The cabmen were sitting on their boxes as calmly and indifferently as in any other side street; the same passers-by were walking along the pavement as in other streets.  No one was hurrying, no one was hiding his face in his coat-collar, no one shook his head reproachfully....  And in this indifference to the noisy chaos of pianos and violins, to the bright windows and wide-open doors, there was a feeling of something very open, insolent, reckless, and devil-may-care.  Probably it was as gay and noisy at the slave-markets in their day, and people’s faces and movements showed the same indifference.

“Let us begin from the beginning,” said the artist.

The friends went into a narrow passage lighted by a lamp with a reflector.  When they opened the door a man in a black coat, with an unshaven face like a flunkey’s, and sleepy-looking eyes, got up lazily from a yellow sofa in the hall.  The place smelt like a laundry with an odor of vinegar in addition.  A door from the hall led into a brightly lighted room.  The medical student and the artist stopped at this door and, craning their necks, peeped into the room.

“Buona sera, signori, rigolleto—­hugenotti—­traviata!” began the artist, with a theatrical bow.

“Havanna—­tarakano—­pistoleto!” said the medical student, pressing his cap to his breast and bowing low.

Vassilyev was standing behind them.  He would have liked to make a theatrical bow and say something silly, too, but he only smiled, felt an awkwardness that was like shame, and waited impatiently for what would happen next.

A little fair girl of seventeen or eighteen, with short hair, in a short light-blue frock with a bunch of white ribbon on her bosom, appeared in the doorway.

“Why do you stand at the door?” she said.  “Take off your coats and come into the drawing-room.”

The medical student and the artist, still talking Italian, went into the drawing-room.  Vassilyev followed them irresolutely.

“Gentlemen, take off your coats!” the flunkey said sternly; “you can’t go in like that.”

In the drawing-room there was, besides the girl, another woman, very stout and tall, with a foreign face and bare arms.  She was sitting near the piano, laying out a game of patience on her lap.  She took no notice whatever of the visitors.

“Where are the other young ladies?” asked the medical student.

“They are having their tea,” said the fair girl.  “Stepan,” she called, “go and tell the young ladies some students have come!”

A little later a third young lady came into the room.  She was wearing a bright red dress with blue stripes.  Her face was painted thickly and unskillfully, her brow was hidden under her hair, and there was an unblinking, frightened stare in her eyes.  As she came in, she began at once singing some song in a coarse, powerful contralto.  After her a fourth appeared, and after her a fifth....