"Are you going to have dinner served here?" asked Anna.
"I was at first.
But the evenings are so chilly now.
I prefer the dining-room.
The men may come out here to smoke."
"Will you have anybody worth seeing?"
"I don't know yet.
All I know is that our Grandad is coming."
"Ah, dear Grandad!
How lovely!" cried Anna, clasping her hands. "I haven't seen him for ages."
"Vasya's sister is coming too, and Professor Speshnikov, I think.
I was at my wits' end yesterday.
You know they both like good food — Grandad and the professor.
But you can't get a thing here or in town, for love or money.
Luka came by quail somewhere — ordered them from a hunter — and is now trying his skill on them.
The beef isn't bad, comparatively speaking — alas! the inevitable roast beef!
Then we have very nice lobsters."
"Well, it doesn't sound so bad, after all.
Don't worry.
Between you and me, you like good food yourself."
"But we'll also have something special.
This morning a fisherman brought us a gurnard.
I saw it myself.
It's a monster, really.
Terrible even to look at."
Anna, who was eagerly inquisitive about everything whether it concerned her or not, wanted to see the gurnard at once.
Luka, a tall man with a clean-shaven sallow face, came in carrying a white oblong basin, which he held with difficulty by the lugs, careful not to spill the water on the parquet floor.
"Twelve and a half pounds, Your Highness," he said, with the peculiar pride of a cook. "We weighed it a while back."
The fish was too big for the basin and lay with its tail curled.
Its scales were shot with gold, the fins were a bright red, and two long fan-like wings, of a delicate blue, stood out from the huge rapacious head.
It was still alive and vigorously worked its gills.
The younger sister cautiously touched the fish's head with her little finger.
But the gurnard lashed out with its tail, and Anna with a scream snatched back her hand.
"You can depend on it, Your Highness, we'll arrange everything in the best manner," said the cook, obviously aware of Vera's anxiety. "Just now a Bulgarian brought two pine-apple melons.
They're a bit like cantaloups, only they smell much nicer.
And may I ask Your Highness what gravy you will have with the gurnard: tartare or polonaise, or simply rusk in butter?"
"Do as you like.
You may go," said the princess.
IV
After five o'clock the guests began to arrive.
Prince Vasily Lvovich brought his widowed sister, Lyudmila Lvovna Durasova, a stout, good-natured woman who spoke very little; Vasyuchok, a wealthy young scapegrace and rake, whom everybody in town called by that familiar name, and who was very good company because he could sing and recite poetry, as well as arrange tableaux, plays and charity bazaars; the famous pianist Jennie Reiter, a friend of Princess Vera's from the Smolny Institute; and also his brother-in-law, Nikolai Nikolayevich.
After them came in a motor-car An na's husband, along with the fat, hulking Professor Speshnikov, and the vice-governor, von Seek.
The last to arrive was General Anosov, who came in a fine hired landau, accompanied by two officers: Staff Colonel Ponamaryov, looking older than his age, a lean, bilious man worn out by clerical drudgery, and Guards Lieutenant Bakhtinsky of the Hussars, who was reputed to be the best dancer and master of ceremonies in Petersburg.
General Anosov, a silver-haired old man, tall and obese, stepped heavily down from the footboard, holding on to the rail of the box with one hand and to the back of the landau with the other.
In his left hand he carried an ear-trumpet and in his right a rubber-tipped cane.
He had a large, coarse, red face with a fleshy nose, and he looked out of narrowed eyes with the dignified, mildly contemptuous good humour typical of courageous and plain men who have often met danger and death face to face.
The two sisters, who recognized him from afar, ran up to the landau just in time to support him half-jokingly under the arms.
"You'd think I was the bishop," said the general in a friendly, husky boom.
"Grandad, dear Grandad!" said Vera, a little reproachfully. "All these days we've been expecting you, and you haven't let us get so much as a glimpse of you."
"Our Grandad's lost all shame here in the south," said An na with a laugh. "As if you couldn't have thought of your godchild.