'The room we enter is neat—it has that Spartan daintiness about it which often associated with poverty. fs the room of a middle-aged woman' who purveys the drug for the addicts: in the house, and it is also used as sort of reception-room for the young dance-girl, A few inquiries, drink, a cigarette, and the matter of narcotics is brought up. Yes, rugs are easy to obtain in the neigh-[bourhood, it is revealed, from Koreans. Then the girl expresses a desire for heroin, and the middle-aged woman produces a small white packet from underneath her bedelothing. The girl puts some of the drug into a lgarettc and smokes it, The middle-aged woman goes into another room Jand returns with a match-box in which is concealed a packet of cocaine. The two divide the snowy powder, roll pieces of newspaper into Tittle tubes and then sniff the drug: through one nostril.
Nadya tells about her life. Less than throe years ago she was healthy and happy in one of the outports. She had: good friends and a good job. Then an evil associate induced her to try the effects of narcotics. She became enslaved, gradually sold her valuables and fine clothing to satisfy her craving, came to Shanghai and adopted her present mode of living, and is now physically and mentally wreck. Her thinness and pallor are especially noticeable now, in daylight. The expression in her unsteady eyes mostly sullen, at times panicky.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.