‘Right, now we’ll go to a shop. The one on the corner there that sells photographic supplies. I happen to need a frame, to go round this person here.’
He produced a mounted photograph of a young woman with large eyes, luxuriant hair and a magnificent bosom.
‘A real peach, eh?’
‘Yes, yes, absolutely. But all the same …’
‘It’s very simple. Let’s go.’
Makhin put his coat on and the two of them went out together.
III
The bell over the door to the photographic shop gave a tinkle. The schoolboys entered and looked round the empty shop with its shelves of photographic supplies and glass display cases on the counters. From the door at the back of the shop emerged a plain-looking woman with a kindly face who took up her position behind the counter and asked them what they required.
‘A nice little picture-frame, Madame.’
‘At what sort of price?’ asked the lady, swiftly and expertly running her mittened hands with their swollen finger joints over the various types of frames. ‘These are priced at fifty copecks, these are a little dearer. And this one here is very nice, a new style – it costs one rouble twenty.’
‘Very well, I’ll take that one. But couldn’t you knock it down a bit? I’ll give you a rouble for it.’
‘All the prices here are fixed,’ said the lady with dignity.
‘All right, as you wish,’ said Makhin, putting the coupon down on the top of the display case. ‘Please give me the frame and my change, and as quickly as you can, please. We don’t want to be late for the theatre.’
‘You have plenty of time yet,’ said the lady, and she began examining the coupon with her shortsighted eyes.
‘It’ll look charming in that frame, won’t it, eh?’ said Makhin, turning to Mitya.
‘Haven’t you got any other money?’ asked the saleslady.
‘That’s just the problem. I haven’t. My father gave it to me, and I need to get it changed.’
‘And do you really not have a rouble and twenty copecks on you?’
‘I do have fifty copecks. But what’s the matter, are you afraid we are going to swindle you with forged money?’
‘No, I didn’t say that.’
‘Well, let me have it back please. We’ll find somewhere else to change it.’
‘So how much do I have to give you?’
‘Let’s see now, it should come to eleven something.’
The saleslady flicked the beads on her abacus, unlocked the bureau which served as a till, took out a ten-rouble note, and rummaging among the small change assembled a further six twenty-copeck and two five-copeck pieces.
‘Would you kindly wrap it up for me please?’ said Makhin, unhurriedly taking the money.
‘Right away.’
The saleslady wrapped up the frame and tied the package with string.
Mitya only began to breathe easily once more when the entrance bell had tinkled behind them and they had emergd into the street.
‘Well now, here’s ten roubles for you, and let me take the rest. I’ll give it back.’
And Makhin went off to the theatre, leaving Mitya to go and see Grushetsky and settle up with him.
IV
An hour after the boys had left the shop the owner returned home and started to count the takings.
‘Oh, you stupid, muddling woman! What a fool you are!’ he shouted at his wife as soon as he saw the coupon and immediately spotted the forgery. ‘And why on earth have you been accepting coupons at all?’
‘But I’ve been there when you have accepted them yourself, Zhenya, and they were twelve-rouble coupons just like this one,’ said his wife, who was growing confused and angry and was on the point of bursting into tears. ‘I don’t know myself how they managed to take me in, those schoolboys. He was a handsome young man too, he really looked so
‘And you’re a simpleton
His wife could take no more of this, and she too lost her temper.
‘There’s a man for you! Always blaming other people – and when you go and lose fifty-four roubles at cards, that’s a mere nothing!’
‘I – that’s a different matter altogether.’
‘I’m not talking to you any longer,’ said his wife, and she went off to her room and began to recall how her family had been against her becoming the wife of this man who was socially so much her inferior, and how she had herself insisted on the marriage; she recalled her child who had died, and her husband’s indifference at this loss, and she felt such hatred of her husband that she thought how glad she would be if he were to die. But when she had thought that she became alarmed at her own feelings and hastened to get dressed and go out. When her husband got back to their apartment she had already left. Without waiting for him she had put on her coat and driven by herself to the house of a teacher of French, an acquaintance of theirs, who had invited them to a social gathering that evening.
V
