And when the six courses of dinner had been decided on, the old general would ask, ‘Now how much shall I give you for to-day’s expenses? Six shillings will do, I suppose?’
‘One pound, sir.’
‘What nonsense, my boy! Here is six shillings; I assure you that’s quite enough.’
‘Eight shillings for asparagus, five for the vegetables.’
‘Now, look here, my dear boy, be reasonable. I’ll go as high as seven-and-six, and you must be economical.’
And the bargaining would go on thus for half an hour, until the two would agree upon fourteen shillings and sixpence, with the understanding that the morrow’s dinner should not cost more than three shillings. Whereupon the general, quite happy at having made such a good bargain, would take his sledge, make a round of the fashionable shops, and return quite radiant, bringing for his wife a bottle of exquisite perfume, for which he had paid a fancy price in a French shop, and announcing to his only daughter that a new velvet mantle—‘something very simple’ and very costly—would be sent for her to try on that afternoon.
All our relatives, who were numerous on my father’s side, lived exactly in the same way: and if a new spirit occasionally made its appearance, it usually took the form of some religious passion. Thus a Prince Gagárin joined the Jesuit order, again to the scandal of ‘all Moscow,’ another young prince entered a monastery, while several older ladies became fanatic devotees.
There was a single exception. One of our nearest relatives, Prince—let me call him Mírski—had spent his youth at St. Petersburg as an officer of the Guards. He took no interest in keeping his own tailors and cabinet-makers, for his house was furnished in a grand modern style, and his wearing apparel was all made in the best St. Petersburg shops. Gambling was not his propensity—he played cards only when in company with ladies; but his weak point was his dinner-table, upon which he spent incredible sums of money.
Lent and Easter were his chief epochs of extravagance. When the Great Lent came, and it would not have been proper to eat meat, cream, or butter, he seized the opportunity to invent all sorts of delicacies in the way of fish. The best shops of the two capitals were ransacked for that purpose; special emissaries were dispatched from his estate to the mouth of the Vólga, to bring back on post-horses (there was no railway at that time) a sturgeon of great size or some extraordinarily cured fish. And when Easter came, there was no end to his inventions.
Easter, in Russia, is the most venerated and also the gayest of the yearly festivals. It is the festival of spring. The immense heaps of snow which have been lying during the winter along the streets rapidly thaw, and roaring streams run down the streets; not like a thief who creeps in by insensible degrees, but frankly and openly spring comes—every day bringing with it a change in the state of the snow and the progress of the buds on the trees; the night frosts only keep the thaw within reasonable bounds. The last week of the Great Lent, Passion Week, was kept in Moscow, in my childhood, with extreme solemnity; it was a time of general mourning, and crowds of people went to the churches to listen to the impressive reading of those passages of the Gospels which relate the sufferings of the Christ. Not only were meat, eggs, and butter not eaten, but even fish was refused; some of the most rigorous taking no food at all on Good Friday. The more striking was the contrast when Easter came.