"Varvara darling, news gets about quickly. It was suspicious at once: all the other boys are like boys, but this one is so quiet and walks about as if he had just been dipped in the water. To look at he's a fine-looking fellow, red-cheeked and chesty, but his companions notice that he's very modest--they tell him a word and he blushes at once. They tease him for being a girl. They do it for a lark and don't realise that it's the truth. And just think how shrewd they've been--why, even the landlady doesn't know anything." "How did you find out?" repeated Varvara. "But, Varvara darling, what is there that I don't know! I know everyone in the district. Why everyone knows that they have a boy at home the same age as this one. Why didn't they send them to school together? They say that he was ill last summer and that he was to spend a year recuperating and then go back to school. But that's all nonsense. The real schoolboy is at home. And then everyone knows that they had a girl and they say that she was married and went off to the Caucasus. But that's another lie--she didn't go away. She's living here disguised as a boy." "But what's the object of it?" asked Varvara. "What do you mean, 'What's the object?'" said Grushina animatedly. "To get hold of one of the instructors--there are plenty of them bachelors. Or perhaps someone else. Disguised as a boy, she could go to men's apartments, and there isn't much she couldn't do." "You say she's a pretty girl?" said Varvara in apprehensive tones. "Rather! She's a fabulous beauty!" said Grushina. "She may be a little constrained now, but just wait, she'll get used to things and show her true colours. She'll turn plenty of heads in the town. And just think how shrewd they've been: as soon as I found out about this I tried to meet his landlady, or perhaps I should say her landlady." "It's a topsy-turvy affair. Pah! God help us!" said Varvara. "I went to Vespers at the parish church on St. Pantelemon's day. She's very pious. 'Olga Vassilyevna,' I say to her, 'why do you keep only one student in your house now?' 'It seems to me,' I say to her, 'that one is not enough for you.' And she says, 'Why should I have any more? They're a great trouble.' And so I say, 'Why, in past years you used to have two or three.' And then she says--just imagine, Varvara darling--'They stipulated that Sashenka alone should live in my house. They are well-to-do people,' she says to me, 'and they pay me a little more, as if they were afraid that the other boys would do him harm.' Now what do you think of that?" "Aren't they sly blighters," said Varvara indignantly. "Well, did you tell her that he was a wench?" "I said to her: 'Olga Vassilyevna, are you sure they haven't foisted a girl upon you instead of a boy?'" "Well, and what did she say?"