An excerpt from the beginning of the book: "Yes, yes," began Peter Gavreelovitch, "they were heavy days; one does not wish to recall them. But I promised you, and I must relate the whole story…. Listen…. CHAPTER I. I lived then (in the winter of 1835) in Moscow, with my aunt, my late mother's sister. I was eighteen years old. I had just passed from the second to the third form in the literary faculty—so it was then called—in the University of Moscow. My aunt was a quiet, gentle creature, and a widow. She occupied a large wooden house on the Octojenka, very warm, exceedingly warm, such as you will find with difficulty one to match it out of Moscow; she sat from morning to night in the reception-room with two companions, took flower-tea, and occupied herself at the game of patience, which necessitated her smoking. Her companions ran out into the antechamber; a few minutes after an old servant in a livery-coat brought in a brass basin, with a bunch of mint on a hot brick, and rapidly moving about the narrow floor, sprinkled it with vinegar. A white steam scalded his wrinkled face; he frowned and drew his head back, and the canaries in the dining-room fluttered about, annoyed by the hissing of the fumes. My aunt was very fond of me, and petted me as a dear orphan. She gave up to me the whole entresol for my own occupation. My rooms were furnished most elegantly, not at all student fashion. Rose-coloured curtains adorned the sleeping-room, and muslin moskito curtains with blue bows were stretched over the bed. These ribbons, I recollect, disturbed me not a little; according to my idea, such delicacies as these must lower me in the eyes of my schoolfellows. Without these they already called me a girl scholar. I could not contrive, try as I would, to smoke tobacco. I did all I could to hide my sin, but with little success, particularly at the beginning of the term; and I travelled about a good deal. My aunt made me a present of a long narrow general's sledge, lined with bearskin, and a pair of trotters. Respectable houses I eschewed, but at the theatre I was at home, and consumed enormous quantities of tarts at the confectioner's. With all this, I never allowed myself to derogate, and behaved myself prudently, "en jeune homme de lonne maison." I would on no account have annoyed my good aunt; I was, moreover, of a tranquil disposition.
