Because he had had two glasses the painter suddenly got rather drunk,
and unnaturally lively.
“Let’s go to another place,” he added, waving his hands. “I’ll
introduce you to the best!”
When he had taken his friends into the house which was according to him
the best, he proclaimed a persistent desire to dance a quadrille. The
medico began to grumble that they would have to pay the musicians a
rouble but agreed to be his _vis-à-vis._ The dance began.
It was just as bad in the best house as in the worst. Just the same
mirrors and pictures were here, the same coiffures and dresses. Looking
round at the furniture and the costumes Vassiliev now understood that
it was not lack of taste, but something that might be called the
particular taste and style of S----v Street, quite impossible to find
anywhere else, something complete, not accidental, evolved in time.
After he had been to eight houses he no longer wondered at the colour
of the dresses or the long trains, or at the bright bows, or the sailor
dresses, or the thick violent painting of the cheeks; he understood
that all this was in harmony, that if only one woman dressed herself
humanly, or one decent print hung on the wall, then the general tone of
the whole street would suffer.
How badly they manage the business? Can’t they really understand that
vice is only fascinating when it is beautiful and secret, hidden under
the cloak of virtue? Modest black dresses, pale faces, sad smiles, and
darkness act more strongly than this clumsy tinsel. Idiots! If they
don’t understand it themselves, their guests ought to teach them....
A girl in a Polish costume trimmed with white fur came up close to him
and sat down by his side.
“Why don’t you dance, my brown-haired darling?” she asked. “What do you
feel so bored about?”
“Because it is boring.”
“Stand me a Château Lafitte, then you won’t be bored.”
Vassiliev made no answer. For a little while he was silent, then he
asked:
“What time do you go to bed as a rule?”
“Six.”
“When do you get up?”
“Sometimes two, sometimes three.”
“And after you get up what do you do?”
“We drink coffee. We have dinner at seven.”
“And what do you have for dinner?”
“Soup or _schi_ as a rule, beef-steak, dessert. Our madame keeps the
girls well. But what are you asking all this for?”
“Just to have a talk....”
Vassiliev wanted to ask about all sorts of things. He had a strong
desire to find out where she came from, were her parents alive, and did
they know she was here; how she got into the house; was she happy and
contented, or gloomy and depressed with dark thoughts. Does she ever
hope to escape.... But he could not possibly think how to begin, or how
to put his questions without seeming indiscreet. He thought for a long
while and asked:
“How old are you?”
“Eighty,” joked the girl, looking and laughing at the tricks the
painter was doing with his hands and feet.
She suddenly giggled and uttered a long filthy expression aloud so that
every one could hear.
Vassiliev, terrified, not knowing how to look, began to laugh uneasily.
He alone smiled: all the others, his friends, the musicians and the
women--paid no attention to his neighbour. They might never have heard.
“Stand me a Lafitte,” said the girl again.
Vassiliev was suddenly repelled by her white trimming and her voice
and left her. It seemed to him close and hot. His heart began to beat
slowly and violently, like a hammer, one, two, three.
“Let’s get out of here,” he said, pulling the painter’s sleeve.
“Wait. Let’s finish it.”
While the medico and the painter were finishing their quadrille,
Vassiliev, in order to avoid the women, eyed the musicians. The
pianist was a nice old man with spectacles, with a face like Marshal
Basin; the fiddler a young man with a short, fair beard dressed in
the latest fashion. The young man was not stupid or starved, on the
contrary he looked clever, young and fresh. He was dressed with a touch
of originality, and played with emotion. Problem: how did he and the
decent old man get here? Why aren’t they ashamed to sit here? What do
they think about when they look at the women?
If the piano and the fiddle were played by ragged, hungry, gloomy,
drunken creatures, with thin stupid faces, then their presence would
perhaps be intelligible. As it was, Vassiliev could understand.
nothing. Into his memory came the story that he had read about the
unfortunate woman, and now he found that the human figure with the
guilty smile had nothing to do with this. It seemed to him that they
were not unfortunate women that he saw, but they belonged to another,
utterly different world, foreign and inconceivable to him; if he had
seen this world on the stage or read about it in a book he would never
have believed it.... The girl with the white trimming giggled again and
said something disgusting aloud. He felt sick, blushed, and went out:
“Wait. We’re coming too,” cried the painter.