“M-m-m ... I’m afraid of offending your hearing. To the Tzigani, for instance ... to night cabarets ...”
“And somewhere else? Worse?”
“Really, you put me in an awkward position. From the time that I’ve become so madly in love with you ...”
“Leave out the romancing!”
“Well, how shall I say it?” murmured Volodya, feeling that he was turning red, not only in the face, but with his body, his back. “Well, of course, to the women. Now, of course, this does not occur with me personally ...”
Rovinskaya maliciously pressed Chaplinsky’s elbow to her side.
“To a brothel?”
Volodya did not answer anything. Then she said:
“And so, you’ll carry us at once over there in the automobile and acquaint us with this existence, which is foreign to me. But remember, that I rely upon your protection.”
The remaining two agreed to this, unwillingly, in all probability; but there was no possibility of opposing Ellena Victorovna. She always did everything that she wanted to. And then they had all heard and knew that in Petersburg carousing worldly ladies, and even girls, permit themselves, out of a modish snobbism, pranks far worse than the one which Rovinskaya had proposed.