But Shubinsky didn't really mind Arthur's impropriety; he was still savoring the explicit and implied meanings in Arthur's words, and for a moment, he even forgot today's tasks.
Shubinsky murmured to himself while holding his wine glass: "My Lord! A Fourth Rank Civil Servant Hastings, a serf making it to Fourth Rank Civil Servant... No matter how you look at it, it just feels absurd..."
...
Just as Shubinsky was still immersed in the shock that the Tsar might award a 'Order of Saint Vladimir' to a York serf, the joint event between Moscow University and the University of Gottingen in a second-floor box of the theater was still pushing towards its climax.
And all of this was thanks to the sudden appearance of a Frenchman.
The absence of a female companion made Mr. Great Dumas appear particularly desolate in the theater, but fortunately, the young people's stories about the Napoleonic Wars filled the void in his heart.
