An old paterfamilias, dragged out to see the gypsies through the irresistible entreaties of the gentlemen of the nobility, who had told him that if he staid away every thing would go to pieces, and in that case they had better not go, was lying on a sofa where he had stretched himself out immediately on his arrival; and no one paid any attention to him.
A chinovnik, who had been there before, had taken off his coat, was sitting with his legs on the table, and was rumpling up his hair, and thus proving that he understood how to be dissipated.
As soon as the count came in, the official unbuttoned his shirt-collar, and lifted his legs still higher. The count's arrival generally gave new life to the festivities.
The gypsy girls, who had been scattered about the room, again formed their circle. The count seated Stioshka, the soloist, on his knee, and ordered more champagne to be brought. Ilyushka, with his guitar, stood in front of the soloist, and began the plyaska, that is, the gypsy song and dance, "When I walk upon the Street," "Hey! you Hussars," "Do you hear, do you understand?" and others of the usual order.
Stioshka sang splendidly. Her flexible, sonorous contralto, with its deep chest notes, her smiles while she was singing, her mischievous, passionate eyes, and her little foot which involuntarily kept time to the measure of the song, her despairing wail at the end of each couplet,—this all touched some resonant but tender chord. It was evident that she lived only in the song that she was singing.
Ilyushka, in his smile, his back, his legs, his whole being, carrying out in pantomime the idea expressed in the song, accompanied it on his guitar, and, fixing his eyes upon her as though he were hearing her for the first time, attentively and carefully lifted and drooped his head with the rhythm of the song.
Then he suddenly straightened himself up as the singer sang the last note, and, as though he felt himself superior to every one else in the world, with proud deliberation kicked the guitar, turned it over, stamped his foot, tossed back his locks, and looked at the chorus with a frown.
All his body, from his neck to his toes, began to dance in every sinew.
And twenty powerful, energetic voices, each trying to outdo the other in making strange and extraordinary noises, were lifted in union.
The old women sprang down from their chairs, waving their handkerchiefs, and showing their teeth, and crying in rhythmic measure, each louder than the other. The bassos, leaning their heads on one side, and swelling their necks, bellowed from behind their chairs.