However, all the men strove for the very same thing--even the most
wretched, monstrous, misshapen and impotent of them--and ancient
experience had long ago taught the women to imitate with voice and
movements the most flaming passion, retaining in the most
tempestuous minutes the fullest sang froid.
"You might at least order the musicians to play a polka. Let the
girls dance a little," asked Liuba grumblingly.
That suited him. Under cover of the music, amid the jostling of
the dances, it was far more convenient to get up courage, arise,
and lead one of the girls out of the drawing room, than to do it
amid the general silence and the finical immobility.
"And how much does that cost?" he asked cautiously.
"A quadrille is half a rouble; but ordinary dances are thirty
kopecks. Is it all right then?"
"Well, of course...if you please...I don't begrudge it," he
agreed, pretending to be generous...
"Whom do you speak to?"
"Why, over there--to the musicians."
"Why not? ... I'll do it with pleasure...Mister musician,
something in the light dances, if you please," he said, laying
down his silver on the pianoforte.
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