“And so do I,” cried voices. “I too think it would make our proceedings more in order,” confirmed Virginsky.
“To the vote then,” said his wife. “Lyamshin, please sit down to the piano; you can give your vote from there when the voting begins.”
“Again!” cried Lyamshin. “I’ve strummed enough for you.”
“I beg you most particularly, sit down and play. Don’t you care to do anything for the cause?”
“But I assure you, Arina Prohorovna, nobody is eavesdropping. It’s only your fancy. Besides, the windows are high, and people would not understand if they did hear.”
“We don’t understand ourselves,” someone muttered. “But I tell you one must always be on one’s guard. I mean in case there should be spies,” she explained to Verhovensky. “Let them hear from the street that we have music and a name-day party.”
“Hang it all!” Lyamshin swore, and sitting down to the piano, began strumming a valse, banging on the keys almost with his fists, at random.
“I propose that those who want it to be a meeting should put up their right hands,” Madame Virginsky proposed.
Some put them up, others did not. Some held them up and then put them down again and then held them up again. “Foo! I don’t understand it at all,” one officer shouted. “I don’t either,” cried the other.
“Oh, I understand,” cried a third. “If it’s yes, you hold your hand up.”