Page:Henryk Sienkiewicz - On the bright shore.djvu/33

 more especially on that day, to have an "intellectual" salon, as she expressed it. She could not, however, turn the conversation at first from local gossip and the happenings of the Casino, which Vyadrovski called the "Slav world,"—more of Slav speech was heard there, he said, than any other. Vyadrovski's life in Monte Carlo was spent generally in ridiculing his fellow-countrymen and the younger Slav brothers. That was a hobby which he mounted gladly, and galloped without rest. So he began at once to relate how, two day before, there remained in the "Cercle de la Méditerranée," at six in the morning, seven persons, all of Slav blood.

"We are born thus," said he, turning to the hostess. "In other countries people count: Nine, ten, eleven, twelve, etc.; but every real Slav says, in spite of himself: Nine, ten, knave, queen, king—Yes; to the Cornice comes the cream of our society, and here they make cheese of it."

Prince Valerian, of peaked head, announced now, in the tone of a man who is discovering