The amount of the prize did not interest either Darya or Liudmilla. Much they wanted a cow! What a rarity a fan was! And who was going to award the prizes? We know what taste these judges have! But both sisters were captivated by the idea of sending Sasha to the masked ball in a woman's dress, to fool the whole town and to arrange so that the lady's prize should go to him. Valeria tired to look as if she agreed to it. It was Liudmillotchka's little friend, he was not coming to see her, but she could not decide to quarrel with her two elder sisters. She only said with a contemptuous smile:
"He won't dare."
"Well," said Darya, "we shall dress him up so that no one will recognise him."
And when the sisters told Sasha about their project and Liudmillotchka said to him: "We will dress you up as a girl," Sasha jumped up and down and shouted with joy. He was delighted with the idea, especially as no one would know—it would be fine to fool everyone.
They decided at once that they would dress Sasha as a Geisha. The sisters kept their idea in the strictest secrecy and did not even tell Larissa or their brother. Liudmilla herself made the costume from the design on the label of Korilopsis: it was a long full dress of yellow silk on red velvet; she sewed a bright pattern on the dress, consisting of large flowers of fantastic shape. The girls made a fan out of thin Japanese paper, with figures, on bamboo sticks, and a parasol out of thin rose silk with a bamboo handle. They bought rose coloured stockings and wooden slippers with little ridges underneath. The artist Liudmilla painted a Geisha mask: it was a yellowish but agreeable thin face, with a slight motionless smile, oblique eyes and a small, narrow mouth. They had only to get the wig from Peterburg—-black, with smooth, arranged hair.
Time was needed to fit the costume and Sasha could only come in snatches and not every day. But they managed it. Sasha ran off at night by way of the window, when Kokovkina was asleep. It went off successfully.
Varvara also was preparing for the masked ball. She brought a stupid looking mask, and she didn't worry about costume—she dressed herself as a cook. She hung a skimmer at her waist and put a white cap on her head, her arms were bare to the elbow and very heavily rouged—a cook straight from the hearth—and the costume was ready. If she got the prize, so much the better; if she didn't, she could get on without it.
Grushina dressed herself as Diana. Varvara laughed and asked:
"Are you going to put on a collar?"
"Why a collar?" asked Grushina in astonishment.