“H’m!⁠ ⁠… One can’t feel the first rib; it’s behind the shoulder-blade.⁠ ⁠… This must be the second rib.⁠ ⁠… Yes⁠ ⁠… this is the third⁠ ⁠… this is the fourth.⁠ ⁠… H’m!⁠ ⁠… yes.⁠ ⁠… Why are you wriggling?”

“Your fingers are cold!”

“Come, come⁠ ⁠… it won’t kill you. Don’t twist about. That must be the third rib, then⁠ ⁠… this is the fourth.⁠ ⁠… You look such a skinny thing, and yet one can hardly feel your ribs. That’s the second⁠ ⁠… that’s the third.⁠ ⁠… Oh, this is muddling, and one can’t see it clearly.⁠ ⁠… I must draw it.⁠ ⁠… Where’s my crayon?”

Klotchkov took his crayon and drew on Anyuta’s chest several parallel lines corresponding with the ribs.

“First-rate. That’s all straightforward.⁠ ⁠… Well, now I can sound you. Stand up!”

Anyuta stood up and raised her chin. Klotchkov began sounding her, and was so absorbed in this occupation that he did not notice how Anyuta’s lips, nose, and fingers turned blue with cold. Anyuta shivered, and was afraid the student, noticing it, would leave off drawing and sounding her, and then, perhaps, might fail in his exam.

“Now it’s all clear,” said Klotchkov when he had finished. “You sit like that and don’t rub off the crayon, and meanwhile I’ll learn up a little more.”

And the student again began walking to and fro, repeating to himself. Anyuta, with black stripes across her chest, looking as though she had been tattooed, sat thinking, huddled up and shivering with cold. She said very little as a rule; she was always silent, thinking and thinking.⁠ ⁠…