[4] I went to the fête at Sokólniki in detestable weather, which was why I did not meet any of the society ladies I wished to see. As you say I am a man who tests himself, I went among the plebs in the gipsy tents. You can easily imagine the inward struggle I there experienced, for and against. However, I came out victorious: that is to say, having given nothing but my blessing to the gay descendants of the illustrious Pharaohs. Nicholas considers me a very agreeable travelling companion, except for my cleanliness. He is cross because he says I change my linen 12 times a day. I also find him a very agreeable companion, except for his dirtiness. I do not know which of us is right. On leaving Moscow, instead of travelling to the Caucasus by the usual route _viâ_ Vorónesh, Nicholas Tolstoy, who liked to do things his own way, decided that they would drive first to Kazán. Here they stayed a week, visiting acquaintances, and that was long enough for Leo to fall in love with a young lady to whom his shyness prevented his expressing his sentiments. He left for the Caucasus bearing his secret with him, and we hear no more of the matter. From Kazán they drove to Sarátof, where they hired a boat large enough to take their travelling carriage on board, and with a crew of three men, made their way down the Vólga to Astrakhán, sometimes rowing, sometimes sailing, and sometimes drifting with the stream. The scorn of luxury and social distinctions so prominent in Tolstoy's later philosophy, was at this period more to the taste of his brother Nicholas. A gentleman drove past them in Kazán leaning on his walking-stick with ungloved hands, and that was sufficient to cause Leo to speak of him contemptuously, whereupon Nicholas, in his usual tone of good-natured irony, wanted to know why a man should be despised for not wearing gloves. From Astrakhán they had still to drive some two hundred and seventy miles to reach Starogládovsk, where Nicholas Tolstoy's battery was stationed. The whole journey from Moscow, including the stay in Kazán, took nearly a month.