Delphi Complete Works of Anton Chekhov (Illustrated) (359 page)

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-a-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 Chateau 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.

IV

“I had a talk with my
mam’selle
while we were dancing,” said the medico when all three came into the street. “ The subject was her first love. He was a bookkeeper in Smolensk with a wife and five children. She was seventeen and lived with her pa and ma who kept a soap and candle shop.”

“How did he conquer her heart ? “ asked Vassiliev.

“He bought her fifty roubles’-worth of under-clothes — Lord knows what ! “

“However could he get her love-story out of his girl ? “ thought Vassiliev. “ I can’t. My dear chaps, I’m off home,” he said.

“Why ? “

“Because I don’t know how to get on here. I’m bored and disgusted. What is there amusing about it ? If they were only human beings ; but they’re savages and beasts. I’m going, please.”

“Grisha darling, please,” the painter said with a sob in his voice, pressing close to Vassiliev, “let’s go to one more — then to Hell with them. Do come, Grigor.”

They prevailed on Vassiliev and led him up a staircase. The carpet and the gilded balustrade, the porter who opened the door, the panels which decorated the hall, were still in the same S —
 
— v Street style, but here it was perfected and imposing.

“Really I’m going home,” said Vassiliev, taking off his overcoat.

“Darling, please, please,” said the painter and kissed him on the neck. “ Don’t be so faddy, Grigri — be a pal. Together we came, together we go. What a beast you are though ! “

“I can wait for you in the street. My God, it’s disgusting here.”

“Please, please . . . You just look on, see, just look on.”

“One should look at things objectively,” said the medico seriously.

Vassiliev entered the salon and sat down. There were many more guests besides him and his friends : two infantry officers, a grey, bald-headed gentleman with gold spectacles, two young clean-shaven men from the Surveyors’ Institute, and a very drunk man with an actor’s face. All the girls were looking after these guests and took no notice of Vassiliev. Only one of them dressed like Aida glanced at him sideways, smiled at something and said with a yawn :

“So the dark one’s come.”

Vassiliev’s heart was beating and his face was burning. He felt ashamed for being there, disgusted and tormented. He was tortured by the thought that he, a decent and affectionate man (so he considered himself up till now), despised these women and felt nothing towards them but repulsion. He could not feel pity for them or for the musicians or the lackeys.

“It’s because I don’t try to understand them,” he thought. “ They’re all more like beasts than human beings ; but all the same they are human beings. They’ve got souls. One should understand them first, then judge them.”

“Grisha, don’t go away. Wait for us,” called the painter; and he disappeared somewhere.

Soon the medico disappeared also.

“Yes, one should try to understand. It’s no good, otherwise,” thought Vassiliev, and he began to examine intently the face of each girl, looking for the guilty smile. But whether he could not read faces or because none of these women felt guilty he saw in each face only a dull look of common, vulgar boredom and satiety. Stupid eyes, stupid smiles, harsh, stupid voices, impudent gestures — and nothing else. Evidently every woman had in her past a love romance with a bookkeeper and fifty roubles’-worth of underclothes. And in the present the only good things in life were coffee, a three-course dinner, wine, quadrilles, and sleeping till two in the afternoon . . .

Finding not one guilty smile, Vassiliev began to examine them to see if even one looked clever and his attention was arrested by one pale, rather tired face. It was that of a dark woman no longer young, wearing a dress scattered with spangles. She sat in a chair staring at the floor and thinking of something. Vassiliev paced up and down and then sat down beside her as if by accident.

“One must begin with something trivial,” he thought, “ and gradually pass on to serious conversation . . .”

“What a beautiful little dress you have on,” he said, and touched the gold fringe of her scarf with his finger.

“It’s all right,” said the dark woman.

“Where do you come from ? “

“I ? A long way. From Tchernigov.”

“It’s a nice part.”

“It always is, where you don’t happen to be.”

“What a pity I can’t describe nature,” thought Vassiliev. “I’d move her by descriptions of Tchernigov. She must love it if she was born there.”

“Do you feel lonely here ? “ he asked.

“Of course I’m lonely.”

“Why don’t you go away from here, if you’re lonely ? “

“Where shall I go to ? Start begging, eh ? “

“It’s easier to beg than to live here.”

“Where did you get that idea ? Have you been a beggar ? “

“I begged, when I hadn’t enough to pay my university fees ; and even if I hadn’t begged it’s easy enough to understand. A beggar is a free man, at any rate, and you’re a slave.”

The dark woman stretched herself, and followed with sleepy eyes the lackey who carried a tray of glasses and soda-water.

“Stand us a champagne,” she said, and yawned again.

“Champagne,” said Vassiliev. “ What would happen if your mother or your brother suddenly came in ? What would you say ? And what would they say ? You would say ‘ champagne’ then.”

Suddenly the noise of crying was heard. From the next room where the lackey had carried the soda-water, a fair man rushed out with a red face and angry eyes. He was followed by the tall, stout madame, who screamed in a squeaky voice :

“No one gave you permission to slap the girls in the face. Better class than you come here, and never slap a girl. You bounder ! “

Followed an uproar. Vassiliev was scared and went white. In the next room some one wept, sobbing, sincerely, as only the insulted weep. And he understood that indeed human beings lived here, actually human beings, who get offended, suffer, weep, and ask for help. The smouldering hatred, the feeling of repulsion, gave way to an acute sense of pity and anger against the wrong-doer. He rushed into the room from which the weeping came. Through the rows of bottles which stood on the marble table-top he saw a suffering tear-stained face, stretched out his hands towards this face, stepped to the table and instantly gave a leap back in terror. The sobbing woman was dead-drunk.

As he made his way through the noisy crowd, gathered round the fair man, his heart failed him, he lost his courage like a boy, and it seemed to him that in this foreign, inconceivable world, they wanted to run after him, to beat him, to abuse him with foul words. He tore down his coat from the peg and rushed headlong down the stairs.