I remember I happened to be present at a conversation with David over the fence, on the very day of her mother's death.
"Mother died this morning at daybreak," she said, first looking round with her dark expressive eyes and then fixing them on the ground.
"Cook undertook to get a coffin cheap but she's not to be trusted; she may spend the money on drink, even. You might come and look after her, Davidushka, she's afraid of you."
"I will come," answered David. "I will see to it. And how's your father?"
"He cries; he says: 'you must spoil me, too.' Spoil must mean bury. Now he has gone to sleep." Raissa suddenly gave a deep sigh. "Oh, Davidushka, Davidushka!" She passed her half-clenched fist over her forehead and her eyebrows, and the action was so bitter ... and as sincere and beautiful as all her actions.
"You must take care of yourself, though," David observed; "you haven't slept at all, I expect.... And what's the use of crying? It doesn't help trouble."
"I have no time for crying," answered Raissa.
"That's a luxury for the rich, crying," observed David.
"The yellow shawl's being sold, you know; part of mother's dowry. They are giving us twelve roubles; I think that is not much."
"We shouldn't sell it," Raissa said after a brief pause, "but you see we must have money for the funeral."
"Of course you must. Only you mustn't spend money at random. Those priests are awful! But I say, wait a minute. I'll come. Are you going? I'll be with you soon. Goodbye, darling."
"As though I should cry! It's either cooking the dinner or crying. One or the other."
"What! does she cook the dinner?" I said to David, as soon as Raissa was out of hearing, "does she do the cooking herself?"
"Why, you heard that the cook has gone to buy a coffin."
"She cooks the dinner," I thought, "and her hands are always so clean and her clothes so neat.... I should like to see her there at work in the kitchen.... She is an extraordinary girl!"
I remember another conversation at the fence. That time Raissa brought with her her little deaf and dumb sister. She was a pretty child with immense, astonished-looking eyes and a perfect mass of dull, black hair on her little, head (Raissa's hair, too, was black and hers, too, was without lustre). Latkin had by then been struck down by paralysis.