Vikhranov said admiringly, "How beautiful is the play of bubbles in this beverage!" as the ambassador lifted his glass, saying, "To the future of Tolstoia!" bowed to Samsonov and drank.
The patriarch's return bow was a trifle stiff, but he sipped—and immediately appeared to become the victim of a revolution, spitting the champagne on the floor and coughing with bulging eyes, while the others gathered round him with expressions of sympathy. After a moment of gasping recovery, he pushed them aside and said to Lanzerotti, "I taste alcohol! Is it not so?"
"To be sure," said the ambassador. "You can't very well make champagne without it. Please accept my sincerest apologies for offering it to you if it offends you, however."
"We have a law against it in Tolstoia! The drinking of alcohol leads to failure to recognize the brotherhood of man!"
Heidekopfer said to Ann, "They had a law against alcohol in America once, too, but as far as I can remember, it didn't keep people from drinking."
"Hush," she said, "I like to watch the way he holds his head."
Her eyes were fixed on Samsonov, who was returning the glance with interest as he talked to the ambassador. Heidekopfer growled, helped himself to some of the zakuski (which seemed to consist largely of various kinds of pickled fish and vegetables, with some of the soft Venusian kara nuts) and moved over to join the group around Rosa Lanzerotti. Kazetzky was just saying, "It would pleasure me greatly, little mother, if it is your will to allow me to show you some of the natural beauty of happy Tolstoia tomorrow, while the others are making their official observations."
"Thank you," she said, "but I usually go with my husband on inspection trips, when there are any, and I think I'd rather like to—" She broke off suddenly with a frown between her brows, and Heidekopfer noticed that the others in the group were staring at her with a quite peculiar intensity. Kazetzky was swinging in his fingers some kind of little bright ornament that he wore on a chain around his neck.
Rosa Lanzerotti said slowly, "I think it would be very nice. You'll have to call for me, though. I have no idea of what hours you keep in Tolstoia."