But Borya could not leave off.  He had an unfortunate peculiarity—­ intoxication acted neither upon his legs nor his tongue, but put him in a morose, touchy frame of mind and egged him on into quarrels.  And Platonov had already for a long time irritated him with his negligently sincere, assured and serious bearing, so little suitable to the private cabinet of a brothel.  But the seeming indifference with which the reporter let pass the malicious remarks which he interposed into the conversation angered Sobashnikov still more.

“And then, the tone in which he permits himself to speak in our company!” Sobashnikov continued to seethe.  “A certain aplomb, condescension, a professorial tone ...  The scurvy penny-a-liner!  The free-lunch grafter!”

Jennie, who had all the time been looking intently at the student, gaily and maliciously flashing with her sparkling dark eyes, suddenly began to clap her hands.

“That’s the way!  Bravo, little student!  Bravo, bravo, bravo! ...  That’s the way, give it to him good! ...  Really, what sort of a disgrace is this!  When he’ll come, now, I’ll repeat everything to him.”

“I—­if you please!  A—­as much as you like!” Sobashnikov drawled out like an actor, making superciliously squeamish creases about his mouth.  “I shall repeat the very same things myself.”

“There’s a fine fellow, now,—­I love you for that!” exclaimed Jennie joyously and maliciously, striking her fist on the table.  “You can tell an owl at once by its flight, a good man by his snot!”

Little White Manya and Tamara looked at Jennie with wonder, but, noting the evil little lights leaping in her eyes and her nervously quivering nostrils, they both understood and smiled.

Little White Manya, laughing, shook her head reproachfully.  Jennie always had such a face when her turbulent soul sensed that a scandal was nearing which she herself had brought on.

“Don’t get your back up, Borinka,” said Lichonin.  “Here all are equal.”

Niura came with a pillow and laid it down on the divan.

“And what’s that for?” Sobashnikov yelled at her.  Git! take it away at once.  This isn’t a lodging house.”

“Now, leave her be, honey.  What’s that to you?” retorted Jennie in a sweet voice and hid the pillow behind Tamara’s back.  “Wait, sweetie, I’d better sit with you for a while.”

She walked around the table, forced Boris to sit on a chair, and herself got up on his knees.  Twining his neck with her arm, she pressed her lips to his mouth, so long and so vigorously that the student caught his breath.  Right up close to his eyes he saw the eyes of the woman—­strangely large, dark, luminous, indistinct and unmoving.  For a quarter of a second or so, for an instant, it seemed to him that in these unliving eyes was impressed an expression of keen, mad hate; and the chill of terror, some vague premonition of an ominous, inevitable calamity flashed through the student’s brain.  With difficulty tearing the supple arms of Jennie away from him, and pushing her away, he said, laughing, having turned red and breathing hard: