had society in plenty in his own house; various Nikanor Nikanoritchs, Sevastiey Sevastietchs, Fedulitchs, Miheitchs, all poor gentlemen in shabby cossack coats and camisoles, often from the master’s wardrobe, lived under his roof, to say nothing of the poor gentlewomen in chintz gowns, black kerchiefs thrown over their shoulders, and worsted reticules in their tightly clenched fingers—all sorts of Avdotia Savishnas, Pelagea Mironovnas, and plain Feklushkas and Arinkas, who found a home in the women’s quarters. Never less than fifteen persons sat down to Alexey Sergeitch’s table…. He was such a hospitable man! Among all those dependants two were particularly conspicuous: a dwarf, nicknamed Janus, or the Double-faced, of Danish—or, as some maintained, Jewish—extraction, and the mad Prince L. Contrary to what was customary in those days, the dwarf did nothing to amuse the master or mistress, and was not a jester—quite the opposite; he was always silent, had an ill-tempered and sullen appearance, and scowled and gnashed his teeth directly a question was addressed to him. Alexey Sergeitch called him a philosopher, and positively respected him; at table the dishes were handed to him first, after the guests and master and mistress. ‘God has afflicted him,’ Alexey Sergeitch used to say; ‘such is His Divine will; but it’s not for me to afflict him further.’ ‘How is he a philosopher?’ I asked him once. (Janus didn’t take to me; if I went near him he would fly into a rage, and mutter thickly, ‘Stranger! keep off!’) ‘Eh, God bless me! isn’t he a philosopher?’ answered Alexey Sergeitch. ‘Look ye, little sir, how wisely he holds his tongue!’ ‘But why is he double-faced?’ ‘Because, little sir, he has one face on the outside—and so you, surface-gazers, judge him…. But the other, the real face he hides. And that face I know, and no one else—and I love him for it … because that face is good. You, for instance, look and see nothing … but I see without a word: he is blaming me for something; for he’s a severe critic! And it’s always with good reason. That, little sir, you can’t understand; but you may believe an old man like me!’ The real history of the two-faced Janus—where he came from, and how he came into Alexey Sergeitch’s hands—no one knew; but the story of Prince L. was well known to every one. He went, a lad of twenty, of a wealthy and distinguished family, to Petersburg, to serve in a regiment of the Guards. At the first levee the Empress Catherine noticed him, stood still before him, and, pointing at him with her fan, she said aloud, addressing one of her courtiers, who happened to be near, ‘Look, Adam Vassilievitch, what a pretty fellow! a perfect doll!’ The poor boy’s head was completely turned; when he got home he ordered his coach out, and, putting on a ribbon of St. Anne, proceeded to drive all over the town, as though he had reached the pinnacle of fortune. ‘Drive over every one,’ he shouted to his coachman, ‘who does not move out of the way!’ All this was promptly reported to the empress: the decree went forth that he should be declared insane, and put under the guardianship of two of his brothers; and they, without a moment’s delay, carried him off to the country, and flung him into a stone cell in chains. As they wanted to get the benefit of his property, they did not let the poor wretch out, even when he had completely recovered his balance, and positively kept him locked up till he really did go out of his mind. But their evil doings did not prosper; Prince L. outlived his brothers, and, after long years of adversity, he came into the charge of Alexey Sergeitch, whose kinsman he was. He was a stout, completely bald man, with a long, thin nose and prominent blue eyes. He had quite forgotten how to talk—he simply uttered a sort of inarticulate grumbling; but he sang old-fashioned Russian ballads beautifully, preserving the silvery freshness of his voice to extreme old age; and, while he was singing, he pronounced each word clearly and distinctly. He had attacks at times of a sort of fury, and then he became terrible: he would stand in the corner, with his face to the wall, and all perspiring and red—red all down his bald head and down his neck—he used to go off into vicious chuckles, and, stamping with his feet, order some one—his brothers probably—to be punished. ‘Beat ’em!’ he growled hoarsely, coughing and choking with laughter; ‘flog ’em, don’t spare ’em! beat, beat, beat the monsters, my oppressors! That’s it! That’s it!’ On the day before his death he greatly alarmed and astonished Alexey Sergeitch. He came, pale and subdued, into his room, and, making him a low obeisance, first thanked him for his care and kindness, and then asked him to send for a priest, for death had come to him—he had seen death, and he must forgive every one and purify his soul. ‘How did you see death?’ muttered Alexey Sergeitch in bewilderment at hearing connected speech from him for the first time. ‘In what shape? with a scythe?’ ‘No,’ answered Prince L.; ‘a simple old woman in a jacket, but with only one eye in her forehead, and that eye without an eyelid.’ And the next day Prince L. actually did die, duly performing everything, and taking leave of every one in a rational and affecting manner. ‘That’s just how I shall die,’ Alexey Sergeitch would sometimes observe. And, as a fact, something of the same sort did happen with him—but of that later.

