"Possibly in making love, but not when the fight begins," added the magistrate's brother, who tried to adopt a good-humoured tone. "Out of this!" screamed Biek-Agamalov. "March to the door!" "Gentlemen, by all means, put the _starar_ out," sneered Artschakovski. A horrible confusion arose in the room. Tables and chairs were thrown over; the men shrieked, laughed, and stamped with all their might. The flames of the lamps rose like fiery tongues on high. The cold night air penetrated through the open windows, but without any cooling or calming effect on all these half-demented fighting-cocks. The two civilians had already been thrown into the backyard, where they were heard fiercely screeching and threatening with tears in their voices-- "_Opritschniker_,[20] brigands! This affair will cost you dear. We shall lodge a complaint with your commander, with the Governor." "Oo-oo-oo-oo-oo," Viätkin sneered in mockery, whilst stretching out of the window. "Go to blazes!" It seemed to Romashov as if all the events of the day had followed one another without a break, but also without the least intelligible connection, just as if a series of wild pictures in loud and motley colours had been unrolled before his eyes. Again were heard the scraping of the violin and the tambourine's blustering noise. One of the "partners" had now gone so far as to pirouette on the floor with nothing but his shirt on. A pretty, slender woman, who had up to then escaped Romashov's notice, with dishevelled hair over her bare neck, and sharp, prominent shoulder-blades, wound her arms round poor Lieschtschenko's neck and sang in his ear in her shrill soprano, and in unison with the violin's awful melody: "When consumption sets its mark, And you're lying pale and stark, And doctors are seen fumbling round your couch." Bobetinski slung a glass of ale between the curtains of one of the little, dark _cabinets_, whence very soon proceeded an angry, but sleepy, thick voice-- "Aren't you ashamed, sir? Who dares ...? Such a low swine!" "I say! how long have you been here?" asked Romashov of the lady in the red _basquine_, whilst, as it were, in an absent-minded way, he rested his hand on her strong, warm knee.