The modern Russian is an interesting study, because he has the remnant
of barbaric tastes, with ultra-civilized facilities for gratifying the
same. The best part of him comes from the East, the worst from Paris.
The Countess Lanovitch belonged to the school existing in Petersburg and
Moscow in the early years of the century--the school that did not speak
Russian but only French, that chose to class the peasants with the
beasts of the field, that apparently expected the deluge to follow soon.
Her drawing-room, looking out on to the Neva, was characteristic of
herself. Camellias held the floral honors in vase and pot. The French
novel ruled supreme on the side-table. The room was too hot, the chairs
were too soft, the moral atmosphere too lax. One could tell that this
was the dwelling-room of a lazy, self-indulgent, and probably ignorant
woman.
The countess herself in nowise contradicted this conclusion. She was
seated on a very low chair, exposing a slippered foot to the flame of a
wood fire. She held a magazine in her hand, and yawned as she turned its
pages. She was not so stout in person as her loose and somewhat highly
colored cheeks would imply. Her eyes were dull and sleepy. The woman was
an incarnate yawn.
She looked up, turning lazily in her chair, to note the darkening of the
air without the double windows.
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