CHAPTER I
A rather pretty little chaise on springs, such as bachelors, half-pay officers, staff-captains, landowners with about a hundred serfs—in short, all such as are spoken of as 'gentlemen of the middling sort'—drive about in, rolled in at the gates of the hotel of the provincial town of N. In the chaise sat a gentleman, not handsome but not bad-looking, not too stout and not too thin; it could not be said that he was old, neither could he be described as extremely young. His arrival in the town created no sensation whatever and was not accompanied by anything remarkable. Only two Russian peasants standing at the door of the tavern facing the hotel made some observations, with reference, however, rather to the carriage than to its occupant. 'My eye,' said one to the other, 'isn't that a wheel! What do you think? Would that wheel, if so it chanced, get to Moscow or would it never get there?' 'It would,' answered the other. 'But to Kazan now, I don't think it would get there?' 'It wouldn't get to Kazan,' answered the other. With that the conversation ended. Moreover, just as the chaise drove up to the hotel it was met by a young man in extremely short and narrow white canvas trousers, in a coat with
