en seemed to counsel with him about
something, to indicate some point, to promise. While he, ever
unchanged, perfectly polite though cold, with a shade of sarcasm
on his lean face, rather listened than spoke, and with a golden
spark in his glasses, against a background of bright sapphire
damask, had the seeming of a demi-god.

In five minutes' time the conversation was over. Darvid inclined
with befitting profoundness; the officers bowed much lower their
hats above their heads. With the muffled sound of rubber tires,
with the slow and important gait of the splendid horses, that
carriage moved on, described a large circle and stopped at the
long and broad steps leading up to the edifice opposite. Here the
footman opened the carriage door; Darvid alighted and began to
ascend the steps where a dense throng of men, dressed in black,
opened before him as a wave opens to an oncoming vessel. That
must be no common craft; for, along the wave of men, quivers
passed as they pass through one living organism at the touch of
an electric current. The opening throng formed eddies, whispered,
was silent; a number of hands were raised toward heads, and hats
or caps hung in the air; a multitude of faces were turned toward
that one face, and fixed their eyes on it. These movements had in
them an expression of timid curiosity, an expression which seemed
almost humble. The most confident stepped forth from the throng
with bared heads, and with steps which were either too slow or
too hurried, but never such steps as they made habitually. These
men approached the newly arrived and spoke to him of something;
they were doubtless inquiring, taking counsel, perhaps
petitioning; for all those acts were expressed in their
movements, and on their faces. Thus was formed something like
that retinue of the elite who surround a demi-god, and between
the two walls of people, along the splendid steps of the stairway
they went up with him higher and higher to the entrance of the
temple, and vanished there with him. The heads of the common
crowd were covered with hats and caps now, but many eyes, unable
to gaze on Phaeton himself, turned to his chariot, and were fixed
for a long time yet on its sapphire-colored damask, which was
warmed by the sunrays, and on those two splendid animals which,
standing there in trained fixedness, seemed like bronze steeds of
the sun before the gates of that money mart.

Kranitski, sitting on the garden bench, had grown ri