Dimitri Ivanovitch, like his brother Ivan, had been endowed by nature with a very decided repugnance to prolonged intellectual exertion, but as he was a man of good parts he did not fear a Junker’s examination—­especially when he could count on the colonel’s protection—­and accordingly entered the army.  In his regiment were a number of jovial young officers like himself, always ready to relieve the monotony of garrison life by boisterous dissipation, and among these he easily acquired the reputation of being a thoroughly good fellow.  In drinking bouts he could hold his own with the best of them, and in all mad pranks invariably played the chief part.  By this means he endeared himself to his comrades, and for a time all went well.  The colonel had himself sown wild oats plentifully in his youth, and was quite disposed to overlook, as far as possible, the bacchanalian peccadilloes of his subordinates.  But before many years had passed, the regiment suddenly changed its character.  Certain rumours had reached headquarters, and the Emperor Nicholas appointed as colonel a stern disciplinarian of German origin, who aimed at making the regiment a kind of machine that should work with the accuracy of a chronometer.

This change did not at all suit the tastes of Dimitri Ivan’itch.  He chafed under the new restraints, and as soon as he had gained the rank of lieutenant retired from the service to enjoy the freedom of country life.  Shortly afterwards his father died, and he thereby became owner of an estate, with two hundred serfs.  He did not, like his elder brother, marry, and “effeminate himself,” but he did worse.  In his little independent kingdom—­for such was practically a Russian estate in the good old times—­he was lord of all he surveyed, and gave full scope to his boisterous humour, his passion for sport, and his love of drinking and dissipation.  Many of the mad pranks in which he indulged will long be preserved by popular tradition, but they cannot well be related here.

Dimitri Ivan’itch is now a man long past middle age, and still continues his wild, dissipated life.  His house resembles an ill-kept, disreputable tavern.  The floor is filthy, the furniture chipped and broken, the servants indolent, slovenly, and in rags.  Dogs of all breeds and sizes roam about the rooms and corridors.  The master, when not asleep, is always in a more or less complete state of intoxication.  Generally he has one or two guests staying with him—­men of the same type as himself—­and days and nights are spent in drinking and card-playing.  When he cannot have his usual boon-companions he sends for one or two small proprietors who live near—­men who are legally nobles, but who are so poor that they differ little from peasants.  Formerly, when ordinary resources failed, he occasionally had recourse to the violent expedient of ordering his servants to stop the first passing travellers, whoever they might be, and bring them in by persuasion or force, as circumstances might demand.  If the travellers refused to accept such rough, undesired hospitality, a wheel would be taken off their tarantass, or some indispensable part of the harness would be secreted, and they might consider themselves fortunate if they succeeded in getting away next morning.*