'From a person you know.. . . How are things with you?. . . is everything ready?'
'Nothing is ready.'
Mashurina opened her tiny little eyes as wide as she could.
'Nothing?'
'Nothing.'
'You mean absolutely nothing?'
'Absolutely nothing.'
'Is that what I'm to say?'
'That's what you must say.'
Mashurina pondered a minute, then she took a cigarette out of her pocket.
'A light—can you give me?'
'Here's a match.'
Mashurina lighted her cigarette.
'They expected something quite different,' she began. 'And all around—it's not as it is with you. However, that's your affair. I'm not here for long. Only to see Nezhdanov and to give him the letter.'
'Where are you going?'
'Oh, a long way from here.' (She was in fact going to Geneva, but she did not care to tell Solomin so. She did not regard him as altogether trustworthy; besides, there was an 'outsider' sitting there. Mashurina, who hardly knew a word of German, was being sent to Geneva in order to hand to a person there
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