“You might at least order the musicians to play a polka. Let the girls dance a little,” asked Liuba grumblingly.
That suited him. Under cover of the music, amid the jostling of the dances, it was far more convenient to get up courage, arise, and lead one of the girls out of the drawing room, than to do it amid the general silence and the finical immobility.
“And how much does that cost?” he asked cautiously.
“A quadrille is half a rouble; but ordinary dances are thirty kopecks. Is it all right then?”
“Well, of course...if you please...I don’t begrudge it,” he agreed, pretending to be generous...
“Whom do you speak to?”
“Why, over there—to the musicians.”
“Why not? ... I’ll do it with pleasure...Mister musician, something in the light dances, if you please,” he said, laying down his silver on the pianoforte.
“What will you order?” asked Isaiah Savvich, putting the money away in his pocket. “Waltz, polka, polka-mazourka?”
“Well...Something sort of...”