Between three and four o’clock in the afternoon, when the festivity was at its height, the select society of the place gathered together to warm themselves in the governor’s pavilion, which had been put up on the river-bank.  The old governor and his wife, the bishop, the president of the local court, the head master of the high school, and many others, were there.  The ladies were sitting in armchairs, while the men crowded round the wide glass door, looking at the skating.

“Holy Saints!” said the bishop in surprise; “what flourishes they execute with their legs!  Upon my soul, many a singer couldn’t do a twirl with his voice as those cut-throats do with their legs.  Aie! he’ll kill himself!”

“That’s Smirnov. . . .  That’s Gruzdev . . .” said the head master, mentioning the names of the schoolboys who flew by the pavilion.

“Bah! he’s all alive-oh!” laughed the governor.  “Look, gentlemen, our mayor is coming. . . .  He is coming this way. . . .  That’s a nuisance, he will talk our heads off now.”

A little thin old man, wearing a big cap and a fur-lined coat hanging open, came from the opposite bank towards the pavilion, avoiding the skaters.  This was the mayor of the town, a merchant, Eremeyev by name, a millionaire and an old inhabitant of N——.  Flinging wide his arms and shrugging at the cold, he skipped along, knocking one golosh against the other, evidently in haste to get out of the wind.  Half-way he suddenly bent down, stole up to some lady, and plucked at her sleeve from behind.  When she looked round he skipped away, and probably delighted at having succeeded in frightening her, went off into a loud, aged laugh.

“Lively old fellow,” said the governor.  “It’s a wonder he’s not skating.”

As he got near the pavilion the mayor fell into a little tripping trot, waved his hands, and, taking a run, slid along the ice in his huge golosh boots up to the very door.

“Yegor Ivanitch, you ought to get yourself some skates!” the governor greeted him.

“That’s just what I am thinking,” he answered in a squeaky, somewhat nasal tenor, taking off his cap.  “I wish you good health, your Excellency!  Your Holiness!  Long life to all the other gentlemen and ladies!  Here’s a frost!  Yes, it is a frost, bother it!  It’s deadly!”

Winking with his red, frozen eyes, Yegor Ivanitch stamped on the floor with his golosh boots and swung his arms together like a frozen cabman.

“Such a damnable frost, worse than any dog!” he went on talking, smiling all over his face.  “It’s a real affliction!”

“It’s healthy,” said the governor; “frost strengthens a man and makes him vigorous. . . .”

“Though it may be healthy, it would be better without it at all,” said the mayor, wiping his wedge-shaped beard with a red handkerchief.  “It would be a good riddance!  To my thinking, your Excellency, the Lord sends it us as a punishment—­the frost, I mean.  We sin in the summer and are punished in the winter. . . .  Yes!”