Once on a time a rich landed proprietor had a son, who was a thoroughly spoilt child; and one day the boy said to his father that he wished all the young serfs to come and sing before the door of the house.  After some attempts at dissuasion the request was granted, and the young people assembled; but as soon as they began to sing, the boy rushed out and drove them away.

When the merchant had told this apparently pointless story at great length, and with much circumstantial detail, he paused a little, poured some tea into his saucer, drank it off, and then inquired, “Now what do you think was the reason of this strange conduct?”

My friend replied that the riddle surpassed his powers of divination.

“Well,” said the merchant, looking hard at him, with a knowing grin, “there was no reason; and all the boy could say was, ’Go away, go away!  I’ve changed my mind; I’ve changed my mind’” (poshli von; otkhotyel).

There was no possibility of mistaking the point of the story.  My friend took the hint and departed.

The Russian merchant’s love of ostentation is of a peculiar kind—­something entirely different from English snobbery.  He may delight in gaudy reception-rooms, magnificent dinners, fast trotters, costly furs; or he may display his riches by princely donations to churches, monasteries, or benevolent institutions:  but in all this he never affects to be other than he really is.  He habitually wears a costume which designates plainly his social position; he makes no attempt to adopt fine manners or elegant tastes; and he never seeks to gain admission to what is called in Russia la societe.  Having no desire to seem what he is not, he has a plain, unaffected manner, and sometimes a quiet dignity which contrasts favourably with the affected manner of those nobles of the lower ranks who make pretensions to being highly educated and strive to adopt the outward forms of French culture.  At his great dinners, it is true, the merchant likes to see among his guests as many “generals”—­that is to say, official personages—­as possible, and especially those who happen to have a grand cordon; but he never dreams of thereby establishing an intimacy with these personages, or of being invited by them in return.  It is perfectly understood by both parties that nothing of the kind is meant.  The invitation is given and accepted from quite different motives.  The merchant has the satisfaction of seeing at his table men of high official rank, and feels that the consideration which he enjoys among people of his own class is thereby augmented.  If he succeeds in obtaining the presence of three generals, he obtains a victory over a rival who cannot obtain more than two.  The general, on his side, gets a first-rate dinner, a la russe, and acquires an undefined right to request subscriptions for public objects or benevolent institutions.