tries to lighten a little the unavoidable monotony by paying visits and receiving visitors.  The neighbours within a radius of twenty miles are, with few exceptions, more or less of the Ivan Ivan’itch and Maria Petrovna type—­decidedly rustic in their manners and conceptions; but their company is better than absolute solitude, and they have at least the good quality of being always able and willing to play cards for any number of hours.  Besides this, Anna Alexandrovna has the satisfaction of feeling that amongst them she is almost a great personage, and unquestionably an authority in all matters of taste and fashion; and she feels specially well disposed towards those of them who frequently address her as “Your Excellency.”

The chief festivities take place on the “name-days” of the General and his spouse—­that is to say, the days sacred to St. Nicholas and St. Anna.  On these occasions all the neighbours come to offer their congratulations, and remain to dinner as a matter of course.  After dinner the older visitors sit down to cards, and the young people extemporise a dance.  The fete is specially successful when the eldest son comes home to take part in it, and brings a brother officer with him.  He is now a general like his father.* In days gone by one of his comrades was expected to offer his hand to Olga Nekola’vna, the second daughter, a delicate young lady who had been educated in one of the great Instituts—­gigantic boarding-schools, founded and kept up by the Government, for the daughters of those who are supposed to have deserved well of their country.  Unfortunately the expected offer was never made, and she and her sister live at home as old maids, bewailing the absence of “civilised” society, and killing time in a harmless, elegant way by means of music, needlework, and light literature.

* Generals are much more common in Russia than in other countries.  A few years ago there was an old lady in Moscow who had a family of ten sons, all of whom were generals!  The rank may be obtained in the civil as well as the military service.

At these “name-day” gatherings one used to meet still more interesting specimens of the old school.  One of them I remember particularly.  He was a tall, corpulent old man, in a threadbare frock-coat, which wrinkled up about his waist.  His shaggy eyebrows almost covered his small, dull eyes, his heavy moustache partially concealed a large mouth strongly indicating sensuous tendencies.  His hair was cut so short that it was difficult to say what its colour would be if it were allowed to grow.  He always arrived in his tarantass just in time for the zakuska—­the appetising collation that is served shortly before dinner—­grunted out a few congratulations to the host and hostess and monosyllabic greetings to his acquaintances, ate a copious meal, and immediately afterwards placed himself at a card-table, where he sat in silence as long as he could get any one to play with him.  People did not like, however, to play with Andrei Vassil’itch, for his society was not agreeable, and he always contrived to go home with a well-filled purse.