that there should be no buffet in the morning on any account,
while he was reading, in spite of some protests from members of the
committee that this was rather opposed to our way of doing things.

This was the position of affairs, while in the town people were still
reckoning on a Belshazzar feast, that is, on refreshments provided by
the committee; they believed in this to the last hour. Even the young
ladies were dreaming of masses of sweets and preserves, and something
more beyond their imagination. Every one knew that the subscriptions had
reached a huge sum, that all the town was struggling to go, that people
were driving in from the surrounding districts, and that there were
not tickets enough. It was known, too, that there had been some large
subscriptions apart from the price paid for tickets: Varvara Petrovna,
for instance, had paid three hundred roubles for her ticket and had
given almost all the flowers from her conservatory to decorate the room.
The marshal's wife, who was a member of the committee, provided the
house and the lighting; the club furnished the music, the attendants,
and gave up Prohorovitch for the whole day. There were other
contributions as well, though lesser ones, so much so indeed that the
idea was mooted of cutting down the price of tickets from three roubles
to two. Indeed, the committee were afraid at first that three roubles
would be too much for young ladies to pay, and suggested that they might
have family tickets, so that every family should pay for one daughter
only, while the other young ladies of the family, even if there were a
dozen specimens, should be admitted free. But all their apprehensions
turned out to be groundless: it was just the young ladies who did come.
Even the poorest clerks brought their girls, and it was quite evident
that if they had had no girls it would never have occurred to them to
subscribe for tickets. One insignificant little secretary brought all
his seven daughters, to say nothing of his wife and a niece into the
bargain, and every one of these persons held in her hand an entrance
ticket that cost three roubles.

It may be imagined what an upheaval it made in the town! One has only to
remember that as the fete was divided into two parts every lady needed
two costumes for the occasion--a morning one for the matinee and a
ball dress for the evening. Many middle-class people, as it appeared
afterwards, had pawned everything they had for that day, even