"I've never been here before.
It's very nice."
"Ye-es," said Vorobyaninov slowly, working out the cost of what they had ordered.
"Never mind," he thought, "I'll drink some vodka and loosen up a bit.
I feel so awkward at the moment."
But when he had drunk the vodka and accompanied it with a gherkin, he did not loosen up, but rather became more gloomy.
Liza did not drink anything.
The tension continued.
Then someone else approached the table and, looking tenderly at Liza, tried to sell them flowers.
Ippolit Matveyevich pretended not to notice the bewhiskered flower seller, but he kept hovering near the table.
It was quite impossible to say nice things with him there.
They were saved for a while by the cabaret.
A well-fed man in a morning coat and patent-leather shoes came on to the stage.
"Well, here we are again," he said breezily, addressing the public. "Next on our programme we have the well-known Russian folk-singer Barbara Godlevsky."
Ippolit Matveyevich drank his vodka and said nothing.
Since Liza did not drink and kept wanting to go home, he had to hurry to finish the whole decanter.
By the time the singer had been replaced by an entertainer in a ribbed velvet shirt, who came on to the stage and began to sing:
Roaming,
You're always roaming
As though with all the life outside
Your appendix will be satisfied,
Roaming,
Ta-ra-ra-ra . . .
Ippolit Matveyevich was already well in his cups and, together with all the other customers in the restaurant, whom half an hour earlier he had considered rude and niggardly Soviet thugs, was clapping in time to the music and joining in the chorus:
Roaming,
Ta-ra-ra-ra . . .
He kept jumping up and going to the gentlemen's without excusing himself.
The nearby tables had already begun calling him "daddy", and invited him over for a glass of beer.
But he did not go.
He suddenly became proud and suspicious.
Liza stood up determinedly.
"I'm going.
You stay.
I can go home by myself."
"Certainly not I As a member of the upper class I cannot allow that.
"Carport!
The bill!
Bums!"
Ippolit Matveyevich stared at the bill for some time, swaying in his chair.
"Nine roubles, twenty kopeks," he muttered. "Perhaps you'd also like the key of the apartment where the money is."
He ended up by being marched downstairs by the arm.
Liza could not escape, since the social lion had the cloakroom ticket.
In the first side street Ippolit Matveyevich leaned against Liza and began to paw her.
Liza fought him off.
"Stop it!" she cried. "Stop it! Stop it!"
"Let's go to a hotel," Vorobyaninov urged.
Liza freed herself with difficulty and, without taking aim, punched the lady-killer on the nose.
The pince-nez with the gold nose-piece fell to the ground and, getting in the way of one of the square-toed baronial boots broke with a crunch.
The evening breeze Sighs through the trees
Choking back her tears, Liza ran home down Silver Lane.