ttering.

"They say a town can't go on without seven righteous men... seven, I
think it is, I am not sure of the number fixed.... I don't know how many
of these seven, the certified righteous of the town... have the honour
of being present at your ball. Yet in spite of their presence I begin
to feel unsafe. _Vous me pardonnez, charmante dame, n'est-ce pas?_ I speak
allegorically, but I went into the refreshment-room and I am glad I
escaped alive.... Our priceless Prohoritch is not in his place there,
and I believe his bar will be destroyed before morning. But I am
laughing. I am only waiting to see what the 'literary quadrille' is
going to be like, and then home to bed. You must excuse a gouty old
fellow. I go early to bed, and I would advise you too to go 'by-by,' as
they say _aux enfants._ I've come, you know, to have a look at the pretty
girls... whom, of course, I could meet nowhere in such profusion as
here. They all live beyond the river and I don't drive out so far.
There's a wife of an officer... in the chasseurs I believe he is...
who is distinctly pretty, distinctly, and... she knows it herself. I've
talked to the sly puss; she is a sprightly one... and the girls too are
fresh-looking; but that's all, there's nothing but freshness. Still,
it's a pleasure to look at them. There are some rosebuds, but their
lips are thick. As a rule there's an irregularity about female beauty
in Russia, and... they are a little like buns.... _vous me pardonnez,
n'est-ce pas?_... with good eyes, however, laughing eyes.... These
rose buds are charming for two years when they are young... even for
three... then they broaden out and are spoilt for ever... producing
in their husbands that deplorable indifference which does so much to
promote the woman movement... that is, if I understand it correctly....
H'm! It's a fine hall; the rooms are not badly decorated. It might be
worse. The music might be much worse.... I don't say it ought to have
been. What makes a bad impression is that there are so few ladies. I say
nothing about the dresses. It's bad that that chap in the grey trousers
should dare to dance the cancan so openly. I can forgive him if he does
it in the gaiety of his heart, and since he is the local chemist....
Still, eleven o'clock is a bit early even for chemists. There were two
fellows fighting in the refreshment-bar and they weren't turned out. At
eleven o'clock people ought to be turned out for fighting, whatever the