III
The whole of that night, with its almost absurd events and ghastly "denouement" in the morning, comes back to me even now as a hideous, nightmarish dream, and constitutes—for me at least—the most difficult part of my chronicle. Though I came late to the ball, I arrived towards the end of it anyway—so quickly was it destined to end. It was already past ten when I reached the entrance of the marshal's wife's house, where the same White Hall in which the reading took place had, despite the shortness of time, been cleared and made ready to serve as the main ballroom, it was supposed, for the whole town. But however ill-disposed I had been towards the ball that morning—even so I did not anticipate the full truth: not a single family from higher circles came; even officials of any importance at all were absent—and that was an extremely marked feature. As for ladies and young girls, here Pyotr Stepanovich's (now obviously perfidious) calculations turned out to be incorrect to the highest degree: exceedingly few had appeared; there was scarcely one lady to four men, and what ladies! "Certain" wives of regimental officers, of various small fry from the post office and petty clerkdom, three doctors' wives with their daughters, two or three landowners of the poorer sort, the seven daughters and one niece of that secretary I mentioned somewhere above, some merchants' wives—was this what Yulia Mikhailovna had expected? Even half of the merchants did not come. As for the men, their mass was still indeed dense, despite the compact absence of all our nobility, but produced an ambiguous and suspicious impression. Of course, there were several rather quiet and respectful officers with their wives, several most obedient fathers of families, as again, for example, that same secretary, the father of his seven daughters. All these humble small potatoes came, so to speak, "out of inevitability," as one of these gentlemen put it. But, on the other hand, the mass of perky characters, and the mass, besides, of such persons as Pyotr Stepanovich and I had suspected of being let in to the matinée without tickets, seemed to have increased still more compared with the matinée. For the time being they were sitting in the buffet, and had gone straight to the buffet on arrival, as if the place had been appointed beforehand. At least it seemed so to me. The buffet was located at the end of the suite of rooms, in a spacious hall, where Prokhorych had installed himself with all the enticements of the club kitchen and with a tempting display of snacks and drinks. I noticed several personages there in all but torn frock coats, in the most dubious and utterly un-ball-like outfits, who had obviously been sobered up with boundless effort and for a short time only, and had been fetched from God knows where, perhaps from out of town. I knew, of course, that in accordance with Yulia Mikhailovna's idea it had been suggested to arrange a most democratic ball, "not refusing even tradesmen, if any such should happen to pay for a ticket." She could bravely utter these words in her committee, knowing perfectly well that it would not occur to any of our town tradesmen, all of them destitute, to buy a ticket. But anyway I doubted that these gloomy, all but tattered frock-coaters ought to have been let in, despite all the democratism of the committee. Who, then, had let them in, and with what purpose? Liputin and Lyamshin had been deprived of their ushers' bows (though they were present at the ball, as participants in the "quadrille of literature"); but Liputin's place had been taken, to my surprise, by that same seminarian who more than anyone else had made a scandal of the "matinée" by his skirmish with Stepan Trofimovich, and Lyamshin's by Pyotr Stepanovich himself; what, then, could be expected in such a case? I tried to listen in on conversations. Some opinions were striking in their wildness. It was maintained in one group, for example, that the whole story of Stavrogin and Liza had been fixed up by Yulia Mikhailovna, who had taken money from Stavrogin for it. The amount was even quoted. It was maintained that she had even arranged the fête for that purpose; and that was why, when they learned what was going on, half the town stayed away, and Lembke himself was so jolted that his "reason got deranged," and she was now "leading him about" insane. There was also much guffawing, hoarse, savage, and sly. Everyone criticized the ball terribly and abused Yulia Mikhailovna without any ceremony. Generally, the babble was disorderly, fragmentary, drunken, and agitated, so that it was difficult to grasp or infer anything. Simple merrymakers also found refuge in the buffet, and there were even several ladies of the sort that can no longer be surprised or frightened by anything, most jolly and amiable, mainly officers' wives, with their husbands. They settled in groups at separate tables and had an extremely merry time drinking tea. The buffet turned into a snug haven for nearly half the assembled public. And yet in a short time this whole mass was to come pouring into the ballroom; it was terrible even to think of it.
And meanwhile in the White Hall three skimpy little quadrilles had been formed, with the prince's participation. The young ladies were dancing, and their parents were rejoicing over them. But here, too, many of these respectable persons were already thinking of how, after letting their girls have fun, they could clear out in time, and not be there "once it starts." Decidedly everyone was certain that it was inevitably going to start. It would be difficult for me to describe the state of mind of Yulia Mikhailovna herself; I did not speak with her, though I came quite close to her. She did not respond to my bow on entering, because she did not notice me (really did not notice). Her face was pained, her glance haughty and disdainful, yet wandering and anxious. She was controlling herself with visible suffering—for what and for whom? She ought certainly to have left, and, above all, to have taken her husband away, yet she stayed! One could tell just by the look of her that her eyes had been "fully opened" and she had nothing more to wait for. She did not even call Pyotr Stepanovich over to her (he seemed to be avoiding her himself; I saw him in the buffet, in an exceedingly gay mood). But nevertheless she stayed at the ball and would not let Andrei Antonovich leave her side even for a moment. Oh, to the last minute she would have rejected with genuine indignation any hint at his health, even that morning, but now her eyes were to be opened in this respect as well. As for me, it seemed to me from the first glance that Andrei Antonovich looked worse than in the morning. It seemed he was in some sort of oblivion and was not quite sure where he was. Sometimes he would suddenly look around with unexpected sternness, a couple of times at me, for example. Once he tried to talk about something, began in a loud voice, and did not finish, almost throwing a scare into one humble old official who happened to be near him. But even this humble part of the public present in the White Hall gloomily and timorously avoided Yulia Mikhailovna, at the same time casting extremely strange glances at her husband, glances all too out of harmony, in their intent candor, with the fearfulness of these people.
"It was this trait that pierced me through and made me suddenly begin to guess about Andrei Antonovich," Yulia Mikhailovna privately confessed to me afterwards.
Yes, again she was to blame! Probably earlier, when, after my flight, she and Pyotr Stepanovich had decided that the ball would be and that she would be at the ball—probably she had gone again to the study of Andrei Antonovich, now finally "shaken" at the "reading," again employed all her seductions, and thus drew him along with her. But how tormented she must have been now! And still she would not leave! Whether she was tormented by pride, or was simply lost—I do not know. For all her haughtiness, she did try with humiliation and smiles to make conversation with some of the ladies, but they at once became confused, got off with a laconic, mistrustful "yes, ma'am" or "no, ma'am," and visibly avoided her.