All the guests at once rose to their feet.
"I am a woman," she cried aloud. "I drink to ourselves, to women, to
the gentle, to the homely, to happiness and purity! To motherhood! I
drink to the sacred--" she broke off abruptly, sat down and hung her
head.
Somebody cried: "Hurrah!" To someone else it seemed that Kseniya was
weeping. The clock began to chime, the guests shouted "Hurrah!"
clinked glasses, and drank.
Then they sang, while some rose and carried round glasses to those of
the guests who were still sober and those who were only partially
intoxicated. They bowed. They sang _The Goblets_, and the basses
thundered:
"Drink to the dregs! Drink to the dregs!" Kseniya Ippolytovna
offered her first glass to Polunin. She stood in front of him with a
tray, curtseyed without lifting her eyes and sang. Polunin rose,
colouring with embarrassment:
"I never drink wine," he protested.
But the basses thundered: "Drink to the dregs! Drink to the dregs!"
His face darkened, he raised a silencing arm, and firmly repeated:
"I never drink wine, and I do not intend to."
Kseniya gazed into the depths of his eyes and said softly:
"I want you to, I beg you.... Do you hear?"
"I will not," Polunin whispered back.
Then she cried out:
"He doesn't want to! We mustn't make him against his will!" She
turned away, offered her glass to the Magistrate, and after him to
the Lyceum student; then excused herself and withdrew, quietly
returning later looking sad and as if she had suddenly aged.
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