The report spread about town that the actors of the local theatre were going to organise a masked ball at the Club House, with prizes for the best man’s and the best woman’s costumes. There were exaggerated rumours about the prize. It was said that the best-dressed lady would receive a cow and the best-dressed man a bicycle. These rumours excited the town people. Each one was eager to win—the prizes were so considerable. The costumes were prepared in haste. No expense was spared. People hid their costumes even from their nearest friends so that their brilliant idea might not be stolen. When the printed announcement of the masked ball appeared—huge bills, pasted on fences and sent out to important tradesmen—it turned out that they were not giving a cow and a bicycle but only a fan to the lady and an album to the man. This vexed and disenchanted those who had been preparing for the ball. They began to grumble. They said:
“It’s a waste of money.”
“It’s simply ridiculous—such prizes.”
“They ought to have let us know at once.”
“It’s only in our town that the public can be treated like this.”
Nevertheless all the preparations went on: it wasn’t much of a prize, but still it would be flattering to win it.
The amount of the prize did not interest either Darya or Liudmilla. Much they wanted a cow! What a rarity a fan was! And who was going to award the prizes? We know what taste these judges have! But both sisters were captivated by the idea of sending Sasha to the masked ball in a woman’s dress, to fool the whole town and to arrange so that the lady’s prize should go to him. Valeria tired to look as if she agreed to it. It was Liudmillotchka’s little friend, he was not coming to see her, but she could not decide to quarrel with her two elder sisters. She only said with a contemptuous smile:
“He won’t dare.”
“Well,” said Darya, “we shall dress him up so that no one will recognise him.”
And when the sisters told Sasha about their project and Liudmillotchka said to him: “We will dress you up as a girl,” Sasha jumped up and down and shouted with joy. He was delighted with the idea, especially as no one would know—it would be fine to fool everyone.
They decided at once that they would dress Sasha as a Geisha. The sisters kept their idea in the strictest secrecy and did not even tell Larissa or their brother. Liudmilla herself made the costume from the design on the label of Korilopsis: it was a long full dress of yellow silk on red velvet; she sewed a bright pattern on the dress, consisting of large flowers of fantastic shape. The girls made a fan out of thin Japanese paper, with figures, on bamboo sticks, and a parasol out of thin rose silk with a bamboo handle. They bought rose coloured stockings and wooden slippers with little ridges underneath. The artist Liudmilla painted a Geisha mask: it was a yellowish but agreeable thin face, with a slight motionless smile, oblique eyes and a small, narrow mouth. They had only to get the wig from Peterburg—black, with smooth, arranged hair.
Time was needed to fit the costume and Sasha could only come in snatches and not every day. But they managed it. Sasha ran off at night by way of the window, when Kokovkina was asleep. It went off successfully.
Varvara also was preparing for the masked ball. She brought a stupid looking mask, and she didn’t worry about costume—she dressed herself as a cook. She hung a skimmer at her waist and put a white cap on her head, her arms were bare to the elbow and very heavily rouged—a cook straight from the hearth—and the costume was ready. If she got the prize, so much the better; if she didn’t, she could get on without it.
Grushina dressed herself as Diana. Varvara laughed and asked:
“Are you going to put on a collar?”
“Why a collar?” asked Grushina in astonishment.
“I thought you were going to dress up as the dog, Dianka,” explained Varvara.
“What a notion!” replied Grushina with a laugh, “not Dianka, but the Goddess, Diana.”
Varvara and Grushina dressed for the ball at Grushina’s house. Grushina’s costume was excessively scanty: bare arms and shoulders, bare neck, bare chest, her legs bare to the knee, light slippers, and a light dress of linen with a red border against the white flesh—it was quite a short dress, but broad with many folds. Varvara said with a smile:
“You aren’t overdressed!”
Grushina replied with a vulgar wink:
“It’ll attract the boys!”
“But why so many folds?” asked Varvara.
“I can fill them with sweets for my devilkins,” explained Grushina.
All of Grushina that was so boldly displayed was handsome—but what contradictions. On her skin were flea-bites, her manners were coarse and her talk was insufferably banal. Once more abused bodily beauty!
Peredonov thought that the masked ball was planned on purpose to trap him. But he went, not in costume but in a frock coat, to see for himself how plots are devised.
The thought of the masked ball delighted Sasha for many days. But later, doubts began to assail him. How could he get away from home, especially now after these recent annoyances. It would be a calamity if it were found out at the gymnasia and he would be expelled.
One of the form masters, a young man so liberal that he could not call the cat “Vaska,” but called it “the cat Vassily,” had recently made a significant observation to Sasha when he gave out the marks.
“Look here, Pilnikov, you’ll have to pay more attention to your work.”
“But I haven’t any twos,” said Sasha indifferently.
His heart fell—what would he say next? No, nothing.
