At the very beginning of this century, when there were no railways, no macadamized roads, no gas or stearine candles, no low and springy sofas, no unvarnished furniture, no disillusionized young men with eye-glasses, no women philosophers of liberal tendencies, no dear Camilles, such as our time has produced in abundance; in those naïve days when travellers made the journey from Moscow to Petersburg by stage or carriage, and took with them a whole kitchen of domestic preparations, and travelled for a week, night and day, over soft roads, muddy or dusty as the case might be, pinned their faith to Pozharsky cutlets, Valdaï bluebells, and pretzels; when during the long autumn evenings tallow candles burned till they had to be snuffed, and cast their rays on family circles of twenty or thirty people (at balls, wax or spermaceti candles were set up in candelabra); when furniture was placed with stiff precision; when our fathers were still young, not merely by the absence of wrinkles and gray hair, but fought duels for women, and were fain to rush from one end of a room to the other to pick up a handkerchief dropped accidentally or otherwise, and our mothers wore short waists and huge sleeves, and decided family affairs by the drawing of lots; when charming Camilles avoided the light of day; in the naïve period of Masonic lodges, of Martinists, and of the _Tugendbund_; at the time of the Miloradovitches, Davuidofs, and Pushkins,--a meeting of landed proprietors took place in the governmental city of K., and the election of the college of nobles was drawing to a close. [Footnote 56: From the poem entitled, "The Song of an Old Hussar," in which a veteran contrasts the mighty days of the past with the dilettanti present. Denis Vasilyevitch Davuidof, who was an officer of hussars, died in 1839.--TR.] I. "Well, all right, it's all the same, be it in the hall," said a young officer dressed in a shuba, and wearing a hussar's helmet, as he dismounted from a travelling sledge in front of the best hotel of the city of K. "A great meeting, little father, your excellency,--a tremendous crowd," said the hall-boy, who had already learned from the officer's man that it was Count Turbin, and therefore honored him with the address of "your excellency." "Madame Afrimova and her daughters have expressed the intention of going away this evening; you can be accommodated with their room as soon as it is vacated,--No. 11," the hall-boy went on to say, noiselessly showing the count the way, and constantly turning round to look at him. In the sitting-room, at a small table under a blackened full-length portrait of the Emperor Alexander, sat a number of men, evidently belonging to the local aristocracy, drinking champagne; and on one side were some travelling merchants in blue shubas.