At the same time, there rang in his soul a lovely, far-away, scarcely audible music—the memory of Shurochka, but in this unconscious coincidence there was nothing low, defiling, or insulting. On the contrary, the thought of her at this moment had a refreshing, soothing, and at the same time exciting and inflaming effect on his heart.
In a short time he would then find himself in close contact with that curious, mysterious, and much-vaunted species of women that he had never gazed on before.
He dreamt of how he would meet their glances, take their hands, and listen to their merry laughter and joyous songs, and he felt that all this would bring him relief and consolation in his incessant longing and torturing desire for Shurochka, the only woman in the world who existed for him.
In all these dreams, however, there was not a trace of degraded, sensual lust. As a dead-tired bird on the wing rushes, in the cold and darkness of an autumn night, blindly against the irresistibly attractive flood of light from the lighthouse, so, too, his soul, tortured by a cruel and capricious woman, was drawn into this sphere of undisguised, sensual tenderness and careless, boisterous merriment.
Suddenly the horses made a sharp swerve to the right, and at once the noise of the carriage and the squeaking of the wheel-tyres ceased.
The carriage rocked here and there in the shallow cavities of the deep, sandy road.
Romashov opened his eyes.
Far beneath him and on a wide stretch of land, a multitude of small lights or lamps here and there cast their faint, uncertain glimmer.
Now they disappeared behind invisible trees and houses, now they bobbed up before his eyes, and it looked as if a huge, fantastic, disordered crowd of people or a procession with torches and lanterns was moving forward down the road.
An acrid smell of wormwood, a big dark branch slowly waved up and down over the heads of the parties who were being driven along, and, at the same time, they found themselves suddenly environed by a new atmosphere—cold, raw, and moist, as if it had arisen from a vault.
“Where are we?” asked Romashov.
“At Savalie,” shrieked in reply the dark figure sitting on the box-seat, in whom Romashov now recognized Lieutenant Epifanov.
“We’re at Schleyfer’s, you know.
Haven’t you ever been here before?”
“Go to hell,” grumbled Romashov.
Epifanov kept on laughing.
“Hark you, Yuri Alexievich, shall we tell the little darlings in a whisper what an innocent you are? Later on, you’ll put all our noses out of joint.”
Again Romashov felt, half-unconsciously, that he had sunk back into impenetrable darkness, until he, as suddenly, found himself standing in a large room with parqueted floor and Vienna chairs along the walls.
Over the entrance to the room, and over three other doors leading to small, dark chambers, lay hangings of red and yellow flowered cotton.
Curtains of the same stuff and colour flickered in the draught from the windows opened on a gloomy backyard.
Lamps were burning on the walls, but the great room was filled with smoke and the smell of meat from the adjacent kitchen; and the fumes were only dispersed occasionally by the balmy spring air entering through the window, and by the fresh scent of the white acacias that bloomed outside the house.
About ten officers took part in this excursion.
All seemed bent on solving the delicate problem of contriving to shriek, laugh, and bawl at the same time.
Romashov strolled about the room with a feeling of naive, unreflecting enjoyment, and, with a certain astonishment and delight, gradually recognized all his boon-companions—Biek-Agamalov, Lbov, Viatkin, Epifanov, Artschakovski, Olisar, etc.
Even Staff-Captain Lieschtschenko was discovered there. He sat huddled up in a window with his usual, eternal, resigned Weltschmerz grin.
On a table stood a respectable row of bottles containing ale and a dark, thick, syrupy cherry-cordial. No one knew who had ordered all these bottles. They were thought—like so much else that night—to have come of their own accord.
Romashov drank, proposed healths, and embraced every one he met, and began to feel sticky and messy about his lips and fingers.
There were five or six women in the room.
One of them—a girl of fourteen dressed as a page, with rose-coloured stockings—sat on Biek-Agamalov’s knee and played with his epaulettes.
Another—a big, coarse blonde in a red silk basquine and dark skirt, and with powdered face, and broad, black, painted eyebrows—went straight up to Romashov.
“Gracious, my good sir, why do you look so miserable?
Come with me into that room,” she added in a whisper.
She threw herself carelessly on a table, and there sat with one leg over the other.
Romashov noticed how the strong outlines of her well-formed knee were shown off by the thin skirt.
A shudder thrilled him, and his hands trembled.
“What’s your name?”
“Mine?
Malvina.”
She turned away with an air of indifference, and began swinging her legs.
“Order me a cigarette.”
Two Jewish musicians came on the scene, one with a violin, the other with a tambourine.
Soon a vulgar, hackneyed, screeching polka tune was heard in the room, whereupon Olisar and Artschakovski at once began to dance the cancan.
They hopped round the room first on one leg, then on the other, snapped their fingers, wagged their hips, and bent backwards and forwards with vulgar, cynical gestures.
This unattractive ballet was suddenly interrupted by Biek-Agamalov, who jumped off the table, shrieking in his sharp, penetrating voice—
“To hell with the starar!
Out with the ragtag and bobtail!”
Down by the door stood two young exquisites, both of whom had many acquaintances among officers, and had even been guests at the regimental soirees. One of them was a Treasury official, the other a landed proprietor and brother of the police magistrate of the town. They both belonged to the so-called “cream” of Society.
The Treasury official turned white, but forced a smile, and answered in an affable tone—
“Excuse me, gentlemen, but can’t we join?
We are old acquaintances, you know. My name is Dubiezki. We should not interfere with you at all.”