to all his relations, and a considerable sum to the parish church.  The whole affair was to be kept a secret till after his death, but his neighbour—­the old gentleman with the daughter—­was called in to act as a witness.  When all this had been done he did not die, but rapidly recovered, and now induced the old gentleman to whom he had confided his secret to grant him his daughter’s hand.  The daughter had no objections to marry a man possessed of such wealth, and the marriage was duly celebrated.  Shortly after this the father died—­without discovering, it is to be hoped, the hoax that had been perpetrated—­and Alexei Petrovitch became virtual possessor of a very comfortable little estate.  With the change in his fortunes he completely changed his principles, or at least his practice.  In all his dealings he was strictly honest.  He lent money, it is true, at from ten to fifteen per cent., but that was considered in these parts not a very exorbitant rate of interest, nor was he unnecessarily hard upon his debtors.

It may seem strange that an honourable man like the General should receive in his house such a motley company, comprising men of decidedly tarnished reputation; but in this respect he was not at all peculiar.  One constantly meets in Russian society persons who are known to have been guilty of flagrant dishonesty, and we find that men who are themselves honourable enough associate with them on friendly terms.  This social leniency, moral laxity, or whatever else it may be called, is the result of various causes.  Several concurrent influences have tended to lower the moral standard of the Noblesse.  Formerly, when the noble lived on his estate, he could play with impunity the petty tyrant, and could freely indulge his legitimate and illegitimate caprices without any legal or moral restraint.  I do not at all mean to assert that all proprietors abused their authority, but I venture to say that no class of men can long possess such enormous arbitrary power over those around them without being thereby more or less demoralised.  When the noble entered the service he had not the same immunity from restraint—­on the contrary, his position resembled rather that of the serf—­but he breathed an atmosphere of peculation and jobbery, little conducive to moral purity and uprightness.  If an official had refused to associate with those who were tainted with the prevailing vices, he would have found himself completely isolated, and would have been ridiculed as a modern Don Quixote.  Add to this that all classes of the Russian people have a certain kindly, apathetic good-nature which makes them very charitable towards their neighbours, and that they do not always distinguish between forgiving private injury and excusing public delinquencies.  If we bear all this in mind, we may readily understand that in the time of serfage and maladministration a man could be guilty of very reprehensible practises without incurring social excommunication.