To the door of an inn in the provincial town of N. there drew up a smart britchk a light spring carriage of the sort affected by bachelors, retired lieutenant colonels, staff captains, land-owners possessed of about a hundred souls, and, in short, all persons who rank as gentlemen of the intermediate category. 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 overelderly, 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.¿