splendid union--thus
thought our elders. And therefore----"

Here the Judge with a sudden turn of his head nodded at Thaddeus and
bestowed on him a stern glance; it was evident that he had now reached the
climax of his speech.

Thereupon the Chamberlain tapped his golden snuffbox and said:--

"My dear Judge, in former times it was still worse. At present I know not
whether the fashion changes even us old men, or whether the young men are
better than before, but I see less cause of scandal. Ah, I remember the
times when on our fatherland there first descended the fashion of
imitating the French; when suddenly brisk young gentlemen from foreign
lands swarmed in upon us in a horde worse than the Nogai Tatars, abusing
here, in our country, God, the faith of our fathers, our law and customs,
and even our ancient garments. Pitiable was it to behold the yellow-faced
puppies, talking through their noses--and often without noses--stuffed with
brochures and newspapers of various sorts, and proclaiming new faiths,
laws, and toilets. That rabble had a mighty power over minds, for when the
Lord God sends punishment on a nation he first deprives its citizens of
reason. And so the wiser heads dared not resist the fops, and the whole
nation feared them as some pestilence, for within itself it already felt
the germs of disease. They cried out against the dandies but took pattern
by them; they changed faith, speech, laws, and costumes. That was a
masquerade, the licence of the Carnival season, after which was soon to
follow the Lent of slavery.

"I remember,--though then I was but a little child,--when the Cup-Bearer's
son came to visit my father in the district of Oszmiana, in a French
carriage; he was the first man in Lithuania who wore French clothes.
Everybody ran after him as after a buzzard;18 they envied the house before
the threshold of which the Cup-Bearer's son halted his two-wheeled chaise,
which passed by the French name of cabriolet. Within it sat two dogs
instead of footmen, and on the box a German, lean as a board; his long
legs, thin as hop-poles, were clad in stockings, and shoes with silver
buckles; the tail of his wig was tied up in a sack. The old men burst out
laughing at that equipage, but the country boors crossed themselves,
saying that a Venetian devil was travelling abroad in a German carriage.
To describe the son of the Cup-Bearer himself would be a long story;
suffice it to say that he seemed to us an ape o