Von Rabbek and his family skilfully drew the officers into the argument, while at the same time keeping a close watch on their glasses and mouths, finding out whether they all had enough tea and were enjoying their food, and why one of them had not tried the tea-biscuits or another was not drinking brandy. And the more Ryabovich watched and listened, the more this artificial but superbly disciplined family appealed to him.
After tea, the officers went into the ball-room. Lieutenant Lobytko's intuition had not deceived him: the room was full of girls and young ladies. The setter himself was already standing next to a very young little blonde in a black dress and, striking a gallant pose as if leaning on an invisible sabre, was smiling and frisking his shoulders coquettishly. He was probably telling her some very tedi- ous piece of nonsense, as the blonde was looking condescendingly into his satisfied face and saying in a bored voice: 'Really?' And had the sener had any mtelligence, he would have realised from the indifferent tone of that 'Reallv?' that he was hardly being told to 'fetch!'
The grand piano resounded; the notes of a melancholy waltz floated through the wide open windows of the ball-room, and for some reason everyone suddenly remembered that it was spring out- side now, a May evening. Everyone sensed that the air was fragrant with roses, lilac and young poplar leaves. Under the effect of the music, the brandy he had drunk was beginning to work on Ryabovich, and as he listened to the music, he glanced over to the window, smiled, and staned followmg the movements of the women; and soon it seemed to him that the scent of roses, poplar and lilac was coming not from thegarden but from the women's faces and dresses.
Rabhk's son invited a scraggy-looking female to dance and walt- zed twice round the room with her. Gliding across the parquet, Lobytko Aew up to the young girl in lilac and whisked her offacross the ball-room. The dancing began . . . Ryabovich stood by the door among the non-dancers and looked on. In the whole of his life he had never once danced, nor had he ever put his arm round thewaist ofa respectable woman. To see a man take a strange ^irl by the waist in front of everyone and invite her to put her nand on his shoulder appealed to him enormously, but to imagine himself in that man's position was quite beyond him. There was a time when he envied the confidence and go of his comrades and suffered mental anguish; the awareness that he was timid, round-shouldered and drab, that he had lynx-like whiskers and no hips, hurt him profoundly, but with the passing of the years he had become inured to this, so that now, as he looked at his comrades dancing or conversing loudly, he no longer experienced envy, only a feeling of wistful admiration.
When the quadrille started, young von Rabbek came over to the non-dancers and asked two of the officers if they would like to play billiards. The officers accepted, and followed him out of the room. Having nothing better to do and wanting to take at least some part in the general activity, Ryabovich trailed after them. From the ball- room they went into a drawing-room, then along a narrow glass corridor, and thence into a room where the figures of three sleepy footmen jumped up quickly from the sofas at their appearance. After a whole series of other rooms, young Rabbek and the officers finally
entered a small room containing the billiard-table. The game began.
Ryabovich, whohad never played anything but cards, stood by the table and looked on impassively as the players, with jackets unbut- toned and cues in their hands, strode about, made puns and shouted out incomprehensible words. The players were unaware of him, and only occasionally one or other of them, after elbowing him or accidentally butting him with a cue, would turn round and say in French: 'Pardon!' Even before the first game was over, he began to feel bored and had the impression he was in the way and not wanted . . . He felt drawn back to the ball-room and went out.
On his way back a small adventure befell him. He realised about half-way that he was not going in the right direction. He distinctly recalled the three sleepy footman figures whom he ought to pass on his return, but he had gone through five or six rooms and these three figures seemed to have vanished into thin air. Realising his mistake, he retraced his steps a short distance, turned right and found himself in a semi-dark study which he had not seen on his way to the billiard-room; after standing there for half a minute, he hesitantly opened the first door that caught his eye and entered a room which was in total darkness. Through a chink in the door straight ahead a bright light was shining; from beyond the door came the muffled sounds of a sad muzurka. Here too, as in the ball-room, the windows were wide open and there was a scent of poplar, lilac and roses . . .
Ryabovich paused to collect his thoughts . . . Just at that moment there came the unexpected sound of hurrying footsteps and the rustle ofa dress, a woman's voice whispered breathlessly 'At last!' and two soft, fragrant, unmistakably feminine arms twined themselves round his neck; a warm cheek pressed itself to his and simultaneously there came the sound of a kiss. But at once the giver of the kiss uttered a little shriek and, so it seemed to Ryabovich, recoiled from him in horror. He too very nearly screamed, and rushed towards the bright light coming from the door . . .
When he returned to the ball-room, his heart was thumping, and his hands were trembling so noticeably that he hastily hid them behind his back. At first, tormented by a feeling of shame and fear that the whole room knew he had just been embraced and kissed by a woman, he made himself small and darted anxious glances all around him, but once he was sure they were dancing and chatting away in the ball-room as imperturbably as ever, he gave himself up entirely to a new sensation, one that he had never experienced in his life before. Something strange was happening to him . . . His neck, which had just been embraced by soft fragrant arms, seemed to have been bathed with oil; at the spot on his cheek by his left moustache where the unknown woman had kissed him, there was a slight, pleasantly cold tingling, such as you get from peppermints, and the more he rubbed the spot, the more pronounced this tingling became; whilst the whole of him, from top to toe, was filled with a new, peculiar feeling that grew and grew . . . He felt he wanted to dance, talk, run into the garden, laugh out loud . .. He forgot completely that he was drab and round-shouldered, and had lynx-like whiskers and a 'nondescript' appearance (as it had once been described in a female conversation that he had overheard). When Rabbek's wife walked past, he smiled at her so broadly and warmly that she stopped and gave him an inquiring look.