Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com one gulp, and became at once very tipsy. She sat down in
the same chair as before, with a blissful smile on her face.
Her cheeks were glowing, her lips were burning, her flash-
ing eyes were moist; there was passionate appeal in her eyes.
Even Kalgonov felt a stir at the heart and went up to her.
‘Did you feel how I kissed you when you were asleep just
now?’ she said thickly. ‘I’m drunk now, that’s what it is....
And aren’t you drunk? And why isn’t Mitya drinking? Why
don’t you drink, Mitya? I’m drunk, and you don’t drink..’
‘I am drunk! I’m drunk as it is... drunk with you... and
now I’ll be drunk with wine, too.’
He drank off another glass, and — he thought it strange
himself- that glass made him completely drunk. He was
suddenly drunk, although till that moment he had been
quite sober, he remembered that. From that moment ev-
erything whirled about him, as though he were delirious.
He walked, laughed, talked to everybody, without knowing
what he was doing. Only one persistent burning sensation
made itself felt continually, ‘like a red-hot coal in his heart,’
he said afterwards. He went up to her, sat beside her, gazed
at her, listened to her.... She became very talkative, kept call-
ing everyone to her, and beckoned to different girls out of
the chorus. When the girl came up, she either kissed her,
or made the sign of the cross over her. In another minute
she might have cried. She was greatly amused by the ‘little
old man,’ as she called Maximov. He ran up every minute
to kiss her hands, each little finger,’ and finally he danced
another dance to an old song, which he sang himself. He
danced with special vigour to the refrain: