The guests were assembled in the principal drawing-room, an immense room with a painted wooden ceiling of the fifteenth century. The walls were hung with crimson brocade, and covered with pictures by old masters. The portières were of heavy crimson velvet, the furniture was massive and gilt. In the middle of the room, over the red felt with which the floor was covered, lay two large white bear-skins, the only compatriots Irene met at this reception. The whole M⸺ family was present, grandfather, grandmother, and grandson (a handsome boy of fifteen, dressed in the uniform of one of the Roman colleges)—even an eight-months-old infant in a film of white lace, presiding majestically on the knees of his nurse, an Albanian peasant woman, attired in her picturesque national costume. The tiny prince seemed to be enjoying himself more than anyone else, energetically and with gurgles of delight pulling the moustache of every man and tearing off the veil of every lady who bent over him! It was charming to see the indescribable tenderness with which the whole family regarded this latest representative of their ancient race! In general, the festival was patriarchal and aristocratic to the highest degree—aristocratic in the true fashion of ancient times, when the nobles, really loving the people, befriended them and opened their doors to them on all festive occasions. It was so in all countries, and that wholly un-Christian and senseless gulf which now separates one class from another only came into being with the formation of the middle class, uncertain of itself, having no ground under its feet, dragging hopelessly after the aristocracy, and kicking back with hatred and repulsion the lower classes from which it had so recently risen. At one end of the drawing-room stood a tea table, and, according to a charming Roman custom, tea, chocolate, and ices were offered to the visitors. Italians can drink hot chocolate and eat ices almost at the same time, without dying! Irene sat down in a corner, and watched the scene before her with delighted interest. She thought of how, in Petrograd, anything connected with Catherine the Great or Alexander I. was considered ancient. Such antiquity might, here, in this Roman Palace, be looked upon as positively modern! For the first time, Irene realized the youth of her own country. The proud girl, considering herself on an equality with the greatest Russian families, felt a little humiliated at the thought that the ancestors of her princely hosts once walked about the Forum in togas, took part in the government of ancient Rome and in the creation of a great art and a great literature, and gave their laws to the whole civilized world. She tried to picture to herself the Russia of that time: a wilderness peopled by savage hordes in skins of wild beasts, nomad tribes, wandering through forests and swamps and deserts.…