Desiring some diversion and to drive away the disagreeable impression, he went in the evening to the house of one of his friends, where he found a likely crowd, all the more pleasant because nearly every one was of the one and the same rank, so that he was not in any way embarrassed. This fact had a most astounding effect on his spirits. He opened his heart, made himself very agreeable in conversation; in short, he passed a charming evening. After supper he drank two glasses of champagne, an excellent method, as every one knows, of arousing cheerfulness. The champagne communicated in him an inclination towards various enterprises, and he decided not to go directly home, but to visit a certain well-known lady named Karolina Ivanovna--probably of German extraction--with whom he was on quite friendly terms. It should be mentioned that the _important personage_ was no longer a young man, but a good husband and the respectable father of a family. His two sons, one of whom was already in the government service, and a good-looking, sixteen-year-old daughter, with a trifle arched but rather pretty little nose, came in every morning to kiss his hand, and say, “_Bon jour, Papa_.” His wife, a woman still fresh and not at all bad-looking, first gave him her hand to kiss and then kissed his. The _important personage_, however, though content with his domestic caresses, thought it elegant to maintain friendly relations in another part of the city. This friend was hardly prettier or younger than his wife; but many such mysteries exist on earth, and to solve them is none of our affair. The _important personage_, therefore, descended the staircase, entered his sledge, and said to the driver, “To Karolina Ivanovna!” Then, wrapping himself luxuriously in his warm cloak, he settled into that happy mood, better than which cannot be even imagined by the Russian. It is that state when you are not thinking of anything in particular, but the thoughts crowd in upon you of themselves, one pleasanter than the other, and calling for no exertion on your part to pursue them or seek them. Gratified beyond measure, he recalled all the gay features of the evening, all the remarks and all the stories that made the little circle laugh. Many of these he repeated in a low voice, and found them just as funny as before. Occasionally, however, he was hindered by an impetuous wind, which, arising suddenly, God only knows whence and why, cut his face, and beat snow into it, or caused the collar of his cloak to burst out like a sail, and then blew it back over his head, with a supernatural force, as it were, and this gave him no end of trouble to disentangle his head out of its folds.