Russia in 1839 -Empire of the Czar: A Journey Through Eternal Russia

NOCTURNAL LESSONS IN ETIQUETTE. 247

and neighbours, to attend the mass, which on this festival is offered precisely at midnight.

The proprietor of whom I speak, being the most considerable person of the neighbourhood, expected a large assembly of guests on Easter-Eve, more especially as he had, that year, restored and greatly beautified his parish-church.

Two or three days before the feast, he was awakened by a procession of horses and carriages passing over a pier that led to his residence. This castle is, according to the usual custom, situated close upon the borders of a small sheet of water; the church rises on the opposite side, just at the end oí the pier, which serves as a road from the castle to the village.

Astonished to hear so unusual a noise in the middle of the night, the master of the house rose, and to his great surprise, saw from the window, by the light of numerous torches, a beautiful calèche drawn by four horses and attended by outriders.

He quickly recognised this new equipage, as well as the man to whom it belonged : he was one of the hussar officers lodged in his house, an individual who had been recently enriched by an inheritance, and had just purchased a carriage and horses, which had been brought to the castle. The old lord, upon seeing him parading in his open calèche, all alone, by night, in the midst of a deserted and silent country, imagined that he had become mad: he followed with his eyes the elegant procession, and saw it advance in good order towards the church, and stop before the door; where the owner gravely descended from the carriage, aided by his people, who crowded round to support the M 4