o by cotton curtains, behind which was
a huge bed with a puffy feather mattress and a pyramid of cotton pillows.
In the four rooms for visitors there were beds. Grushenka settled herself
just at the door. Mitya set an easy chair for her. She had sat in the same
place to watch the dancing and singing "the time before," when they had
made merry there. All the girls who had come had been there then; the
Jewish band with fiddles and zithers had come, too, and at last the long
expected cart had arrived with the wines and provisions.

Mitya bustled about. All sorts of people began coming into the room to
look on, peasants and their women, who had been roused from sleep and
attracted by the hopes of another marvelous entertainment such as they had
enjoyed a month before. Mitya remembered their faces, greeting and
embracing every one he knew. He uncorked bottles and poured out wine for
every one who presented himself. Only the girls were very eager for the
champagne. The men preferred rum, brandy, and, above all, hot punch. Mitya
had chocolate made for all the girls, and ordered that three samovars
should be kept boiling all night to provide tea and punch for everyone to
help himself.

An absurd chaotic confusion followed, but Mitya was in his natural
element, and the more foolish it became, the more his spirits rose. If the
peasants had asked him for money at that moment, he would have pulled out
his notes and given them away right and left. This was probably why the
landlord, Trifon Borissovitch, kept hovering about Mitya to protect him.
He seemed to have given up all idea of going to bed that night; but he
drank little, only one glass of punch, and kept a sharp look-out on
Mitya's interests after his own fashion. He intervened in the nick of
time, civilly and obsequiously persuading Mitya not to give away "cigars
and Rhine wine," and, above all, money to the peasants as he had done
before. He was very indignant, too, at the peasant girls drinking liqueur,
and eating sweets.

"They're a lousy lot, Dmitri Fyodorovitch," he said. "I'd give them a
kick, every one of them, and they'd take it as an honor--that's all they're
worth!"

Mitya remembered Andrey again, and ordered punch to be sent out to him. "I
was rude to him just now," he repeated with a sinking, softened voice.
Kalganov did not want to drink, and at first did not care for the girls'
singing; but after he had drunk a couple of glasses of champagne he became
extra