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The Czar, by the Author of 'the Spanish Brothers'.
The Czar by the Author of 'the Spanish Brothers' Author:Deborah Alcock General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1882 Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million book... more »s for free. Excerpt: CHAPTER VII. " ON THE EDGE OF THE STORM." " Still the race of hero-spirits Pass the lamp from hand to hand; Age from age the words inherits -- ' Wife, and child, and fatherland!'" JIEARS came and went, changing the " little lord" of Nicolofsky into the graceful, handsome young nobleman, the ornament of the ball-rooms of Moscow. Ivan Ivanovitch -- as he was usually called by his numerous friends, such use of the father's Christian name being accounted the best style and the highest courtesy in Russian society -- had now completed his education. He spoke French, the French of the salons, in perfection; he played the violin; he danced with exquisite grace; he was an adept at cards and loto. This last accomplishment was a dangerous one. Diderot's famous saying, " Russia is rotten before she is ripe," had but too much truth in its application to the higher classes. A superficial foreign civilization too often covered without eradicating the barbarism from which the nation was only emerging, and thus the vices of the one state of society were added to those of the other. In the brilliant circles where Ivan moved, no form of vice was rare, except perhaps intemperance. The noble did not usually misuse his champagne as grossly as the mujik did his vodka; but this was the only particular in which he set his poorer brother a good example. The most fashionable vice of the Russian nobility at this period was the perilous excitement of the gaming-table. Ill this, as in other things, the licentious court of Catherine II. had been to the whole empire a very seed-plot of corruption. It is recorded that on...« less