With an entreating glance which
he obeyed, Vjera made Schmidt wait outside.
"Please do not look!" she whispered. "I can bear it better alone." The
good fellow nodded and began to walk up and down.
As Vjera entered the shop, the chief barber in command waltzed forward, as
hairdressers always seem to waltz. At the sight of the poor girl, however,
he assumed a stern appearance which, to tell the truth, was out of
character with his style of beauty. His rich brown locks were curled and
anointed in a way that might have aroused envy in the heart of an Assyrian
dandy in the palmy days of Sardanapalus.
"Do you buy hair?" asked Vjera, timidly offering her limp parcel.
"Oh, certainly, sometimes," answered the barber. The youth in
attendance--the barber tadpole of the hairdresser frog--abandoned the
cleansing of a comb and came forward with a leer, in the hope that Vjera
might turn out to be pretty on a closer inspection. In this he was
disappointed.
The man took the parcel and laid it on one of the narrow marble tables
placed before a mirror in a richly gilt frame. He pushed aside the blue
glass powder-box, the vial of brilliantine and the brushes. Vjera untied
the bit of faded ribband herself and opened the package. The contents
exhaled a faint, sickly odour.
A tress of beautiful hair, of unusual length and thickness, lay in the
paper. The colour was that which is now so much sought after, and which
great ladies endeavour to produce upon their own hair, when they have any,
by washing it with extra-dry champagne, while little ladies imitate them
with a humble solution of soda.
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