Translated by Constance Garnett
Russian Literature – Children Books – Russian Poetry – Anton Chekhov – The Fit – Contents
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III
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 fed 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.
Russian Literature – Children Books – Russian Poetry – Anton Chekhov – The Fit – Contents
Copyright holders – Public Domain Book
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