On Saturday I continued my journey. At the Moskaya station the air is
lovely and fresh, caviare is seventy kopecks a pound. At Rostdov I had two
hours to wait, at Taganrog twenty. I spent the night at an acquaintance's.
The devil only knows what I haven't spent a night on: on beds with bugs, on
sofas, settees, boxes. Last night I spent in a long and narrow parlour on a
sofa under a looking-glass....




April 25.


... Yesterday was the wedding--a real Cossack wedding with music, feminine
bleating, and revolting drunkenness.... The bride is sixteen. They were
married in the cathedral. I acted as best man, and was dressed in somebody
else's evening suit with fearfully wide trousers, and not a single stud on
my shirt. In Moscow such a best man would have been kicked out, but here I
looked smarter than anyone.

I saw many rich and eligible young ladies. The choice is enormous, but I
was so drunk all the time that I took bottles for young ladies and young
ladies for bottles. Probably owing to my drunken condition the local ladies
found me witty and satirical! The young ladies here are regular sheep, if
one gets up from her place and walks out of the room all the others follow
her. One of them, the boldest and the most brainy, wishing to show that she
is not a stranger to social polish and subtlety, kept slapping me on the
hand and saying, "Oh, you wretch!" though her face still retained its
scared expression. I taught her to say to her partners, "How naive you
are!"