The Bet, and other stories
glass to his eye, looked at it for a long while with a short-sighted
frown. The medico misunderstood his expression and said--
“Well, what are you staring at? No philosophy, please. Vodka’s made to
be drunk, caviare to be eaten, women to sleep with, snow to walk on.
Live like a man for one evening.”
“Well, I’ve nothing to say,” said Vassiliev laughingly, “I’m not
refusing?”
The vodka warmed his breast. He looked at his friends, admired and
envied them. How balanced everything is in these healthy, strong,
cheerful people. Everything in their minds and souls is smooth and
rounded off. They sing, have a passion for the theatre, paint, talk
continually, and drink, and they never have a headache the next day.
They are romantic and dissolute, sentimental and insolent; they can
work and go on the loose and laugh at nothing and talk rubbish; they
are hot-headed, honest, heroic and as human beings not a bit worse
than Vassiliev, who watches his every step and word, who is careful,
cautious, and able to give the smallest trifle the dignity of a
problem. And he made up his mind if only for one evening to live like
his friends, to let himself go, and be free from his own control.
Must he drink vodka? He’ll drink, even if his head falls to pieces
to-morrow. Must he be taken to women? He’ll go. He’ll laugh, play the
fool, and give a joking answer to disapproving passers-by.
He came out of the restaurant laughing. He liked his friends--one in a
battered hat with a wide brim who aped aesthetic disorder; the other in
a sealskin cap, not very poor, with a pretence of learned Bohemia. He
liked the snow, the paleness, the lamp-lights, the clear black prints
which the passers’ feet left on the snow. He liked the air, and above
all the transparent, tender, naive, virgin tone which can be seen in
nature only twice in the year: when everything is covered in snow, on
the bright days in spring, and on moonlight nights when the ice breaks
on the river.
“To these sad shores unknowing,” he began to sing _sotto-voce,_ “An
unknown power entices.”
And all the way for some reason or other he and his friends had this
melody on their lips. All three hummed it mechanically out of time with
each other.
Vassiliev imagined how in about ten minutes he and his friends would
knock at a door, how they would stealthily walk through the narrow
little passages and dark rooms to the women, how he would take
advantage of the dark, suddenly strike a match, and see lit up a
suffering face and a guilty smile. There he will surely find a fair
or a dark woman in a white nightgown with her hair loose. She will be
frightened of the light, dreadfully confused and say: “Good God! What
are you doing? Blow it out!” All this was frightening, but curious and
novel.
II
The friends turned out of Trubnoi Square into the Grachovka and soon
arrived at the street which Vassiliev knew only from hearsay. Seeing
two rows of houses with brightly lighted windows and wide open doors,
and hearing the gay sound of pianos and fiddles--sounds which flew out
of all the doors and mingled in a strange confusion, as if somewhere
in the darkness over the roof-tops an unseen orchestra were tuning,
Vassiliev was bewildered and said:
“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? 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
feel 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?”