1 At that moment Apollon brought in the tea.
2 Liza looked at Apollon with positive alarm.
3 Two minutes later I heard Apollon's deliberate footsteps.
4 I put six roubles in the letter, sealed it up, and asked Apollon to take it to Simonov.
5 It was a good thing, in fact, that Apollon distracted my attention at that time by his rudeness.
6 All I had was nine roubles, I had to give seven of that to my servant, Apollon, for his monthly wages.
7 After standing over us for a couple of minutes Apollon went away, but that did not make me more at ease.
8 When he learned that there was money in the letter, Apollon became more respectful and agreed to take it.
9 And my dressing-gown, which will not cover me, such tatters, and she will see all this and she will see Apollon.
10 Surely by now you must realise that I shall never forgive you for having found me in this wretched dressing-gown, just as I was flying at Apollon like a spiteful cur.
11 I polished my boots a second time with my own hands; nothing in the world would have induced Apollon to clean them twice a day, as he considered that it was more than his duties required of him.
12 But I was so exasperated with everyone during those days, that I made up my mind for some reason and with some object to PUNISH Apollon and not to pay him for a fortnight the wages that were owing him.
13 I could not live in furnished lodgings: my lodging was my private solitude, my shell, my cave, in which I concealed myself from all mankind, and Apollon seemed to me, for some reason, an integral part of that flat, and for seven years I could not turn him away.
14 Apollon," I whispered in feverish haste, flinging down before him the seven roubles which had remained all the time in my clenched fist, "here are your wages, you see I give them to you; but for that you must come to my rescue: bring me tea and a dozen rusks from the restaurant.
15 Apollon, who had already sat down to his work and put on his spectacles again, at first glanced askance at the money without speaking or putting down his needle; then, without paying the slightest attention to me or making any answer, he went on busying himself with his needle, which he had not yet threaded.
16 I seized my hat and, trying not to look at Apollon, who had been all day expecting his month's wages, but in his foolishness was unwilling to be the first to speak about it, I slipped between him and the door and, jumping into a high-class sledge, on which I spent my last half rouble, I drove up in grand style to the Hotel de Paris.