But all of the remaining students as well, save Lichonin, one after the other, some on the quiet, some under one pretext or another, vanished from the cabinet and did not return for long periods.  Volodya Pavlov experienced a desire to look at the dancing; Tolpygin’s head began to ache badly, and he asked Tamara to lead him somewhere where he might wash up; Petrovski, having “touched” Lichonin for three roubles on the quiet, went out into the corridor and only from there despatched the housekeeper Zociya for Little White Manka.  Even the prudent and fastidious Ramses could not cope with that spicy feeling which to-day’s strange, vivid and unwholesome beauty of Jennie excited in him.  It proved that he had some important, undeferrable business this morning; it was necessary to go home and snatch a bit of sleep if only for a couple of hours.  But, having told good-bye to his companions, he, before going out of the cabinet, rapidly and with deep significance pointed the door out to Jennie with his eyes.  She understood, slowly, scarcely perceptibly, lowered her eyelashes as a sign of consent, and, when she again raised them, Platonov, who almost without looking had seen this silent dialogue, was struck by that expression of malice and menace in her eyes which she sped the back of the departing Ramses.  Having waited for five minutes she got up, said “Excuse me, I’ll be right back,” and went out, swinging her short orange skirt.

“Well, now?  Is it your turn, Lichonin?” asked the reporter banteringly.

“No, brother, you’re mistaken!” said Lichonin and clacked his tongue.  “And I’m not doing it out of conviction or on principle, either ...  No!  I, as an anarchist, proclaim the gospel that the worse things are, the better ...  But, fortunately, I am a gambler and spend all my temperament on gaming; on that account simple squeamishness speaks louder within me than this same unearthly feeling.  But it’s amazing our thoughts coincided.  I just wanted to ask you about the same thing.”

“I—­no.  Sometimes, if I become very much tired out, I sleep here over night.  I take from Isaiah Savvich the key to his little room and sleep on the divan.  But all the girls here are already used to the fact that I am a being of the third sex.”

“And really ... never? ...”

“Never.”

“Well, what’s right is right!” exclaimed Nhira.  “Sergei Ivanich is like a holy hermit.”

“Previously, some five years ago, I experienced this also,” continued Platonov.  “But, do you know, it’s really too tedious and disgusting.  Something on the nature of these flies which the actor gentleman just represented.  They’re stuck together on the window sill, and then in some sort of fool wonder scratch their backs with their little hind legs and fly apart forever.  And to play at love here? ...  Well, for that I’m no hero out of their sort of novel.  I’m not handsome, am shy with women, uneasy, and polite.  While here they thirst for savage passions, bloody jealousy,