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 undistinguished officer in the
whole brigade!" At first, on going into the room and sitting down to the table, he could not
fix his attention on any one face or object. The faces, the dresses, the cut-glass decanters of
brandy, the steam from the glasses, the moulded cornices -- all blended in one general
impression that inspired in Ryabovitch alarm and a desire to hide his head. Like a lecturer
making his first appearance before the public, he saw everything that was before his eyes,
but apparently only had a dim understanding of it (among physiologists this condition,
when the subject sees but does not understand, is called psychical blindness). After a little
while, growing accustomed to his surroundings, Ryabovitch saw clearly and began to
observe. As a shy man, unused to society, what struck him first was that in which he had
always been deficient -- namely, the extraordinary boldness of his new acquaintances. Von
Rabbek, his wife, two elderly ladies, a young lady in a lilac dress, and the young man with
the red whiskers, who was, it appeared, a younger son of Von Rabbek, very cleverly, as
though they had rehearsed it beforehand, took seats between the officers, and at once got up
a heated discussion in which the visitors could not help taking part. The lilac young lady
hotly asserted that the artillery had a much better time than the cavalry and the infantry,
while Von Rabbek and the elderly ladies maintained the opposite. A brisk interchange of
talk followed. Ryabovitch watched the lilac young lady who argued so hotly about what
was unfamiliar and utterly uninteresting to her, and watched artificial smiles come and go
on her face.
Von Rabbek and his family skilfully drew the officers into the discussion, and meanwhile
kept a sharp lookout over their glasses and mouths, to see whether all of them were
drinking, whether all had enough sugar, why some one was not eating cakes or not drinking
brandy. And the longer Ryabovitch watched and listened, the more he was attracted by this
insincere but splendidly disciplined family.
After tea the officers went into the drawing-room. Lieutenant Lobytko's instinct had not
deceived him. There were a great number of girls and young married ladies. The "setter"
lieutenant was soon standing by a very young, fair girl in a black dress, and, bending down
to her jauntily, as though leaning on an unseen sword, smiled and shrugged his shoulders
coquettishly. He probably talked very interesting nonsense, for the fair girl looked at his
well-fed face condescendingly and asked indifferently, "Really?" And from that
uninterested "Really?" the setter, had he been intelligent, might have concluded that she
would never call him to heel.