'Mine was Osip.'
'Well, then, I shall call you Tatyana Osipovna.'
'And I'll call you Marianna Vikentyevna. That will be capital!'
'Won't you drink a cup of tea with us, Tatyana Osipovna?'
'At this first acquaintance I might, Marianna Vikentyevna. I'll treat myself to a small cup, though Yegoritch will scold.'
'Who's Yegoritch?'
'Pavel, my husband.'
'Sit down, Tatyana Osipovna.'
'Indeed and I will, Marianna Vikentyevna.'
Tatyana seated herself on a chair and began to sip her tea through a piece of sugar. She continually turned the lump of sugar round in her fingers, screwing up her eye on the side on which she was nibbling the sugar. Marianna got into conversation with her. Tatyana answered without obsequiousness, and asked her questions and told her various things of her own accord. Solomin she almost worshipped, but her husband she put only second to Vassily Fedotitch. She was sick of factory life, though.
'You've neither the town here nor the country . . . if it weren't for Vassily Fedotitch I wouldn't stay another hour.'
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