Here was indeed King Carnival supreme in state. But all this was but the prelude; the crowning glory of the festival was yet to come. For what is joy without _vodka_, and what is _vodka_ unless it be drunk in sufficient quantities to drown memory and consciousness? The _mujik_ would probably endorse the five classical reasons for drinking—1. The advent of a friend. 2. You are thirsty. 3. You may be thirsty some time hence. 4. The good quality of the liquor. 5. Any other reason! I am reminded as I write these lines that in a few days the mad week of 1915 will take place, and there will be no _vodka_! What will happen? What will my poor Mikhail do if he be yet alive? And we! How were we spending the mad week, while the proletariat were playing high jinks on the Admiralty Place? The great folk were in what Shakespeare calls “holiday humour,” no less than the small, and they too were bent on making the most of the last merriment that the Church would allow till the long spell of Lenten sadness should be past; and this they achieved by turning day into night. By one o’clock in the afternoon we had to array ourselves in evening dress to go and eat _blinni_ at one or another of our kind friends’ hospitable houses. _Blinni_ are a sort of scone, a cross between a pancake and a crumpet, eaten with fresh butter and caviare, a very tempting form of food. After feasting upon _blinni_ comes dancing, generally a regular ball, with cotillon and mazurka complete. Then dressing for dinner, two or three parties and at least one ball. All business at a standstill, nothing but pleasure, more pleasure and yet again pleasure. By the end of the week the world seemed a little limp, and I think we all realized that “surfeit is the father of much fast.”[46] It was not very often that the men of letters made an appearance in the society of St. Petersburg. I was all the more interested when one evening Lord Napier invited a few of them to dinner at the Embassy; amongst them was Turgenieff, the famous author—a tall, strikingly handsome man with grey hair—altogether a commanding figure. I was much disappointed at not being able to hear him talk, but I was placed a long way from him, and as he left immediately after dinner, I had no opportunity of speaking with him. I sat next to M. Novikoff, an official of high position, who was very communicative.