“Babka Nastya, where am I to 'follow' you? To another ward? But surely Barygin said I couldn't?”
Here the old woman taunted me:
“It's that you couldn't jump from ward to ward, love, like a grasshopper. But to ensure the appropriate living conditions for a foreigner – that's another matter, for this the regulations can even be broken. You are now going to be my translator, you see!”
“Ah, for the foreigner in number eleven, the Greek? Yes, I saw him in the corridor, nice lad, a mixture of masculine and refined beauty. No wonder our lady heart specialists are already starting to go out of their minds! But how am I to be translator? I don't know Greek! In English? But suppose he doesn't want that, after all, he's Greek and not...”
“We'll manage,” says Babka Nastya, hurrying me along. “He k
