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The signalman took off his cap. "And here is Vyazovye. Here we are." A MEDICAL student called Mayer, and a pupil of the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture called Rybnikov, went one evening to see their friend Vassilyev, a law student, and suggested that he should go with them to S. Street.
The medical student appeared in the doorway. He looked from side to side, and seeing Vassilyev, said in an agitated voice: "You here! I tell you it's really impossible to go anywhere with Yegor! What a fellow he is! I don't understand him! He has got up a scene! Do you hear? Yegor!" he shouted at the door. "Yegor!" "I won't allow you to hit women!" the artist's piercing voice sounded from above.
For a long time Vassilyev would not consent to go, but in the end he put on his greatcoat and went with them. He knew nothing of fallen women except by hearsay and from books, and he had never in his life been in the houses in which they live.
"So far as I understand your questions, doctor," he said, "you want to know whether my illness is hereditary or not. It is not." The doctor proceeded to ask Vassilyev whether he had had any secret vices as a boy, or had received injuries to his head; whether he had had any aberrations, any peculiarities, or exceptional propensities.
Vassilyev lived in one of the side streets turning out of Tverskoy Boulevard. When he came out of the house with his two friends it was about eleven o'clock. The first snow had not long fallen, and all nature was under the spell of the fresh snow.
She was wearing a bright red dress with blue stripes. Her face was painted thickly and unskillfully, her brow was hidden under her hair, and there was an unblinking, frightened stare in her eyes. As she came in, she began at once singing some song in a coarse, powerful contralto. After her a fourth appeared, and after her a fifth.... In all this Vassilyev saw nothing new or interesting.
Vassilyev was at once overcome with confusion. "With pleasure," he said, bowing politely. "Only excuse me, madam, I.... I won't drink with you. I don't drink." Five minutes later the friends went off into another house. "Why did you ask for porter?" said the medical student angrily. "What a millionaire! You have thrown away six roubles for no reason whatever simply waste!"
"It's a pity I cannot describe nature," thought Vassilyev. "I might touch her by a description of nature in Tchernigov. No doubt she loves the place if she has been born there." "Are you dull here?" he asked. "Of course I am dull." "Why don't you go away from here if you are dull?" "Where should I go to? Go begging or what?" "Begging would be easier than living here." "How do you know that?
On learning that Vassilyev had taken his degree in natural science, and was now studying law, the doctor pondered. "He wrote a first-rate piece of original work last year,..." said the medical student. "I beg your pardon, but don't interrupt me; you prevent me from concentrating," said the doctor, and he smiled on one side of his face. "Though, of course, that does enter into the diagnosis.
On learning that his mother had a beautiful voice and sometimes acted on the stage, he grew more animated at once, and asked: "Excuse me, but don't you remember, perhaps, your mother had a passion for the stage?" Twenty minutes passed. Vassilyev was annoyed by the way the docto r kept stroking his knees and talking of the same thing.
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