"Nothing?" she repeated, half stupid with the pain of her disappointment. "Nothing? not even fifteen marks?"
"Nothing. It is rotten, and could not be worked. The hairs break like glass."
Vjera pressed her left hand to her side as though something hurt her. The tadpole youth grinned idiotically and the barber seemed anxious to end the interview.
With a look of broken-hearted despair the girl turned to the table and began to do up her parcel again. Her shawl fell to the ground as she moved. Then the tadpole nudged his employer and pointed at Vjera's long, red-brown braid, and grinned again from ear to ear.
"Is it fifteen marks that you want?" asked the man.
"Fifteen--yes--I must have fifteen," repeated Vjera in dull tones.
"I will give it to you for your own hair," said the barber with a short laugh.
"For my own?" cried Vjera, suddenly turning round. It had never occurred to her that her own tress could be worth anything. "For my own?" she repeated as though not believing her ears.
"Yes--let me see," said the man. "Turn your head again, please. Let me see. Yes, yes, it is good hair of the kind, though it has not the gold lights in it that the other had. But, to oblige you, I will give you fifteen for it."
"But I must have the money now," said Vjera, suspiciously. "You must give me the money now, to take with me. I cannot wait."
The barber smiled, and produced a gold piece and five silver ones.
"You may hold the money in your hand," he said, offering it to her, "while you sit down and I do the work."
Vjera clutched the coins fiercely and placed herself in the big chair before the mirror. She could see in the glass that her eyes were on fire. The barber loosened a screw in the back of the seat and removed the block with the cushion, handing it to his assistant.
"The scissors, and a comb, Anton," he said briskly, lifting at the same time the heavy tress and judging its weight. The reflection of the steel flashed in the mirror, as the artist quickly opened and shut the scissors, with that peculiar shuffling jingle which only barbers can produce.
"Wait a minute!" cried Vjera, with sudden anxiety, and turning her head as though to draw away her hair from his grasp. "One minute--please--fifteen and thirty-five are really fifty, are they not?"