Pagina 162 di 3800

In the count's room, which was full of tobacco smoke, they talked

of the war that had been announced in a manifesto, and about the

recruiting. None of them had yet seen the manifesto, but they all

knew it had appeared. The count sat on the sofa between two

guests who were smoking and talking. He neither smoked nor

talked, but bending his head first to one side and then to the

other watched the smokers with evident pleasure and listened to

the conversation of his two neighbors, whom he egged on against

each other.