About ten officers took part in this excursion. All seemed bent on solving the delicate problem of contriving to shriek, laugh, and bawl at the same time. Romashov strolled about the room with a feeling of naïve, unreflecting enjoyment, and, with a certain astonishment and delight, gradually recognized all his boon-companions—Biek-Agamalov, Lbov, Viätkin, Epifanov, Artschakovski, Olisár, etc. Even Staff-Captain Lieschtschenko was discovered there. He sat huddled up in a window with his usual, eternal, resigned Weltschmerz grin. On a table stood a respectable row of bottles containing ale and a dark, thick, syrupy cherry-cordial. No one knew who had ordered all these bottles. They were thought—like so much else that night—to have come of their own accord. Romashov drank, proposed healths, and embraced every one he met, and began to feel sticky and messy about his lips and fingers.
There were five or six women in the room. One of them—a girl of fourteen dressed as a page, with rose-coloured stockings—sat on Biek-Agamalov’s knee and played with his epaulettes. Another—a big, coarse blonde in a red silk basquine and dark skirt, and with powdered face, and broad, black, painted eyebrows—went straight up to Romashov.
“Gracious, my good sir, why do you look so miserable? Come with me into that room,” she added in a whisper.
She threw herself carelessly on a table, and there sat with one leg over the other. Romashov noticed how the strong outlines of her well-formed knee were shown off by the thin skirt. A shudder thrilled him, and his hands trembled.
“What’s your name?”
“Mine? Malvina.” She turned away with an air of indifference, and began swinging her legs. “Order me a cigarette.”
Two Jewish musicians came on the scene, one with a violin, the other with a tambourine. Soon a vulgar, hackneyed, screeching polka tune was heard in the room, whereupon Olisár and Artschakovski at once began to dance the cancan. They hopped round the room first on one leg, then on the other, snapped their fingers, wagged their hips, and bent backwards and forwards with vulgar, cynical gestures. This unattractive ballet was suddenly interrupted by Biek-Agamalov, who jumped off the table, shrieking in his sharp, penetrating voice—
“To hell with the starar! Out with the ragtag and bobtail!”
Down by the door stood two young exquisites, both of whom had many acquaintances among officers, and had even been guests at the regimental soirées. One of them was a Treasury official, the other a landed proprietor and brother of the police magistrate of the town. They both belonged to the so-called “cream” of Society.
The Treasury official turned white, but forced a smile, and answered in an affable tone—