
him for work, and if you turn that into figures it makes the cigarettes he
rolls worth six marks a thousand instead of three, which is more than any
pocket can stand, while there are children to be fed at home. And if you
have anything to say to that, little husband, why just say it!"
Fischelowitz had entered the shop and the last words were addressed to
him.
"Oh, nothing, nothing," he answered, beginning to bustle cheerily about
the place, setting a box straight here, removing an empty one there,
opening the till and counting the small change, and, generally, doing all
those things which he was accustomed to do when he appeared in the
morning.
Poor Vjera looked paler and more waxen than ever in her life before, so
pale indeed was she that the total absence of colour lent a sort of
refinement to her plain features, not often found even in really beautiful
faces. She had suffered intensely and was suffering still. From the first
words that Akulina had spoken she had understood that the Count had been
in the station-house all night, and she found herself reviewing all the
hideous visions of his cruel treatment which she had conjured up since the
previous evening. Akulina of course hastened to say that Fischelowitz had
lost no time in having the poor man set at liberty, and this at least was
a relief to Vjera's great anxiety.
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