"How did he win her heart?" asked Vassilyev.

"By spending fifty roubles on underclothes for her. What next!"

"So he knew how to get his partner's story out of her," thought
Vassilyev about the medical student. "But I don't know how to."

"I say, I am going home!" he said.

"What for?"

"Because I don't know how to behave here. Besides, I am bored,
disgusted. What is there amusing in it? If they were human beings--but
they are savages and animals. I am going; do as you like."

"Come, Grisha, Grigory, darling..." said the artist in a tearful
voice, hugging Vassilyev, "come along! Let's go to one more together and
damnation take them!... Please do, Grisha!"

They persuaded Vassilyev and led him up a staircase. In the carpet and
the gilt banisters, in the porter who opened the door, and in the panels
that decorated the hall, the same S. Street style was apparent, but
carried to a greater perfection, more imposing.

"I really will go home!" said Vassilyev as he was taking off his coat.

"Come, come, dear boy," said the artist, and he kissed him on the neck.
"Don't be tiresome.... Gri-gri, be a good comrade! We came together,
we will go back together. What a beast you are, really!"