This amazing scene lasted fully a quarter of an hour and then ended suddenly. Everybody seemed to be exhausted. It was only then that Aunt Betty’s voice was heard above the uproar.
“Do ye want to get me run in be the police?” she cried.
“It’s all right, mother,” said Gypo, going up to her and putting his arm around her waist. “Yer a nice girl. I’ll keep order here for ye. Now who is kickin’ up a row? The next fellah that speaks above a whisper I’ll open his skull for him.”
“Would you, though?” cried the young man who was stripping himself naked. He stood in front of the fire in his trousers and underwear with his shirt in his hand. “I’ll teach you manners, my good fellow,” he continued, pulling up his trousers and brandishing his shirt. “Come on. I’ll teach you how to behave yourself in the presence of gentlemen.”
But somebody pulled him on to a settee before he could do anything. Gypo looked at him for a moment and then he laughed. His eyes were gleaming. The quantity of whisky he had drunk was coursing through his head and his limbs as if it were being pumped methodically by a machine. He released Aunt Betty and took a pace towards the centre of the floor. Then he shivered all over and gasped for breath. He broke into a laugh. He walked over to the fur-coated woman without looking in her direction. He stooped down, put his arms about her, lifted her up until her face was level with his and he kissed her. His clumsy lips met her right cheek. They groped about for her mouth, but they could not reach it on account of her frantic efforts to free herself. He lost his balance and let her down to the floor. He regained his balance, laughing heavily and wiping his mouth on his sleeve.
There was an intense silence. The woman stood in front of him erect and trembling. She held her hands rigid by her sides, with the long, slender fingers bent backwards. She was dressed in excellent taste, black shoes, navy-blue skirt, short fur coat, small, black hat, from under whose brim brown curls protruded. She was a handsome woman, a beautiful woman, but for her face. The left side of her face was disfigured in a ghastly way from the temple to the jaw. So that one cheek was white and the other almost black. The left eye was darkened and almost sightless, while the right eye was blue, clear and gleaming with anger. The disfigurement touched the corner of her mouth. The remainder of the mouth was red-lipped, arched and beautiful.
Suddenly, she bared her white teeth and spat at Gypo with the ferocity of a wild animal.
He shivered. His hands clawed up. His face contorted and he swivelled his head on his neck from left to right and back again, like a ram that is going to charge an enemy. A woman near the fire gasped with horror. But Gypo did not attack. Instead of advancing on the woman he took a pace to his rear and let his breath out through his nostrils with a great noise. Then he stood motionless, with his eyes distended, staring at the infuriated woman in awe and wonder. She was staring at him with her eyes almost closed.
“You pig,” she gasped.
There was a painful silence. Each person in the room felt sure that a catastrophe was imminent. The fact that the room, a few minutes before, had been full of the sound of libidinous revelry made the silence all the more terrible. Everybody watched Gypo. His huge body, monstrous with strange movement, stood under the glare of the lamp that hung from the ceiling. His face, staring steadily at the woman, changed again and again, in response to the dark and mysterious suggestions that chased one another through his mind. At one moment his chest would heave and his limbs would stiffen. Then his breath would come out with a snap. His jaws would set. His eyes would expand. A movement would begin in his throat. Then a sound like a curtailed snort would come from his nostrils.
At last, after waiting for twenty seconds, the spectators were startled by the unexpected outcome of these movements. Gypo broke into a roar of laughter. He raised his head and laughed at the ceiling. Everybody gaped at him in fright. All gaped at him, terrified, except the woman. As if in response to his laughter, laughter broke from her lips too, but it was the shrill, thin laughter of hysteria, that made her eyes glitter coldly.
Breaking off in the middle of his laugh, Gypo strode over to Aunt Betty. He took her by the arm, pointed his finger at the woman in the fur coat and whispered hoarsely: “I want her. Get me a room. I want to take her upstairs. Ye can have whatever money ye ask.”
“Never,” shrieked the woman in the fur coat.
She put her hands to her face. Then she took a tiny step forward with her right foot and stood leaning on the foot, trembling as if she had planted it on ice.
“None of this nonsense, Phyllis,” said Aunt Betty, coming forward to the centre of the room. She faced the fur-coated woman with her arms akimbo and her jaws squared. “I’m fed up with your swagger. You’re no better than yer board and lodging, an’ as long as I keep you, you’re no better than any other woman that takes bite and sup in my house. Put that in your pipe and smoke it. One man is as good as another. You’re going with him.”
“That’s true, Aunt Betty,” cried several women, looking with hatred at the fur-coated woman.
“Rabble,” shrieked the fur-coated woman, stamping her feet and shaking her fists all round her at the women. “What filthy souls you have to be reduced to this level.
