The Tales of Chekhov, vol 9 | Page 9

He liked the air, and especially that limpid, tender, naive, as
it were virginal tone, which can be seen in nature only twice in the year
-- when everything is covered with snow, and in spring on bright days
and moonlight evenings when the ice breaks on the river.

"Against my will an unknown force, Has led me to these mournful
shores,"
he hummed in an undertone.
And the tune for some reason haunted him and his friends all the way,
and all three of them hummed it mechanically, not in time with one
another.
Vassilyev's imagination was picturing how, in another ten minutes, he
and his friends would knock at a door; how by little dark passages and
dark rooms they would steal in to the women; how, taking advantage of
the darkness, he would strike a match, would light up and see the face
of a martyr and a guilty smile. The unknown, fair or dark, would
certainly have her hair down and be wearing a white dressing-jacket;
she would be panic-stricken by the light, would be fearfully confused,
and would say: "For God's sake, what are you doing! Put it out!" It
would all be dreadful, but interesting and new.
II
The friends turned out of Trubnoy Square into Gratchevka, and soon
reached the side street which Vassilyev only knew by reputation.
Seeing two rows of houses with brightly lighted windows and
wide-open doors, and hearing gay strains of pianos and violins, sounds
which floated out from every door and mingled in a strange chaos, as
though an unseen orchestra were tuning up in the darkness above the
roofs, Vassilyev was surprised and said:
"What a lot of houses!"
"That's nothing," said the medical student. "In London there are ten
times as many. There are about a hundred thousand such women there."
The cabmen were sitting on their boxes as calmly and indifferently as
in any other side street; the same passers-by were walking along the
pavement as in other streets. No one was hurrying, no one was hiding
his face in his coat-collar, no one shook his head reproachfully. . . . And
in this indifference to the noisy chaos of pianos and violins, to the
bright windows and wide-open doors, there was a feeling of something
very open, insolent, reckless, and devil-may-care. Probably it was as
gay and noisy at the slave-markets in their day, and people's faces and
movements showed the same indifference.
"Let us begin from the beginning," said the artist.
The friends went into a narrow passage lighted by a lamp with a

reflector. When they opened the door a man in a black coat, with an
unshaven face like a flunkey's, and sleepy-looking eyes, got up lazily
from a yellow sofa in the hall. The place smelt like a laundry with an
odor of vinegar in addition. A door from the hall led into a brightly
lighted room. The medical student and the artist stopped at this door
and, craning their necks, peeped into the room.
"Buona sera, signori, rigolleto -- hugenotti -- traviata!" began the artist,
with a theatrical bow.
"Havanna -- tarakano -- pistoleto!" said the medical student, pressing
his cap to his breast and bowing low.
Vassilyev was standing behind them. He would have liked to make a
theatrical bow and say something silly, too, but he only smiled, felt an
awkwardness that was like shame, and waited impatiently for what
would happen next.
A little fair girl of seventeen or eighteen, with short hair, in a short
light-blue frock with a bunch of white ribbon on her bosom, appeared
in the doorway.
"Why do you stand at the door?" she said. "Take off your coats and
come into the drawing-room."
The medical student and the artist, still talking Italian, went into the
drawing-room. Vassilyev followed them irresolutely.
"Gentlemen, take off your coats!" the flunkey said sternly; "you can't
go in like that."
In the drawing-room there was, besides the girl, another woman, very
stout and tall, with a foreign face and bare arms. She was sitting near
the piano, laying out a game of patience on her lap. She took no notice
whatever of the visitors.
"Where are the other young ladies?" asked the medical student.
"They are having their tea," said the fair girl. "Stepan," she called, "go
and tell the young ladies some students have come!"
A little later a third young lady came into the room. She was wearing a
bright red dress with blue stripes. Her face was painted thickly and
unskillfully, her brow was hidden under her hair, and there was an
unblinking, frightened stare in her eyes. As she came in, she began at
once singing some song in a coarse, powerful contralto. After her a
fourth appeared, and after her a fifth.