Almost all the officials had asked for their salary in advance, and some of the landowners sold beasts they could ill spare, and all simply to bring their ladies got up as marchionesses, and to be as good as anybody.
The magnificence of dresses on this occasion was something unheard of in our neighbourhood.
For a fortnight beforehand the town was overflowing with funny stories which were all brought by our wits to Yulia Mihailovna's court.
Caricatures were passed from hand to hand.
I have seen some drawings of the sort myself, in Yulia Mihailovna's album.
All this reached the ears of the families who were the source of the jokes; I believe this was the cause of the general hatred of Yulia Mihailovna which had grown so strong in the town.
People swear and gnash their teeth when they think of it now.
But it was evident, even at the time, that if the committee were to displease them in anything, or if anything went wrong at the ball, the outburst of indignation would be something surprising.
That's why every one was secretly expecting a scandal; and if it was so confidently expected, how could it fail to come to pass?
The orchestra struck up punctually at midday.
Being one of the stewards, that is, one of the twelve "young men with a rosette," I saw with my own eyes how this day of ignominious memory began.
It began with an enormous crush at the doors.
How was it that everything, including the police, went wrong that day?
I don't blame the genuine public: the fathers of families did not crowd, nor did they push against anyone, in spite of their position. On the contrary, I am told that they were disconcerted even in the street, at the sight of the crowd shoving in a way unheard of in our town, besieging the entry and taking it by assault, instead of simply going in.
Meanwhile the carriages kept driving up, and at last blocked the street.
Now, at the time I write, I have good grounds for affirming that some of the lowest rabble of our town were brought in without tickets by Lyamshin and Liputin, possibly, too, by other people who were stewards like me.
Anyway, some complete strangers, who had come from the surrounding districts and elsewhere, were present.
As soon as these savages entered the hall they began asking where the buffet was, as though they had been put up to it beforehand, and learning that there was no buffet they began swearing with brutal directness, and an unprecedented insolence; some of them, it is true, were drunk when they came.
Some of them were dazed like savages at the splendour of the hall, as they had never seen anything like it, and subsided for a minute gazing at it open-mouthed.
This great White Hall really was magnificent, though the building was falling into decay: it was of immense size, with two rows of windows, with an old-fashioned ceiling covered with gilt carving, with a gallery with mirrors on the walls, red and white draperies, marble statues (nondescript but still statues) with heavy old furniture of the Napoleonic period, white and gold, upholstered in red velvet.
At the moment I am describing, a high platform had been put up for the literary gentlemen who were to read, and the whole hall was filled with chairs like the parterre of a theatre with wide aisles for the audience.
But after the first moments of surprise the most senseless questions and protests followed.
"Perhaps we don't care for a reading.... We've paid our money.... The audience has been impudently swindled.... This is our entertainment, not the Lembkes!"
They seemed, in fact, to have been let in for this purpose.
I remember specially an encounter in which the princeling with the stand-up collar and the face of a Dutch doll, whom I had met the morning before at Yulia Mihailovna's, distinguished himself.
He had, at her urgent request, consented to pin a rosette on his left shoulder and to become one of our stewards.
It turned out that this dumb wax figure could act after a fashion of his own, if he could not talk.
When a colossal pockmarked captain, supported by a herd of rabble following at his heels, pestered him by asking "which way to the buffet?" he made a sign to a police sergeant.
His hint was promptly acted upon, and in spite of the drunken captain's abuse he was dragged out of the hall.
Meantime the genuine public began to make its appearance, and stretched in three long files between the chairs.
The disorderly elements began to subside, but the public, even the most "respectable" among them, had a dissatisfied and perplexed air; some of the ladies looked positively scared.
At last all were seated; the music ceased.
People began blowing their noses and looking about them.
They waited with too solemn an air—which is always a bad sign.
But nothing was to be seen yet of the Lembkes.
Silks, velvets, diamonds glowed and sparkled on every side; whiffs of fragrance filled the air.
The men were wearing all their decorations, and the old men were even in uniform.
At last the marshal's wife came in with Liza.
Liza had never been so dazzlingly charming or so splendidly dressed as that morning.
Her hair was done up in curls, her eyes sparkled, a smile beamed on her face.
She made an unmistakable sensation: people scrutinised her and whispered about her.
They said that she was looking for Stavrogin, but neither Stavrogin nor Varvara Petrovna were there.
At the time I did not understand the expression of her face: why was there so much happiness, such joy, such energy and strength in that face?
I remembered what had happened the day before and could not make it out.
But still the Lembkes did not come.
This was distinctly a blunder.
I learned that Yulia Mihailovna waited till the last minute for Pyotr Stepanovitch, without whom she could not stir a step, though she never admitted it to herself.
I must mention, in parenthesis, that on the previous day Pyotr Stepanovitch had at the last meeting of the committee declined to wear the rosette of a steward, which had disappointed her dreadfully, even to the point of tears.
To her surprise and, later on, her extreme discomfiture (to anticipate things) he vanished for the whole morning and did not make his appearance at the literary matinee at all, so that no one met him till evening.
At last the audience began to manifest unmistakable signs of impatience.