assilyev was
surprised and said:

"What a lot of houses!"

"That's nothing," said the medical student. "In London there are ten
times as many. There are about a hundred thousand such women there."

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