Nekhludoff understood that the only purpose for which she had brought him to the theatre was to display her evening toilet with her shoulders and mole, and he was both pleased and disgusted.  Now he saw what was under the veil of the charm that at first attracted him.  Looking on Mariette, he admired her, but he knew that she was a prevaricator who was living with her career-making husband; that what she had said the other day was untrue, and that she only wished—­and neither knew why—­to make him love her.  And, as has been said, he was both pleased and disgusted.  Several times he attempted to leave, took his hat but still remained.  But finally, when the general, his thick mustache reeking with tobacco, returned to the box and glanced at Nekhludoff patronizingly disdainful, as if he did not recognize him, Nekhludoff walked out before the door closed behind the general, and, finding his overcoat, left the theatre.

On his way home he suddenly noticed before him a tall, well-built, loudly-dressed woman.  Every passer-by turned to look at her.  Nekhludoff walked quicker than the woman, and also involuntarily looked her in the face.  Her face, probably rouged, was pretty; her eyes flashed at him, and she smiled.  Nekhludoff involuntarily thought of Mariette, for he experienced the same feeling of attraction and disgust which took hold of him in the theatre.  Passing her hastily, Nekhludoff turned the corner of the street, and, to the surprise of the policeman, began to walk up and down the water-front.

“That one in the theatre also smiled that way when I entered,” he thought, “and the smile of the former conveyed the same meaning as that of the latter.  The only difference between them is that this one speaks openly and plainly, while the other pretends to be exercising higher and refined feelings.  But in reality they are alike.  This one is at least truthful, while the other is lying.”  Nekhludoff recalled his relations with the wife of the district commander, and a flood of shameful recollections came upon him.  “There is a disgusting bestiality in man,” he thought; “but when it is in a primitive state, one looks down upon and despises it, whether he is carried away with or withstands it.  But when this same bestiality hides itself under a so-called aesthetic, poetic cover, and demands to be worshiped, then, deifying the beast, one gives himself up to it, without distinguishing between the good and the bad.  Then it is horrible.”

As there was no soothing, rest-giving darkness that night, but instead there was a hazy, cheerless, unnatural light, so even was there no rest-giving darkness—­ignorance—­for Nekhludoff’s soul.  Everything was clear.  It was plain that all that is considered important and useful is really insignificant and wicked, and that all that splendor and luxury were hiding old crimes, familiar to every one, and not only stalking unpunished, but triumphing and adorned with all the allurements man is capable of conceiving.