An hour and a half later the lieutenant awoke. He fancied in his sleep
that someone touched him, bent over him, breathed over him. He
fumbled, and pulled off the kerchief. Emilie was on her knees close
beside him; the expression of her face struck him as queer. She jumped
up at once, walked away to the window and put something away in her
pocket.
Kuzma Vassilyevitch stretched.
"I've had a good long snooze, it seems!" he observed, yawning. "Come
here, _meine züsse Fräulein_!"
Emilie went up to him. He sat up quickly, thrust his hand into her
pocket and took out a small pair of scissors.
"_Ach, Herr Je_!" Emilie could not help exclaiming.
"It's ... it's a pair of scissors?" muttered Kuzma Vassilyevitch.
"Why, of course. What did you think it was ... a pistol? Oh, how funny
you look! You're as rumpled as a pillow and your hair is all standing
up at the back.... And he doesn't laugh.... Oh, oh! And his eyes are
puffy.... Oh!"
Emilie went off into a giggle.
"Come, that's enough," muttered Kuzma Vassilyevitch, and he got up
from the sofa. "That's enough giggling about nothing. If you can't
think of anything more sensible, I'll go home.... I'll go home," he
repeated, seeing that she was still laughing.
Emilie subsided.
"Come, stay; I won't.... Only you must brush your hair."
"No, never mind.... Don't trouble. I'd better go," said Kuzma
Vassilyevitch, and he took up his cap.
Emilie pouted.
"Fie, how cross he is! A regular Russian! All Russians are cross. Now
he is going. Fie! Yesterday he promised me five roubles and today he
gives me nothing and goes away."
"I haven't any money on me," Kuzma Vassilyevitch muttered grumpily in
the doorway. "Good-bye."
Emilie looked after him and shook her finger.
"No money! Do you hear, do you hear what he says? Oh, what deceivers
these Russians are! But wait a bit, you pug.... Auntie, come here, I
have something to tell you."
That evening as Kuzma Vassilyevitch was undressing to go to bed, he
noticed that the upper edge of his leather belt had come unsewn for
about three inches. Like a careful man he at once procured a needle
and thread, waxed the thread and stitched up the hole himself. He
paid, however, no attention to this apparently trivial circumstance.