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In the britchka was
seated such a gentleman--a man who, though not handsome, was not
ill-favoured, not over-fat, and not over-thin. Also, though not
over-elderly, he was not over-young. His arrival produced no stir in
the town, and was accompanied by no particular incident, beyond that a
couple of peasants who happened to be standing at the door of a
dramshop exchanged a few comments with reference to the equipage
rather than to the individual who was seated in it. "Look at that
carriage," one of them said to the other. "Think you it will be going
as far as Moscow?" "I think it will," replied his companion. "But not
as far as Kazan, eh?" "No, not as far as Kazan." With that the
conversation ended. Presently, as the britchka was approaching the
inn, it was met by a young man in a pair of very short, very tight
breeches of white dimity, a quasi-fashionable frockcoat, and a dickey
fastened with a pistol-shaped bronze tie-pin. The young man turned his
head as he passed the britchka and eyed it attentively; after which he
clapped his hand to his cap (which was in danger of being removed by
the wind) and resumed his way. On the vehicle reaching the inn door,
its occupant found standing there to welcome him the polevoi, or
waiter, of the establishment--an individual of such nimble and brisk
movement that even to distinguish the character of his face was
impossible. Running out with a napkin in one hand and his lanky form
clad in a tailcoat, reaching almost to the nape of his neck, he tossed
back his locks, and escorted the gentleman upstairs, along a wooden
gallery, and so to the bedchamber which God had prepared for the
gentleman's reception. The said bedchamber was of quite ordinary
appearance, since the inn belonged to the species to be found in all
provincial towns--the species wherein, for two roubles a day,
travellers may obtain a room swarming with black-beetles, and
communicating by a doorway with the apartment adjoining. True, the
doorway may be blocked up with a wardrobe; yet behind it, in all
probability, there will be standing a silent, motionless neighbour
whose ears are burning to learn every possible detail concerning the
latest arrival. The inn's exterior corresponded with its interior.
Long, and consisting only of two storeys, the building had its lower
half destitute of stucco; with the result that the dark-red bricks,
originally more or less dingy, had grown yet dingier under the
influence of atmospheric changes. As for the upper half of the
building, it was, of course, painted the usual tint of unfading
yellow. Within, on the ground floor, there stood a number of benches
heaped with horse-collars, rope, and sheepskins; while the window-seat
accommodated a sbitentshik[1], cheek by jowl with a samovar[2]--the
latter so closely resembling the former in appearance that, but for
the fact of the samovar possessing a pitch-black lip, the samovar and
the sbitentshik might have been two of a pair.

[1] An urn for brewing honey tea.

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