And she rushed out of the room. The words had struck home to the blonde and, as she wiped her own love nest dry after the wet attack, she looked her figure over in the mirror with a scrutinizing vanity.
However, Madame Laura rushed in, went straight to the pillow and got the money. “Aha!” thought Grushenka, “Madame is watching also, probably from the other side of the booth.” Madame was not very satisfied with the amount she found. “You really are getting lazier every day,” she turned on the girl. “You have a new boy friend.
Haven't you? And he probably pokes hell out of you. At least you could pretend better than you do. What will happen to your father and yourself if I stop paying him? You won't have a crumb of bread to eat.
But maybe that will do you good, because you're getting fatter every day. Hurry up now and put on some black underwear and the white evening gown with the low neck. There are some customers in booth four. Go on now!” There was nothing more to see in the other booth. Grushenka lay down again on her couch. The time passed. She dozed off until somebody unlocked her door and called her out. It was Marta, come to bring her back to Madame Laura's private room. Madame Laura now had a changed face. She was beaming and full of cordiality.
“My dear girl,” she smiled, “I have given your case a thorough consideration and I agree that you were right to run away from Madame Sophia's service. I am going to help you, and I have a great surprise in store for you. You dress and go home for tonight with your dear friend Marta. Be here tomorrow at noon sharp, and leave it to me. I'll see to it that you'll have a happy future. While I cannot allow myself to harbor a run-away, I'll have a magnificent place for you by tomorrow where you will live like a queen. Quite what you can expect, beautiful as you are…” And so on. Madame Laura even inquired whether they would have something really good to eat tonight or whether she should provide something. And, after the girls assured her they had all they needed, she presented Grushenka with a broad embroidered ribbon, fitting very well with the peasant dress she wore.
The girls curtsied and left the house. Outside, Grushenka related what she had seen, but it was no news to Marta, who had heard of these things but who could not really understand their meaning because she was completely a virgin. But Grushenka lay sleepless and thinking for a long while that night. She mistrusted Madame Laura and would never go back to her. She would have to leave Marta also, without telling her where she was going. Madame Laura would probably hunt for her or send word to the police or to Sophia. Therefore Grushenka would have to drop out of sight. She did not know that Madame Laura had received an answer to her billet-doux from an old gentleman, who had written that he would be pleased to buy such a beauty from Madame Laura but could not come before the next day at noon. He would be disappointed the next day at the noon hour, and Marta would state as her explanation that Grushenka had disappeared, that she must have been picked up by the police. Madame Laura finally joined her in this belief. At least she was satisfied that Marta did not know Grushenka's whereabouts. She was very sore about it, because she would have been able to get a good price for the sale of the girl. However, she did not want to investigate too much, because it was better not to mix into the affairs of a slave girl who had run away.
CHAPTER TEN
Grushenka stretched herself in Marta's four-poster bed. Marta had kissed her goodbye and left for work, admonishing her to be at Madame Laura's at noon. Grushenka slept and day-dreamed. She got up lazily and put on her peasant dress, leaving her fine travelling dress in Marta's closet. She put all her money except one ruble on the mantelpiece, said a word of goodbye to her absent girl friend and left the house with slow steps. She did not want to think of the future. She walked leisurely to the border of the city, went through the gate where some Cossacks loitered and found her way. down to the Volga. She sat down on the bank of the river, let her eyes go over the wide plain and observed without much attention the peasants harvesting the fields. The waters of the wide river flowed in an easy rhythm. Far away some boys and girls were swimming.
Grushenka dreamed as only a Russian peasant can dream, a thoughtless and wordless dream, uniting herself with the soil, becoming a part of it, losing the sense of place or time. When the sun dropped lower on the horizon, she got up and slowly returned to the city. She stopped in a public house where she ate a bowl of soup and some bread and cheese. The few customers and the innkeeper hardly noticed this peasant girl with her lovely face hidden beneath a kerchief. Back again on the street, she pulled herself up with an energetic nod of her head and walked with quick steps to Ladislaus Brenna's bathhouse. She had never been inside that place, but she knew all about it. Ladislaus Brenna ran a famous bathing establishment for middle-class people, and Grushenka had made up her mind to become a bath attendant. She would have liked to get such a job at one of the new and elegant bathhouses patronized by the fashionable world but she did not dare to do so, for she might be found out. No one 'would look for her at Brenna's. After she had opened the door, she stood immediately in a big bath hall for men. The hall took up the whole ground floor of the building. On a white, wooden floor stood forty to fifty wooden bathtubs in irregular arrangement. In these tubs the bathers sat on a little bench, the water coming up to his neck. A few customers were bathing; others were reading, writing on little boards put over the tubs, playing board games with each other or just chatting. Mr. Brenna sat on the opposite side of the room behind an elevated bar which was covered with all kinds of refreshments and drinks. Grushenka lost no time but went right over to him while the eyes of all the bathers and attendants followed her. She stated without shyness that she wanted to become one of his bath girls.
Brenna looked sharply at her and told her to wait He was a whale of a fellow, about forty-five years old. His hairy chest, open to view, and his wild black beard exaggerated his tousled appearance.
Grushenka sat down on a wooden bench and looked around with curiosity. She had often heard Brenna's place discussed. It was supposed to be full of fun for its visitors, men and women alike, but most housewives disapproved violently when they heard that their husbands or grown-up sons frequented it. Grushenka's attention first was directed towards the bath attendants, about ten girls, some sitting on a bench near the big open fireplace, others moving about the big room pursuing their duties. All the girls were nude except for wooden slippers and here and there a short apron or towel around the hips. Any land of clothes would have been annoying in this air heavy with steam and dampness. The girls were all husky and rather good looking and seemed in good spirits and satisfied. They carried buckets of hot water to the occupied bathtubs, pouring the water in to keep the temperature even. They brought beer or tea or other refreshments to the men, laughed and joked with them and did not seem to mind when the men felt their breasts or in between their legs. When one of the customers wanted to get out of his tub, they opened up the linen top, placed a foot stool and helped the man out. Then they followed him into one of the many cabinets which lined the walls. The cabinets had doors which closed behind the pairs, and, while Grushenka could not see, she could well imagine what happened inside them. The last customer having left, the girls began to clean up while Brenna admonished them to take their time and do a thorough job. He had a gruff voice but underneath one could feel that he was a good sort. At last he turned to Grushenka and ordered her to follow him. They went upstairs, passing the women's bath hall on the second floor and passing the third floor where Brenna lived with his family. When they reached the attic, Brenna pushed open a door leading into an unoccupied room furnished with a large wooden bed, a washstand and two chairs. “Well,” he said, “I will look you over to see whether you are strong enough to carry the water and to give a massage. I could use a bitch like you, but you seem too weak. Show me what you've got.”