Thanks to his fine character, handsome exterior, remarkable valour, influential relatives, and, above all, good fortune, Prince, Ivan Ivanovitch had early made himself a career.  As that career progressed, his ambition had met with a success which left nothing more to be sought for in that direction.  From his earliest youth upward he had prepared himself to fill the exalted station in the world to which fate actually called him later; wherefore, although in his prosperous life (as in the lives of all) there had been failures, misfortunes, and cares, he had never lost his quietness of character, his elevated tone of thought, or his peculiarly moral, religious bent of mind.  Consequently, though he had won the universal esteem of his fellows, he had done so less through his important position than through his perseverance and integrity.  While not of specially distinguished intellect, the eminence of his station (whence he could afford to look down upon all petty questions) had caused him to adopt high points of view.  Though in reality he was kind and sympathetic, in manner he appeared cold and haughty—­probably for the reason that he had forever to be on his guard against the endless claims and petitions of people who wished to profit through his influence.  Yet even then his coldness was mitigated by the polite condescension of a man well accustomed to move in the highest circles of society.  Well-educated, his culture was that of a youth of the end of the last century.  He had read everything, whether philosophy or belles lettres, which that age had produced in France, and loved to quote from Racine, Corneille, Boileau, Moliere, Montaigne, and Fenelon.  Likewise he had gleaned much history from Segur, and much of the old classics from French translations of them; but for mathematics, natural philosophy, or contemporary literature he cared nothing whatever.  However, he knew how to be silent in conversation, as well as when to make general remarks on authors whom he had never read—­such as Goethe, Schiller, and Byron.  Moreover, despite his exclusively French education, he was simple in speech and hated originality (which he called the mark of an untutored nature).  Wherever he lived, society was a necessity to him, and, both in Moscow and the country he had his reception days, on which practically “all the town” called upon him.  An introduction from him was a passport to every drawing-room; few young and pretty ladies in society objected to offering him their rosy cheeks for a paternal salute; and people even in the highest positions felt flattered by invitations to his parties.

The Prince had few friends left now like Grandmamma—­that is to say, few friends who were of the same standing as himself, who had had the same sort of education, and who saw things from the same point of view:  wherefore he greatly valued his intimate, long-standing friendship with her, and always showed her the highest respect.

I hardly dared to look at the Prince, since the honour paid him on all sides, the huge epaulettes, the peculiar pleasure with which Grandmamma received him, and the fact that he alone, seemed in no way afraid of her, but addressed her with perfect freedom (even being so daring as to call her “cousin"), awakened in me a feeling of reverence for his person almost equal to that which I felt for Grandmamma herself.