In Russia one converses--as in Scotland one jokes--with difficulty.
A Russian table d'hote is therefore any thing but hilarious in its tendency.

A certain number of grave-faced gentlemen and a few broad-jowled ladies are visibly constrained by the force of circumstance to dine at the same table and hour, et voila tout.

There is no pretence that any more sociable and neighborly motive has brought them together.
Indeed, they each suspect the other of being a German, or a Nihilist, or, worse still, a Government servant.

They therefore sit as far apart as possible, and smoke cigarettes between and during the courses with that self-centred absorption which would be rude, if it were not entirely satisfactory, to the average Briton.

The ladies, of course, have the same easy method of showing a desire for silence and reflection in a country where nurses carrying infants usually smoke in the streets, and where a dainty confectioner's assistant places her cigarette between her lips in order to leave her hands free for the service of her customers.
The table d'hote of the Hotel de Moscou at Tver was no exception to the general rule.