Though infinitely more civilised than the old Russian noble as described by Clarke, "unwashed, unshaven, eating raw turnip and drinking quass" (for according to the Doctor, in 1799, "raw turnips were handed about in slices in the first houses, on a silver salver, with brandy as a whet before dinner"), he was a fair average specimen of a fine old Muscovite gentleman "all of the olden time," who had a cat-o'-nine-tails always at hand; who generally unbuttoned his vest when the gold cup was brought, in which he drank his pink champagne or rare Hungarian wine, which he always had in equal plenty with his fiery vodka and bitter quass; who reckoned his silver roubles by sacksful, and his Sclavonian souls by thousands; and who, though by no means a bad fellow, as his imperious and outrageous class go in Russia, had still the somewhat czarish notion, that true nobility "means the privilege of being treated like a human being of intelligence and feeling, and of treating others as if they were nothing of the kind." Scandal said that in his wild youth he had flogged his serfs to fight with his favourite bear, and flogged them again if they maltreated or bit Bruin too much: Balgonie certainly saw two or three old serfs who had lost an ear in these combats. And when the Count took his afternoon nap, if a cock crowed in the village, a dog barked, or a cat mewed, the whole community were wont to tremble, when the stout dvornick, or house-porter, was seen to issue forth with his cat-o'-nine-tails in search of the proprietor. A rich sash usually girt the waist of his old-fashioned tunic, which was of fine cloth, and trimmed with fur, broad or narrow according to the season; a square cap of crimson velvet, tasselled with gold and edged with ermine as white as his beard, was placed diagonally on his head, when he went abroad; and then he carried a long gold-headed cane, with the exact weight of which most of the shoulders in the neighbourhood were perfectly familiar. On holy festivals the breast of his best velvet coat was always covered by orders of the empire; a dozen of servants usually hovered about him when he dined; and he always went to church and confession in a clumsy old coach drawn by six white horses, three abreast, in honour of the Holy Trinity. He was proud of being one of the old hereditary nobles, who are distinguished from the personal nobility by their right to possess serfs, and to whose earthly tyranny there was no limit, save the tomb. All the wretched serf possessed, even his wife, was the property of his lord. Fear of secret murder alone protected the latter species of property; hence no wonder is it that the land is without a middle class. Even in the present century, Heber, in his Journal, mentions an instance of a Russian noble who, in his profane cruelty and lust of power, nailed a servant on a cross, for which he was only imprisoned in a monastery.