legant young man, with white eyebrows and
eyelashes, and a cataract in his right eye. The while there were no
guests, he and Isaiah Savvich quietly rehearsed Pas d'Espagne, at that
time coming into fashion. For every dance ordered by the guests, they
received thirty kopecks for an easy dance, and a half rouble for a
quadrille. But one-half of this price was taken out by the
proprietress, Anna Markovna; the other, however, the musicians divided
evenly. In this manner the pianist received only a quarter of the
general earnings, which, of course, was unjust, since Isaiah Savvich
played as one self-taught and was distinguished for having no more ear
for music than a piece of wood. The pianist was constantly compelled to
drag him on to new tunes, to correct and cover his mistakes with loud
chords. The girls said of their pianist to the guests, with a certain
pride, that he had been in the conservatory and always ranked as the
first pupil, but since he is a Jew, and in addition to that his eyes
had begun to trouble him, he had not succeeded in completing the
course. They all treated him carefully and considerately, with some
sort of solicitous, somewhat mawkish, commiseration, which chimes so
well with the inner, backstage customs of houses of ill-fame, where
underneath the outer coarseness and the flaunting of obscene words
dwells the same sweetish, hysterical sentimentality as in female
boarding schools, and, so they say, in penal institutions.

In the house of Anna Markovna everybody was already dressed and ready
for the reception of the guests, and languishing from inaction and
expectation. Despite the fact that the majority of the women
experienced toward men--with the exception of their lovers--a complete,
even somewhat squeamish, indifference, before every evening dim hopes
came to life and stirred within their souls; it was unknown who would
choose them, whether something unusual, funny and alluring might not
happen, whether a guest would not astonish with his generosity, whether
there would not be some miracle which would overturn the whole
life...In these presentiments and hopes was something akin to those
emotions which the accustomed gamester experiences when counting his
ready money before starting out for his club. Besides that, despite
their asexuality, they still had not lost the chiefest instinctive
aspiration of women--to please.

And, in truth, altogether curious personages came into the house at
times an