The stout girl turned, and left scraping her feet. Zarubin bending over to Yevsey began insinuatingly and didactically:
"You see, Yevsey, of course this is an establishment of such a kind, and so on, but still the girls are human beings like you and me. Why should you insult them uselessly? Ugh! They're not all here of their own accord."
"Stop!" said Klimkov.
He wanted everything around him to be quiet. He wanted the girls to cease floating in the air, like melancholy drifts of spring clouds torn by the wind. He wanted the shaven pianist with the dark blue face, like that of a drowned person, to stop rapping his fingers on the yellow teeth of the piano, which resembled the jaw of a huge monster, a monster that roared and shrieked loud laughter. He wanted the curtains of the windows to cease flapping so strangely, as if someone's unseen and spiteful hand were pulling at them from the street. Olga dressed in white should station herself at the door. Then he would rise, walk around the room, and would strike everybody in the face with all his might. Let Olga see that they were all repulsive to him, and that she wasn't right, and understood nothing.
The complaining words of Zarubin settled themselves obstinately in his ears:
"We came here to make merry, but you at once begin a scandal."
Yevsey, his whole body swaying, gave a dull glance into Yakov's face, and suddenly said to himself with cold precision:
"On account of that—sneak, I fell into this pit of an infernal life. All on account of him!"
He took a full bottle of beer into his hands, filled a glass for himself, drank it out, and without letting go of the bottle, rose from his seat.
"The money is mine, not yours, you skunk!"