"Yuri Alexievich," Raisa babbled, "it's your turn to-day to arrange the dancing. You are a nice one to do that." "_Mille pardons, madame. C'est ma faute._ This is my fault," cried Bobetinski, as he flew off to her. On the way he improvised a sort of ballet with scrapes, bounds, genuflections, and a lot of wonderful attitudes and gestures. "Your hand. _Votre main, madame._ Gentlemen, to the ballroom, to the ballroom!" He offered his arm to Raisa Alexandrovna, and walked out of the room as proud as a peacock. Directly afterwards he was heard shouting in his well-known, affected tone: "_Messieurs_, take partners for a waltz. Band! a waltz!" "Excuse me, Colonel, I am obliged to go now. Duty calls me," said Romashov. "Ah, my dear fellow," replied Liech, as his head drooped with a dejected look--"are you, too, such a coxcomb as the others? But wait just a moment, Ensign; have you heard the story of Moltke--about the great Field-Marshal Moltke, the strategist?" "Colonel, on my honour, I must really go--I----" "Well, well, don't get excited. I won't be long. You see, it was like this: the great Man of Silence used to take his meals in the officers' mess, and every day he laid in front of him on the table a purse full of gold with the intention of bestowing it on the first officer from whose lips he heard a single intelligent word. Well, at last, you know, the old man died after having borne with this world for ninety years, but--you see--the purse had always been in safe keeping. Now run along, my boy. Go and hop about like a sparrow." IX In the ballroom, the walls of which seemed to vibrate in the same rhythm as the deafening music, two couples were dancing. Bobetinski, whose elbows flapped like a pair of wings, pirouetted with short, quick steps around his partner, Madame Taliman, who was dancing with the stately composure of a stone monument. The gigantic Artschakovski of the fair locks made the youngest of the Lykatschev girls, a little thing with rosy cheeks, rotate round him, whereas he, leaning forward, and closely observing his partner's hair and shoulders, moved his legs as if he were dancing with a child. Fifteen ladies lined the walls quite deserted, and trying to look as if they did not mind it. As, which was always the case at these soirées, the gentlemen numbered less than a quarter of the ladies, the prospect of a lively and enjoyable evening was not particularly promising.