And at last into the drawing room walked Emma Edwardovna herself. She was more majestic than she had ever been—clad in a black silk gown, from which, just like battlements, her enormous breasts jutted out, upon which descended two fat chins; in black silk mittens; with an enormous gold chain wound thrice around her neck, and terminating in a ponderous medallion hanging upon the very abdomen. “Ladies! ...” she began impressively, “I must ... Stand up!” she suddenly called out commandingly. “When I speak, you must hear me out standing.” They all exchanged glances with perplexity: such an order was a novelty in the establishment. However, the girls got up one after another, irresolutely, with eyes and mouths gasping. “Sie sollen ... you must from this day show me that respect which you are bound to show to your mistress,” importantly and weightily began Emma Edwardovna. “Beginning from to-day, the establishment in a legal manner has passed from our good and respected Anna Markovna to me, Emma Edwardovna Titzner. I hope that we will not quarrel, and that you will behave yourselves like sensible, obedient, and well-brought-up girls. I will be to you like in place of your own mother, but only remember, that I will not stand for laziness, or drunkenness, or notions of any sort; or any kind of disorder. The kind Madam Shaibes, it must be said, held you in too loose reins. O—o, I will be far more strict. Discipline uber alles ... before everything. It’s a great pity, that the Russian people are lazy, dirty and stoopid, do not understand this rule; but don’t you trouble yourself, I will teach you this for your own good. I say ‘for your own good,’ because my main thought is to kill the competition of Treppel. I want that my client should be a man of substance, and not some charlatan and ragamuffin, some kind of student, now, or ham actor. I want that my ladies should be the most beautiful, best brought-up, the healthiest and gayest in the whole city. I won’t spare any money in order to set up swell furnishings; and you will have rooms with silk furniture and with genuine, beautiful rugs. Your guests will no longer be demanding beer, but only genteel Bordeaux and Burgundy wines and champagne. Remember, that a rich, substantial, elderly man never likes your common, ordinary, coarse love. He requires Cayenne pepper; he requires not a trade, but an art, and you will soon acquire this. At Treppel’s they take three roubles for a visit and ten roubles for a night ... I will establish it so, that you will receive five roubles for a visit and twenty-five for a night. They will present you with gold and diamonds. I will contrive it so, that you won’t have to pass on into establishments of a lower sort, und so weiter ... right down to the soldiers’ filthy den. No! Deposits will be put away and saved with me for each one of you every month; and will be put away in your name in a banker’s office, where there will increase interest upon