At the very beginning of this century, when there were no railways, no
macadamized roads, no gas or stearine candles, no low and springy sofas, no
unvarnished furniture, no disillusionized young men with eye-glasses, no
women philosophers of liberal tendencies, no dear Camilles, such as our
time has produced in abundance; in those naïve days when travellers made
the journey from Moscow to Petersburg by stage or carriage, and took with
them a whole kitchen of domestic preparations, and travelled for a week,
night and day, over soft roads, muddy or dusty as the case might be, pinned
their faith to Pozharsky cutlets, Valdaï bluebells, and pretzels; when
during the long autumn evenings tallow candles burned till they had to be
snuffed, and cast their rays on family circles of twenty or thirty people
(at balls, wax or spermaceti candles were set up in candelabra); when
furniture was placed with stiff precision; when our fathers were still
young, not merely by the absence of wrinkles and gray hair, but fought
duels for women, and were fain to rush from one end of a room to the other
to pick up a handkerchief dropped accidentally or otherwise, and our
mothers wore short waists and huge sleeves, and decided family affairs by
the drawing of lots; when charming Camilles avoided the light of day; in
the naïve period of Masonic lodges, of Martinists, and of the _Tugendbund_;
at the time of the Miloradovitches, Davuidofs, and Pushkins,--a meeting of
landed proprietors took place in the governmental city of K., and the
election of the college of nobles was drawing to a close.
[Footnote 56: From the poem entitled, "The Song of an Old Hussar," in which
a veteran contrasts the mighty days of the past with the dilettanti
present. Denis Vasilyevitch Davuidof, who was an officer of hussars, died
in 1839.--TR.]