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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 extraordinarily lively, strolling about the room, laughing and praising the music and the songs, admiring every one and everything. Maximov, blissfully drunk, never left his side. Grushenka, too, was beginning to get drunk.
“I’m not hindering them, pani,” said the Pole in the wig, with a long look at Grushenka, and relapsing into dignified silence he sucked his pipe again. “No, no. The Polish gentleman spoke the truth.” Kalganov got excited again, as though it were a question of vast import. “He’s never been in Poland, so how can he talk about it? I suppose you weren’t married in Poland, were you?”
“Don’t mention it; it doesn’t matter. Keep it up as long as you like....” “What’s the matter with him?” Mitya wondered for an instant, and he ran back to the room where the girls were dancing. But she was not there. She was not in the blue room either; there was no one but Kalganov asleep on the sofa. Mitya peeped behind the curtain—she was there. She was sitting in the corner, on a trunk.
“On the double!” shouted Mitya furiously. “You’ve lost two hundred, panie. Will you stake another hundred?” the Pole on the sofa inquired. “What? Lost two hundred already? Then another two hundred! All doubles!” And pulling his money out of his pocket, Mitya was about to fling two hundred roubles on the queen, but Kalganov covered it with his hand.
If he used Russian words, he always distorted them into a Polish form. “But I was married to a Polish lady myself,” tittered Maximov. “But did you serve in the cavalry? You were talking about the cavalry. Were you a cavalry officer?” put in Kalganov at once. “Was he a cavalry officer indeed?
And you, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, have abandoned your betrothed for that ‘creature,’ so you must yourself have thought that your betrothed couldn’t hold a candle to her. That’s the woman called a ‘creature’!” “Shameful!” broke from Father Iosif. “Shameful and disgraceful!” Kalganov, flushing crimson, cried in a boyish voice, trembling with emotion. He had been silent till that moment.
When it got dark and the shutters were closed, Fenya asked her mistress: “Is the gentleman going to stay the night, mistress?” “Yes; make him a bed on the sofa,” answered Grushenka. Questioning him more in detail, Grushenka learned from him that he had literally nowhere to go, and that “Mr. Kalganov, my benefactor, told me straight that he wouldn’t receive me again and gave me five roubles.”
It consisted of nothing but skipping and hopping, kicking up the feet, and at every skip Maximov slapped the upturned sole of his foot. Kalganov did not like it at all, but Mitya kissed the dancer. “Thanks. You’re tired perhaps? What are you looking for here? Would you like some sweets? A cigar, perhaps?” “A cigarette.” “Don’t you want a drink?”
Mitya snatched up the bottle, but he was so bewildered that he did not know what to do with it. Kalganov took it from him and poured out the champagne. “Another! Another bottle!” Mitya cried to the innkeeper, and, forgetting to clink glasses with the Pole whom he had so solemnly invited to drink to their good understanding, he drank off his glass without waiting for any one else.
He merely observed, as he put them on, that the clothes were much better than his old ones, and that he disliked “gaining by the change.” The coat was, besides, “ridiculously tight. Am I to be dressed up like a fool ... for your amusement?” They urged upon him again that he was exaggerating, that Kalganov was only a little taller, so that only the trousers might be a little too long.
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