Opening of the book
I
“Well, Piotr, not in sight yet?” was the question asked on May the
20th, 1859, by a gentleman of a little over forty, in a dusty coat and checked trousers, who came out without his hat on to the low steps of the posting station at S — —. He was addressing his servant, a chubby young fellow, with whitish down on his chin, and little, lacklustre eyes.
The servant, in whom everything —the turquoise ring in his ear, the streaky hair plastered with grease, and the civility of his movements —indicated a man of the new, improved generation, glanced with an air of indulgence along the road, and made answer:
“No, sir; not in sight.”
“Not in sight?” repeated his master.
“No, sir,” responded the man a second time.
His master sighed, and sat down on a little bench. We will introduce him to the reader while he sits, his feet tucked under him, gazing thoughtfully round.
His name was Nikolai Petrovitch Kirsanov. He had, twelve miles from the posting station, a fine property of two hundred souls, or, as he expressed it —since he had arranged the division of his land with the peasants, and started “a farm” —of nearly five thousand acres. His father, a general in the army, who served in 1812, a coarse, half-educated, but not ill-natured man, a typical Russian, had been in harness all his life, first in command of a brigade, and then of a division, and lived constantly in the provinces, where, by virtue of his rank, he played a fairly important part. Nikolai Petrovitch was born in the south of Russia like his elder brother, Pavel, of whom more hereafter. He was educated at home till he was fourteen, surrounded by cheap tutors, free-and-easy but toadying adjutants, and all the usual regimental and staff set. His mother, one of the Kolyazin family, as a girl called Agathe, but as a general’s wife
Agathokleya Kuzminishna Kirsanov, was one of those military ladies
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