he grandest scale
possible. The notices that were distributed were of huge size and
promised a number of delights: skating, a military band, a lottery
with no blank tickets, an electric sun, and so on. But the whole
scheme almost came to nothing owing to the hard frost. From the eve
of Epiphany there were twenty-eight degrees of frost with a strong
wind; it was proposed to put off the fete, and this was not done
only because the public, which for a long while had been looking
forward to the fete impatiently, would not consent to any postponement.

"Only think, what do you expect in winter but a frost!" said the
ladies persuading the governor, who tried to insist that the fete
should be postponed. "If anyone is cold he can go and warm himself."

The trees, the horses, the men's beards were white with frost; it
even seemed that the air itself crackled, as though unable to endure
the cold; but in spite of that the frozen public were skating.
Immediately after the blessing of the waters and precisely at one
o'clock the military band began playing.

Between three and four o'clock in the afternoon, when the festivity
was at its height, the select society of the place gathered together
to warm themselves in the governor's pavilion, which had been put
up on the river-bank. The old governor and his wife, the bishop,
the president of the local court, the head master of the high school,
and many others, were there. The ladies were sitting in armchairs,
while the men crowded round the wide glass door, looking at the
skating.

"Holy Saints!" said the bishop in surprise; "what flourishes they
execute with their legs! Upon my soul, many a singer couldn't do a
twirl with his voice as those cut-throats do with their legs. Aie!
he'll kill himself!"

"That's Smirnov. . . . That's Gruzdev . . ." said the head master,
mentioning the names of the schoolboys who flew by the pavilion.

"Bah! he's all alive-oh!" laughed the governor. "Look, gentlemen,
our mayor is coming. . . . He is coming this way. . . . That's a
nuisance, he will talk our heads off now."

A little thin old man, wearing a big cap and a fur-lined coat hanging
open, came from the opposite bank towards the pavilion, avoiding
the skaters. This was the mayor of the town, a merchant, Eremeyev
by name, a millionaire and an old inhabitant of N----. Flinging
wide his arms and shrugging at the cold, he skipped along, knocking
one golosh against the other, evidently in haste to