from her guests, she tried to talk more loudly, to laugh, to move.

"If I suddenly begin to cry," she thought, "I shall say I have
toothache. . . ."

But at last the boats reached the "Island of Good Hope," as they
called the peninsula formed by a bend in the river at an acute
angle, covered with a copse of old birch-trees, oaks, willows, and
poplars. The tables were already laid under the trees; the samovars
were smoking, and Vassily and Grigory, in their swallow-tails and
white knitted gloves, were already busy with the tea-things. On the
other bank, opposite the "Island of Good Hope," there stood the
carriages which had come with the provisions. The baskets and parcels
of provisions were carried across to the island in a little boat
like the _Penderaklia_. The footmen, the coachmen, and even the
peasant who was sitting in the boat, had the solemn expression
befitting a name-day such as one only sees in children and servants.

While Olga Mihalovna was making the tea and pouring out the first
glasses, the visitors were busy with the liqueurs and sweet things.
Then there was the general commotion usual at picnics over drinking
tea, very wearisome and exhausting for the hostess. Grigory and
Vassily had hardly had time to take the glasses round before hands
were being stretched out to Olga Mihalovna with empty glasses. One
asked for no sugar, another wanted it stronger, another weak, a
fourth declined another glass. And all this Olga Mihalovna had to
remember, and then to call, "Ivan Petrovitch, is it without sugar
for you?" or, "Gentlemen, which of you wanted it weak?" But the
guest who had asked for weak tea, or no sugar, had by now forgotten
it, and, absorbed in agreeable conversation, took the first glass