ed to him, felt that they had been
invited to this house simply because it would have been awkward not
to invite them; and at the sight of the footmen, who hastened to
light the lamps in the entrance below and in the anteroom above,
they began to feel as though they had brought uneasiness and
discomfort into the house with them. In a house in which two sisters
and their children, brothers, and neighbours were gathered together,
probably on account of some family festivity, or event, how could
the presence of nineteen unknown officers possibly be welcome?

At the entrance to the drawing-room the officers were met by a tall,
graceful old lady with black eyebrows and a long face, very much
like the Empress Eugenie. Smiling graciously and majestically, she
said she was glad and happy to see her guests, and apologized that
her husband and she were on this occasion unable to invite _messieurs
les officiers_ to stay the night. From her beautiful majestic smile,
which instantly vanished from her face every time she turned away
from her guests, it was evident that she had seen numbers of officers
in her day, that she was in no humour for them now, and if she
invited them to her house and apologized for not doing more, it was
only because her breeding and position in society required it of
her.

When the officers went into the big dining-room, there were about
a dozen people, men and ladies, young and old, sitting at tea at
the end of a long table. A group of men was dimly visible behind
their chairs, wrapped in a haze of cigar smoke; and in the midst
of them stood a lanky young man with red whiskers, talking loudly,
with a lisp, in English. Through a door beyond the group could be
seen a light room with pale blue furniture.

"Gentlemen, there are so many of you that it is impossible to
introduce you all!" said the General in a loud voice, trying to
sound very cheerful. "Make each other's acquaintance, gentlemen,
without any ceremony!"

The officers--some with very serious and even stern faces, others
with forced smiles, and all feeling extremely awkward--somehow
made their bows and sat down to tea.

The most ill at ease of them all was Ryabovitch--a little officer
in spectacles, with sloping shoulders, and whiskers like a lynx's.
While some of his comrades assumed a serious expression, while
others wore forced smiles, his face, his lynx-like whiskers, and
spectacles seemed to say: "I am the shyest, most modest, and most