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In the tank flapped and swam four superb sterlets, their
ridgy backs rising out of the water like those of alligators.
Great applause welcomed this new and classical adaptation of the
old custom of showing the LIVING fish, before cooking them, to
the guests at the table. The invention was due to Simon
Petrovitch, and was (if the truth must be confessed) the result of
certain carefully measured supplies of brandy which Prince Boris
himself had carried to the imprisoned poet.
After the sterlets had melted away to their backbones, and the
roasted geese had shrunk into drumsticks and breastplates, and here
and there a guest's ears began to redden with more rapid blood,
Prince Alexis judged that the time for diversion had arrived. He
first filled up the idiot's basin with fragments of all the dishes
within his reach,--fish, stewed fruits, goose fat, bread, boiled
cabbage, and beer,--the idiot grinning with delight all the while,
and singing, "Ne uyesjai golubchik moi," (Don't go away, my
little pigeon), between the handfuls which he crammed into his
mouth.


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