While the inelaborate appetizers were being served, and each one was ordering the meal, everybody, save Simanovsky, felt ill at ease and somehow constrained. And Simanovsky himself was partly the reason for this; he was a clean-shaven man, with pince-nez and long hair, with head proudly thrown back and with a contemptuous expression on the tight lips, drooping at the corners. He had no intimate, hearty friends among his comrades; but his opinions and judgments had a considerable authoritativeness among them. It is doubtful whether any one of them could explain to himself whence this influence came; whether from his self-assured appearance, his ability to seize and express in general words the dismembered and indistinct things which are dimly sought and desired by the majority, or because he always saved his conclusions for the most appropriate moment. Among any society there are many of this sort of people: some of them act upon their circle through sophistries; others through adamant, unalterable stead-fastness of convictions; a third group with a loud mouth; a fourth, through a malicious sneer; a fifth, simply by silence, which compels the supposition of profound thought behind it; a sixth, through a chattering, outward erudition; others still through a slashing sneer at everything that is said ... many with the terrible Russian word YERUNDA: “Fiddlesticks!”—“Fiddlesticks!” they say contemptuously in reply to the warm, sincere, probably truthful but clumsily put word. “But why fiddlesticks?” “Because it’s twaddle, nonsense,” answer they, shrugging their shoulders; and it is as though they did for a man by hitting him with a stone over the head. There are many more sorts of such people, bearing the bell at the head of the meek, the shy, the nobly modest, and often even the big minds; and to their number did Simanovsky belong. However, toward the middle of the dinner everybody’s tongue became loosened—except Liubka’s, who kept silent, answered “yes” and “no”, and left her food practically untouched. Lichonin, Soloviev, and Nijeradze talked most of all. The first, in a decisive and business-like manner, trying to hide under the solicitous words something real, inward, prickling and inconvenient. Soloviev, with a puerile delight, with the most sweeping of gestures, hitting the table with his fist. Nijeradze, with a slight doubtfulness and with unfinished phrases, as though he knew that which must be said, but concealed it. The queer fate of the girl, however, had seemingly engrossed, interested them all; and each one, in expressing his opinion, for some reason inevitably turned to Simanovsky. But he kept his counsel for the most part, and looked at each one from under the glasses of his pince-nez, raising his head high to do so.