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 underclothes--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 Aïda glanced at him sideways, smiled at something and said with a yawn: “So the dark one’s come.”