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And just as Ivan Ilyich was addressing himself to the bride again, trying this time to get at her with some quip, the tall officer suddenly jumped over to her and swung himself down on one knee. She jumped up from the sofa at once and fluttered off with him to line up for the quadrille. The officer did not even apologize, nor did she even glance at the general as she left, as if she were even glad of her deliverance.
“However, essentially she’s in her rights,” thought Ivan Ilyich, “and besides, they don’t know propriety.”
“Hm… you mustn’t stand on ceremony, brother Porfiry,” he turned to Pseldonymov. “Perhaps you have something there… to tend to… or whatever… please, don’t be embarrassed.—Is he keeping watch on me, or what?” he added to himself.
He was begi
The quadrille began.
“Shall I, Your Excellency?” Akim Petrovich asked, deferentially holding the bottle in his hands and preparing to fill His Excellency’s glass.
“I… I don’t really know if…”
But Akim Petrovich, with a reverently beaming face, was already pouring the champagne. Having filled his glass, he also, as if on the sly, as if thievishly, shrinking and cringing, filled his own, with the difference that he filled it one whole finger less, which was somehow more deferential. He was like a woman in childbirth sitting next to his immediate superior. What indeed was he to talk about? Yet he had to entertain His Excellency even out of duty, since he had the honor of keeping him company. The champagne served as a way out, and it was even pleasing to His Excellency to have his glass filled—not for the sake of the champagne, which was warm and the most natural swill, but just so, morally pleasing.
“The old boy wants a drink himself,” thought Ivan Ilyich, “and he doesn’t dare without me. I mustn’t hinder… And it’s ridiculous if the bottle just stands between us.”
He took a sip, which in any case seemed better than just sitting there.
“I’m here,” he began, with pauses and emphases, “I’m here, so to speak, by chance, and, of course, it may be that the others find… that it’s… so to speak, in-ap-propriate for me to be at such a… gathering.”
Akim Petrovich was silent and listened with timid curiosity.
“But I hope you understand why I’m here… It’s not really that I came to drink wine. Heh, heh!”
Akim Petrovich was about to chuckle along with His Excellency, but somehow stopped short and again did not respond with anything reassuring.
“I’m here… in order, so to speak, to encourage… to show, so to speak, a moral, so to speak, goal,” Ivan Ilyich went on, vexed at Akim Petrovich’s obtuseness, but suddenly fell silent himself. He saw that poor Akim Petrovich had even lowered his eyes, as if he were guilty of something. The general, in some perplexity, hastened to take another sip from his glass, while Akim Petrovich, as if his whole salvation lay in it, seized the bottle and poured more.
“It’s not that you have so many resources,” thought Ivan Ilyich, looking sternly at poor Akim Petrovich. The latter, sensing this stern general’s glance on him, resolved now to be definitively silent and not raise his eyes. So they sat facing each other for two minutes or so, a painful two minutes for Akim Petrovich.
A couple of words about this Akim Petrovich. He was a placid man, like a hen, of the oldest cast, nurtured on obsequiousness, and yet a kind man and even a noble one. He came from Petersburg Russians—that is, both his father and his father’s father were born, grew up, and served in Petersburg and never once left Petersburg. These are a totally special type of Russian people. They have scarcely the faintest notion of Russia, and that does not trouble them at all. Their whole interest is confined to Petersburg and, above all, to the place where they serve. All their cares are concentrated around pe
And meanwhile Ivan Ilyich was falling more and more into reverie and into a certain round of ideas; distracted, he imperceptibly but ceaselessly sipped from his glass. Akim Petrovich at once and most diligently poured more. Both were silent. Ivan Ilyich was begi
The dancing was indeed merry. Here people danced precisely in simplicity of heart, to make merry and even get wild. Among the dancers very few were adroit; but the non-adroit stomped so hard that they might have been taken for adroit. The officer distinguished himself above all: he especially liked the figures where he remained alone, as in a solo. Then he would bend himself amazingly—namely, standing straight as a milepost, he would suddenly lean to one side so that you would think he was about to fall over, but at the next step he would suddenly lean to the opposite side, at the same sharp angle to the floor. He maintained a most serious expression and danced with the full conviction that everyone was amazed at him. Another gentleman, after getting potted beforehand, prior to the quadrille, fell asleep beside his partner at the second figure, so that his lady had to dance alone. A young registrar, who was dancing away with the lady in the blue scarf, in all the figures and all five quadrilles that had been danced that evening, kept pulling one and the same stunt—namely, he would lag behind his partner a little, pick up the end of her scarf, and, in air, at the changing of partners, would manage to plant about twenty kisses on it. The lady would go sailing on ahead of him as if she noticed nothing. The medical student indeed performed a solo upside down and provoked furious rapture, stomping, and squeals of pleasure. In short, there was unconstraint in the extreme. Ivan Ilyich, in whom the wine was also having its effect, was begi