Short Stories by Chekhov
"What a lot of houses!"
"What's that?" said the medico. "There are ten times as many in London.
There are a hundred thousand of these women there."
The cabmen sat on their boxes quiet and indifferent as in other streets;
on the pavement walked the same passers-by. No one was in a hurry; no
one hid his face in his collar; no one shook his head reproachfully. And
in this indifference, in the confused sound of the pianos and fiddles,
in the bright windows and wide-open doors, something very free,
impudent, bold and daring could be felt. It must have been the same as
this in the old times on the slave-markets, as gay and as noisy; people
looked and walked with the same indifference.
"Let's begin right at the beginning," said the painter.
The friends walked into a narrow little passage lighted by a single lamp
with a reflector. When they opened the door a man in a black jacket rose
lazily from the yellow sofa in the hall. He had an unshaven lackey's
face and sleepy eyes. The place smelt like a laundry, and of vinegar.
From the hall a door led into a brightly lighted room. The medico and
the painter stopped in the doorway, stretched out their necks and peeped
into the room together:
"Buona sera, signore, Rigoletto--huguenote--traviata!--" the painter began,
making a theatrical bow.
"Havanna--blackbeetlano--pistoletto!" said the medico, pressing his hat to
his heart and bowing low.
Vassiliev kept behind them. He wanted to bow theatrically too and say
something silly. But he only smiled, felt awkward and ashamed, and
awaited impatiently what was to follow. In the door appeared a little
fair girl of seventeen or eighteen, with short hair, wearing a short
blue dress with a white bow on her breast.
"What are you standing in the door for?" she said. "Take off your
overcoats and come into the salon."
The medico and the painter went into the salon, still speaking Italian.
Vassiliev followed them irresolutely.
"Gentlemen, take off your overcoats," said the lackey stiffly. "You're
not allowed in as you are."
Besides the fair girl there was another woman in the salon, very stout
and tall, with a foreign face and bare arms. She sat by the piano, with
a game of patience spread on her knees. She took no notice of the
guests.
"Where are the other girls?" asked the medico.
"They're drinking tea," said the fair one. "Stiepan," she called out.
"Go and tell the girls some students have come!"
A little later a third girl entered, in a bright red dress with blue
stripes. Her face was thickly and unskilfully painted. Her forehead was
hidden under her hair. She stared with dull, frightened eyes. As she
came she immediately began to sing in a strong hoarse contralto. After
her a fourth girl. After her a fifth.
In all this Vassiliev saw nothing new or curious. It seemed to him that
he had seen before, and more than once, this salon, piano, cheap gilt
mirror, the white bow, the dress with blue stripes and the stupid,
indifferent faces. But of darkness, quiet, mystery, and guilty smile--of
all he had expected to meet here and which frightened him--he did not see
even a shadow.
Everything was commonplace, prosaic, and dull. Only one thing provoked
his curiosity a little, that was the terrible, as it were intentional
lack of taste, which was seen in the overmantels, the absurd pictures,
the dresses and the White bow. In this lack of taste there was something
characteristic and singular.
"How poor and foolish it all is!" thought Vassiliev. "What is there in
all this rubbish to tempt a normal man, to provoke him into committing a
frightful sin, to buy a living soul for a rouble? I can understand
anyone sinning for the sake of splendour, beauty, grace, passion; but
what is there here? What tempts people here? But ... it's no good
thinking!"
"Whiskers, stand me champagne." The fair one turned to him.
Vassiliev suddenly blushed.
"With pleasure," he said, bowing politely. "But excuse me if I ... I
don't drink with you, I don't drink."
Five minutes after the friends were off to another house.
"Why did you order drinks?" stormed the medico. "What a millionaire,
flinging six roubles into the gutter like that for nothing at all."
"Why shouldn't I give her pleasure if she wants it?" said Vassiliev,
justifying himself.
"You didn't give her any pleasure. Madame got that. It's Madame who
tells them to ask the guests for drinks. She makes by it."
"Behold the mill," the painter began to sing, "Now fall'n to ruin...."
When they came to another house the friends stood outside in the
vestibule, but did not enter the salon. As in the first house, a figure
rose up from the sofa in the hall, in a black jacket, with a sleepy
lackey's face. As he looked at this lackey, at his face and shabby
jacket, Vassiliev thought: "What must an ordinary simple Russian go
through before Fate casts him up here? Where was he before, and what was
he doing? What awaits him? Is he married, where's his mother, and does
she know he's a lackey here?" Thenceforward in every house Vassiliev
involuntarily turned his attention to the lackey first of all.
In one of the houses, it seemed to be the fourth, the lackey was a dry
little, puny fellow, with a chain across his waistcoat. He was reading a
newspaper and took no notice of the guests at all. Glancing at his face,
Vassiliev had the idea that a fellow with a face like that could steal
and murder and perjure. And indeed the face was interesting: a big
forehead, grey eyes, a flat little nose, small close-set teeth, and the
expression on his face dull and impudent at once, like a puppy hard on a
hare. Vassiliev had the thought that he would like to touch this
lackey's hair: is it rough or soft f It must be rough like a dog's. 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. 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