's attacks were quiet, and they generally
terminated in a sleep and in a fit of melancholy.--He was kind of heart,
courteous in manner, not devoid of some pomposity: I have always
pictured to myself the Tzar Mikhail Feodorovitch as just that sort of a
man.

Andrei Nikolaevitch's whole life flowed past in the punctual discharge
of all the rites established since time immemorial, in strict conformity
with all the customs of ancient-orthodox, Holy-Russian life. He rose and
went to bed, he ate and went to the bath, he waxed merry or wrathful (he
did both the one and the other rarely, it is true), he even smoked his
pipe, he even played cards (two great innovations!), not as suited his
fancy, not after his own fashion, but in accordance with the rule and
tradition handed down from his ancestors, in proper and dignified style.
He himself was tall of stature, of noble mien and brawny; he had a
quiet and rather hoarse voice, as is frequently the case with virtuous
Russians; he was neat about his linen and his clothing, wore white
neckerchiefs and long-skirted coats of snuff-brown hue, but his noble
blood made itself manifest notwithstanding; no one would have taken him
for a priest's son or a merchant! Andrei Nikolaevitch always knew, in
all possible circumstances and encounters, precisely how he ought to act
and exactly what expressions he must employ; he knew when he ought to
take medicine, and what medicine to take, which symptoms he should heed
and which might be disregarded ... in a word, he knew everything that it
was proper to do.... It was as though he said: "Everything has been
foreseen and decreed by the old men--the only thing is not to devise
anything of your own.... And the chief thing of all is, don't go even as
far as the threshold without God's blessing!"--I am bound to admit that
deadly tedium reigned in his house, in those low-ceiled, warm, dark
rooms which so often resounded from the chanting of vigils and
prayer-services,[2] with an odour of incense and fasting-viands,[3]
which almost never left them!

Andrei Nikolaevitch had married, when he was no longer in his first
youth, a poor young noblewoman of the neighbourhood, a very nervous and
sickly person, who had been reared in one of the government institutes
for gentlewomen. She played far from badly on the piano; she spoke
French in boarding-school fashion; she was given to enthusiasm, and
still more addicted to melancholy, and even to tears.... In a word