to his honour be it said, was the first gentleman in the empire; equality was to his mind only an antique phantom evoked by the evil-intentioned from the depths of the ruins of the fabulous republics of Pskoff and Novgorod, at the instigation of the philosophers of Germany, who had already suffocated Poland with the fumes of their political wisdom.

Thus Tchitchikoff entertained sentiments with regard to the inhabitants of Europe which were thoroughly Chinese. He conscientiously failed to fulfil any engagements with Englishmen, Frenchmen, Germans, Swiss, and Italians, simply with the object of making them feel that a formal treaty or engagement entered into with them was not a contract which could bind the Russian. If he yielded in the end, it was only at the entreaty of his peers in the nobility; and he still acquitted himself after his own fashion, obliging them to feel that he acted out of respect to himself, and not in virtue of any alleged contract, which was and could be only a fiction.

Although he sought out their Parisian soap, their eau-de-Cologne, their Holland cambric, their Sheffield knives and razors, their Périgord truffles, their Strasburg pâtés, their Champagne wines, their Sedan cloths, and their Aubusson carpets, he much preferred to obtain these things from Polish Jews rather than direct from Frenchmen, Englishmen, Italians, and Germans. He would willingly have employed the Jews of White Russia to teach his daughters the languages and literatures of the four nations. He would have liked an Italian opera company, entirely composed of singers from the Ukraïna; a French theatre, with actors born at Simbirsk and Tobolsk; and a German theatre, where the performers would have been Kalmuks and Kirghiz-Kazáks.

One of the most characteristic traits of our hero’s lofty personality was patriotism, the most exclusive Great Russian patriotism. He was perfectly willing to admit imitation that was the simple mark of the universal adaptability of the Muscovite nature; he did not admit the infusion of foreign genius; he repulsed every shadow of any association or affiliation whatever. The introduction of a Frenchman, an Englishman, a Swiss, or a Belgian into the councils of the government would, in his eyes, have been as great an enormity as a request to a fox, a wolf, a hyena, or a shark to take care of an aviary, a sheepfold, a menagerie, or a great national lake, like those of Ladoga, Onega, and Ilmen. A Jew, however, might be allowed to assume office, for if he did not walk straight, one would have no hesitation in despatching him, without any noise, to those vast eastern provinces of the empire where the need of men to work the mines concealed in the great chain of mountains bordering upon the Chinese frontier was making itself more and more felt, and where the Western nations had absolutely no reason to interfere.

Politics, diplomacy, home rule, justice, men, things, defects, prejudices, abuses—numerous, varied, and universal—he accepted, protected, adored them all, such as they existed in Russia. He delighted in everything that was Russian, because it was Russian, because it existed for the benefit of the nobility of his country; because, in spite of all restraints, the “cute” Russian, by properly guiding the bark of his cupidity, could, even without any special talent, without the least genius, without having rendered any distinguished services, attain to nobility, fortune, honours, and even dream of the highest dignities. And he delighted in the vices, wrongs, crimes, anomalies, and frequent contradictions of a system which led everyone to believe in evil and no one in the law, simply because, in his eyes, all these defects had their good sides for the ambitious. Moreover, he did not see that there was any inconvenience to the country in the fact that thirty millions of serfs and low-class families remained in bondage, called upon to provide for the questionable pleasures, to the life of barbarous luxury, and the often savage fancies of three hundred thousand satraps, upheld by a million of corrupt country squires, and flanked by three or four thousand Jewish, Greek, and Mongolian nabobs.

Tchitchikoff, during the happy days of his journeyings, had dreamed of a fortune, of a pretty wife, an elegant retreat, a sumptuous equipage, a numerous progeny; of clearing new land, of cleverly managing far-stretching forests, of agricultural prosperity, and of the happiness of his vassals. Everything, except the happiness of his vassals—except this last point, which had, in fact, merely been included in his programme like the set dishes which always remain intact in the refreshment-rooms on great railway lines—everything had prospered with him according to his wishes, and had even much surpassed his expectations. But if