...of authority

Kristianpoller vanished and reappeared a moment later with three large bottles on a stout wooden tray - wine, beer, spirits. He put the three bottles together with three separate glasses on the table before Tarabas and withdrew once more, bowing deeply. Tarabas first tested the bottles, raising each one in turn and examining it in the air as if to the proof of hand and eye. Finally he decided in favour of the brandy. True to the habit of all drinkers of hard liqour, he emptied one glass in a single draught, and poured out another. There was still a complete silence in the room. The officers sat stiffly with their plates and glasses in front of them and looked furtively across them at the colonel. Kristianpoller stood immobile and head down before his counter, waiting and alert to hasten over at a gesture, yes, at a flicker of an eyelash from Colonel Tarabas. He stood there intent upon the wishes of the war-god of Koropta, ready to spring to meet them as they formed slowly, or - who knew? - perhaps with suddenness within that mind. The gurgling of the brandy as the colonel poured out another glassful could be heard distinctly all over the large room. It was followed by the terrible one's praise: "Good stuff, this, Jew!" - a phrase which Tarabas now began to reiterate with shorter and shorter pauses between, and each time with a louder voice. At last when the colonel had disposed of his sixth glass, the youngest of the officers present, Lieutenant Kulin, thought that the time had come to break the the silence which respect and fear had until then imposed on all of them. He rose, a glass of brandy in his hand, and went over to the colonel's table. The lieutenant's hand was steady; not a drop overflowed from the brimming glass he held. He stopped at the table and drew himself up smartly.

[Tarabas: A Guest On Earth, Roth, J.]