on whose right
little finger, always sticking out, sparkled a huge diamond, would
frequently stop at these doors, and attentively listen with one ear to
what was going on in the cabinet.

The baroness, with a bored, pale face, was listlessly gazing through a
lorgnette down at the droning, chewing, swarming crowd. Among the red,
white, blue and straw-coloured feminine dresses the uniform figures of
the men resembled large, squat, black beetles. Rovinskaya negligently,
yet at the same time intently as well, was looking down upon the stand
and the spectators, and her face expressed fatigue, ennui, and perhaps
also that satiation with all spectacles, which are such matters of
course to celebrities. The splendid, long, slender fingers of her left
hand were lying upon the crimson velvet of the box-seat. Emeralds of a
rare beauty hung upon them so negligently that it seemed as though they
would fall off at any second, and suddenly she began laughing.

"Look" she said; "what a funny figure, or, to put it more correctly,
what a funny profession! There, there, that one who's playing on a
'syrinx of seven reeds.'"

Everyone looked in the direction of her hand. And really, the picture
was funny enough. Behind the Roumanian orchestra was sitting a stout,
whiskered man, probably the father, and perhaps even the grandfather,
of a numerous family, and with all his might was whistling into seven
little pipes glued together. As it was difficult for him, probably, to
move this instrument between his lips, he therefore, with an unusual
rapidity, turned his head now to the left, now to the right.

"An amazing occupation," said Rovinskaya. "Well now, Chaplinsky, you
try to toss your head about like that."

Volodya Chaplinsky, secretly and hopelessly in love with the artiste,
immediately began obediently and zealously to do this, but after half a
minute desisted.

"It's impossible," he said, "either long training, or, perhaps,
hereditary abilities, are necessary for this."

The baroness during this time was tearing away the petals of her rose
and throwing them into a goblet; then, with difficulty suppressing a
yawn, she said, making just the least bit of a wry face:

"But, my God, how drearily they divert themselves in our K--! Look: no
laughter, no singing, no dances. Just like some herd that's been driven
here, in order to be gay on purpose!"

Ryazanov listlessly took his goblet, sipped it a little, and answered
apathetically in