But now let us go back to our story. Of the neighbours, as I have stated already, Alexey Sergeitch saw little; and they did not care much for him, called him a queer fish, stuck up, and a scoffer, and even a ‘martiniste’ who recognised no authorities, though they had no clear idea of the meaning of this term. To a certain extent the neighbours were right: Alexey Sergeitch had lived in his Suhodol for almost seventy years on end, and had had hardly anything whatever to do with the existing authorities, with the police or the law-courts. ‘Police-courts are for the robber, and discipline for the soldier,’ he used to say; ‘but I, thank God, am neither robber nor soldier!’ Rather queer Alexey Sergeitch certainly was, but the soul within him was by no means a petty one. I will tell you something about him.

To tell the truth, I never knew what were his political opinions, if an expression so modern can be used in reference to him; but, in his own way, he was an aristocrat—more an aristocrat than a typical Russian country gentleman. More than once he expressed his regret that God had not given him a son and heir, ‘for the honour of our name, to keep up the family.’ In his own room there hung on the wall the family-tree of the Teliegins, with many branches, and a multitude of little circles like apples in a golden frame. ‘We Teliegins,’ he used to say, ‘are an ancient line, from long, long ago: however many there’ve been of us Teliegins, we have never hung about great men’s ante-rooms; we’ve never bent our backs, or stood about in waiting, nor picked up a living in the courts, nor run after decorations; we’ve never gone trailing off to Moscow, nor intriguing in Petersburg; we’ve sat at home, each in his hole, his own man on his own land … home-keeping birds, sir!—I myself, though I did serve in the Guards—but not for long, thank you.’ Alexey Sergeitch preferred the old days. ‘There was more freedom in those days, more decorum; on my honour, I assure you! but since the year eighteen hundred’ (why from that year, precisely, he did not explain), ‘militarism, the soldiery, have got the upper hand. Our soldier gentlemen stuck some sort of turbans of cocks’ feathers on their heads then, and turned like cocks themselves; began binding their necks up as stiff as could be … they croak, and roll their eyes—how could they help it, indeed? The other day a police corporal came to me; «I’ve come to you,» says he, «honourable sir,» … (fancy his thinking to surprise me with that! … I know I’m honourable without his telling me!) «I have business with you.» And I said to him, «My good sir, you’d better first unfasten the hooks on your collar. Or else, God have mercy on us—you’ll sneeze. Ah, what would happen to you! what would happen to you! You’d break off, like a mushroom … and I should have to answer for it!» And they do drink, these military gentlemen—oh, oh, oh! I generally order home-made champagne to be given them, because to them, good wine or poor, it’s all the same; it runs so smoothly, so quickly, down their throats—how can they distinguish it? And, another thing, they’ve started sucking at a pap-bottle, smoking a tobacco-pipe. Your military gentleman thrusts his pap-bottle under his moustaches, between his lips, and puffs the smoke out of his nose, his mouth, and even his ears—and fancies himself a hero! There are my sons-in-law—though one of them’s a senator, and the other some sort of an administrator over there—they suck the pap-bottle, and they reckon themselves clever fellows too!’

Alexey Sergeitch could not endure smoking; and moreover, he could not endure dogs, especially little dogs. ‘If you’re a Frenchman, to be sure, you may well keep a