But was it not a dream? Could it be that she, for one of whose heavenly glances he would be ready to give his whole life, to approach whose dwelling he already counted an inexplicable bliss- could it be that she had just shown him such favor and attention? He flew up the stairs. He did not feel any earthly thought; he was not heated with the flame of earthly passion, no, at that moment he was pure and chaste, like a virginal youth, still breathing the vague spiritual need for love. And that which in a depraved man would arouse bold thoughts, that same thing, on the contrary, made him still more radiant. This trust which a weak, beautiful being had shown in him, this trust imposed on him a vow of chivalric rigor, a vow slavishly to fulfill all her commands. He wished only for her commands to be all the more difficult and unrealizable, so that he could fly to overcome them with the greater effort. He had no doubt that some secret and at the same time important reason had made the unknown woman entrust herself to him, that some important services would surely be required of him, and he already felt in himself enough strength and resolve for everything.
The stairway wound around, and his quick dreams wound with it. "Watch your step!" a voice sounded like a harp and filled his veins with fresh trembling. On the dark height of the fourth floor, the unknown lady knocked at the door-it opened, and they went in together. A rather good-looking woman met them with a candle in her hand, but she gave Piskarev such a strange and insolent look that he involuntarily lowered his eyes. They went into the room. Three female figures in different corners appeared before his eyes. One was laying out cards; the second sat at a piano and with two fingers picked out some pathetic semblance of an old polonaise; the third sat before a mirror combing her long hair and never thought of interrupting her toilette at the entrance of a stranger. Some unpleasant disorder, to be met with only in the carefree room of a bachelor, reigned over all. The rather nice furniture was covered with dust; a spider had spread its web over a molded cornice; in the half-open doorway to another room, a spurred boot gleamed and the red piping of a uniform flitted: a loud male voice and female laughter rang out unrestrainedly.
God, where had he come! At first he refused to believe it and began studying the objects that filled the room more attentively; but the bare walls and curtainless windows showed no presence of a thoughtful housewife; the worn faces of these pathetic creatures, one of whom sat down almost in front of his nose and gazed at him as calmly as at a spot on someone's clothes-all this convinced him that he had come to one of those revolting havens where pathetic depravity makes its abode, born of tawdry education and the terrible populousness of the capital. One of those havens where man blasphemously crushes and derides all the pure and holy that adorns life, where woman, the beauty of the world, the crown of creation, turns into some strange, ambiguous being, where, along with purity of soul, she loses everything feminine and repulsively adopts all the mannerisms and insolence of a man, and ceases to be that weak, that beautiful being so different from us. Piskarev looked her up and down with astonished eyes, as if still wishing to make sure that it was she who had so bewitched him and swept him away on Nevsky Prospect. But she stood before him as beautiful as ever; her hair was as wonderful; her eyes seemed as heavenly. She was fresh; she was just seventeen; one could see that terrible depravity had overtaken her only recently; it had not yet dared to touch her cheeks, they were fresh and lightly tinted by a fine blush-she was beautiful.
He stood motionless before her and was about to fall into the same simple-hearted reverie as earlier. But the beauty got bored with such long silence and smiled significantly, looking straight into his eyes. Yet this smile was filled with some pathetic insolence; it was as strange and as suited to her face as an expression of piety is to the mug of a bribe-taker, or an accountant's ledger to a poet. He shuddered. She opened her pretty lips and began to say something, but it was all so stupid, so trite… As if intelligence left a person together with chastity. He did not want to hear any more. He was extremely ridiculous and as simple as a child. Instead of taking advantage of this favor, instead of being glad of such an occasion, as anyone else in his place would undoubtedly have been, he rushed out headlong, like a wild goat, and ran down to the street.
His head bowed, his arms hanging limp, he sat in his room like a poor man who found a priceless pearl and straightaway dropped it into the sea. "Such a beauty, such divine features-and where, in what place!…" That was all he was able to utter.
Indeed, pity never possesses us so strongly as at the sight of beauty touched by the corrupting breath of depravity. Let ugliness make friends with it, but beauty, tender beauty… in our thoughts it is united only with chastity and purity. The beauty who had so bewitched poor Piskarev was in fact a marvelous, extraordinary phenomenon. Her presence in that despicable circle seemed still more extraordinary. Her features were all so purely formed, the whole expression of her beautiful face was marked by such nobility, that it was simply impossible to think that depravity had stretched out its terrible claws over her. She would have been a priceless pearl, the whole world, the whole paradise, the whole wealth of an ardent husband; she would have been the beautiful, gentle star of an unostentatious family circle, and would have given sweet orders with one movement of her beautiful mouth. She would have been a divinity in a crowded hall, on the bright parquet, in the glow of candles, the awestruck company of her admirers lying speechless at her feet. But, alas! by the terrible will of some infernal spirit who wishes to destroy the harmony of life, she had been flung, with a loud laugh, into the abyss.
Filled with rending pity, he sat by a guttering candle. It was long after midnight, the bell in the tower struck half-past, and he sat fixed, sleepless, keeping a pointless vigil. Drowsiness, taking advantage of his fixity, was gradually beginning to come over him, the room was already beginning to disappear, only the light of the candle penetrated the reveries that were coming over him, when suddenly a knock at the door made him start and come to his senses. The door opened and a lackey in rich livery came in. Never had rich livery visited his solitary room, and that at such an unusual hour… He was perplexed and looked at the entering lackey with impatient curiosity.