“They are having their tea,” said the fair girl. “Stepan,” she called, “go and tell the young ladies some students have come!”
A little later a third young lady came into the room. She was wearing a bright red dress with blue stripes. Her face was painted thickly and unskillfully, her brow was hidden under her hair, and there was an unblinking, frightened stare in her eyes. As she came in, she began at once singing some song in a coarse, powerful contralto. After her a fourth appeared, and after her a fifth....
In all this Vassilyev saw nothing new or interesting. It seemed to him that that room, the piano, the looking-glass in its cheap gilt frame, the bunch of white ribbon, the dress with the blue stripes, and the blank indifferent faces, he had seen before and more than once. Of the darkness, the silence, the secrecy, the guilty smile, of all that he had expected to meet here and had dreaded, he saw no trace.
Everything was ordinary, prosaic, and uninteresting. Only one thing faintly stirred his curiosity—the terrible, as it were intentionally designed, bad taste which was visible in the cornices, in the absurd pictures, in the dresses, in the bunch of ribbons. There was something characteristic and peculiar in this bad taste.
“How poor and stupid it all is!” thought Vassilyev. “What is there in all this trumpery I see now that can tempt a normal man and excite him to commit the horrible sin of buying a human being for a rouble? I understand any sin for the sake of splendor, beauty, grace, passion, taste; but what is there here? What is there here worth sinning for? But... one mustn’t think!”
“Beardy, treat me to some porter!” said the fair girl, addressing him.
Vassilyev was at once overcome with confusion.
“With pleasure,” he said, bowing politely. “Only excuse me, madam, I.... I won’t drink with you. I don’t drink.”
Five minutes later the friends went off into another house.
“Why did you ask for porter?” said the medical student angrily. “What a millionaire! You have thrown away six roubles for no reason whatever—simply waste!”