And there also arrived Egmont-
Lavretzki the actor, clean-shaven, tall, resembling a court flunky
with his vulgar and insolently contemptuous face.
The clerks from the gastronomical store danced with all the ardour
of youth and with all the decorum recommended by Herman Hoppe, the
self-instructor of good manners. In this regard the girls also
responded to their intentions. Both with these and with the others
it was accounted especially decorous and well-bred to dance as
rigidly as possible, keeping the arms hanging down, while the
heads were raised high and inclined to one side with a certain
proud, and, at the same time, tired and enervated air. In the
intermissions, between the figures of the dance, it was necessary
to fan one's self with a handkerchief, with a bored and negligent
air ... In a word, they all made believe that they belonged to the
choicest society, and that if they do dance, they only do it out
of condescension, as a little comradely turn. But still they
danced so ardently that the perspiration rolled down in streams
from the clerks of Kereshkovsky.
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