To tell you you’re a heartless woman. I cried. How dare you bully a poor child like that? She’s not yours. I’ve just heard that she’s only adopted, a poor orphan.Lord Jesus! cried the fury. But who are you, poking your nose in! Did you come with her, eh? I’ll go straight to the police-captain! Andrey Timofeyitch himself treats me like a lady. Why, is it to see you she goes, eh? Who is it? He’s come to make an upset in another person’s house. Police!

And she flew at me, brandishing her fists. But at that instant we heard a piercing, inhuman shriek. I looked. Elena, who had been standing as though unconscious, uttering a strange, unnatural scream, fell with a thud on the ground, . Her face was working. She was in an epileptic fit. The dishevelled female and the woman from the basement ran, lifted her up, and hurriedly carried her up the steps.

She may choke for me, the damned slut the woman shrieked after her. That’s the third fit this month! . . . Get off, you pickpocket and she rushed at me again. Why are you standing there, porter? What do you get your wages for?
Get along, get along! Do you want a smack on the head? the porter boomed out lazily, apparently only as a matter of form. Two’s company and three’s none. Make your bow and take your hook!

There was no help for it. I went out at the gate, feeling that my interference had been useless. But I was boiling with indignation. I stood on, the pavement facing the gateway, and looked through the gate. As soon as I had gone out the woman rushed up the steps, and the porter having done his duty vanished. Soon after, the woman who had helped to carry up Elena hurried down the steps on the way to the basement. Seeing me she stood still and looked at me with curiosity. Her quiet, good-natured face encouraged me　Veda Salon. I went back into the yard and straight up to her.

Allow me to ask, I said, who is that girl and what is that horrible woman doing with her? Please don’t imagine that I ask simply from curiosity. I’ve met the girl, and owing to special circumstances I am much interested in her.
If you’re interested in her you’d better take her home or find some place for her than let her come to ruin here, said the woman with apparent reluctance, making a movement to get away from me.
But if you don’t tell me, what can I do? I tell you I know nothing about her. I suppose that’s Mme. Bubnov herself　USR, the woman of the house?

YesThen how did the girl fall into her hands? Did her mother die here?
Oh, I can’t say. It’s not our business.