God, what strange types are to be found in the Nevski Prospect! There are a great number of people who, when they meet you, invariably glance at your shoes and if you pass them, they look back so that they can see your coat-tails. I can’t understand why to this day. At first, I thought they were cobblers, but this was quite wrong however; for the most part they work in different official departments, the majority of them can write an address from one government office to another in the most perfect manner, or else they are people who occupy their time with strolling about and reading papers in teashops—in a word, for the most part they are all respectable people. In this blessed time between two and three o’clock in the afternoon, a time which could be called the focal point of the Nevski Prospect, the main exhibition of all man’s best creations takes place. One shows off a modish frock-coat with the best beaver fur, another a perfect Greek nose, a third carries a pair of peerless side-whiskers, then a lady—two pretty eyes and an amazing little hat, a fifth has a signet ring with a talisman on his elegant little finger, another lady—a foot in a charming slipper, a seventh has an astonishing cravat, an eighth—a moustache to plunge one into stupefaction. But as soon as it strikes three the exhibition is over and the crowd grows thin.

At three o’clock there is a fresh change. It is suddenly spring in the Nevski Prospect: it becomes thronged with clerks in green uniforms. Hungry titular councillors, aulic councillors and other kinds of councillors do their utmost to quicken their pace. Young collegiate registrars and provincial and collegiate secretaries make haste to seize the opportunity of strolling along the Nevski Prospect in a dignified manner calculated to show that they have not sat for six hours in a council chamber at all. But the old collegiate secretaries and titular and aulic councillors walk quickly with bent heads: they have no time for examining the passers-by; they have not yet broken completely with their tasks; their heads are full of paraphernalia and whole archives of business begun and left unfinished ; for a long time they see boxes of papers or the stout face of the head of the Chancellor’s office instead of signboards.

After four o’clock the Nevski Prospect is empty and you will not be likely to meet a single clerk. A sempstress from one of the shops may run across the Nevski Prospect with a box in her arms; some pathetic prey for a humanitarian person, sent about the world in a frieze cloak; an odd stranger to the town to whom all hours are alike; some tall, thin Englishwoman with a reticule and a book in her hands; a Russian workman in a demicoton overcoat with a waist somewhere up his back and a narrow beard, who has spent his whole life hurrying and in whom everything shakes, back, hands, legs and head, when he passes politely along the pavement, or sometimes a squat mechanic—you will meet no one else at this time in the Nevski Prospect.

But as soon as twilight falls on houses and on streets, and the watchman, covering himself with his plaid, scrambles up the steps to light the lamp, and from the low shop windows those prints gaze out which dare not show themselves by day, then the Nevski Prospect begins to revive and to move again, and then begins that mysterious time when the lamps lend an enticing, wondrous light to all things. You will meet a great many young people, for the most part bachelors in warm coats and cloaks. At this time one feels a kind of purpose, or rather, something resembling a purpose, something completely involuntary; everyone’s pace grows more hurried and becomes uneven. Long shadows glimmer on the walls and on the pavement and nearly top the Police Bridge. The young collegiate registrars and provincial and collegiate secretaries promenade about for a long time; but the old collegiate registrars and titular and aulic councillors mostly sit at home, either because they are married people, or because the German cooks who live in their homes prepare their meals so well. You will meet those highly respected old men who strolled along the Nevski Prospect at two o’clock with such importance and such amazing breeding. You will see them hastening just like the young collegiate registrars in order to peep beneath the hat-brim of a lady glimpsed in the distance, whose full lips and cheeks plastered with rouge are so pleasing to many of those walking by, and principally to the barmen, workmen and shop-keepers always dressed in German overcoats, who walk in crowds and usually arm-in-arm.

“Just a minute!” cried Lieutenant Pirogov at this time, catching hold of the young man in the dress-coat and cloak walking with him. “Did you see?”

“Yes. She’s marvellous, an absolute Perugino Bianca.”

“What one d’you mean?”

“That one, the one with the dark hair.... And what eyes, God, what eyes! The lines, the contour and features of the face—marvellous!”

“I’m talking about the blonde who went after her that way. But why not follow the brunette if you like the look of her so much?”

“Oh, how can one!” exclaimed the young man in the dress-coat, flushing. “As if she’s one of the women who go about the Nevski Prospect in the evening; she must be a lady of great distinction,” he added sighing: “Her mantle alone would cost about eighty roubles!”

“Idiot!” cried Pirogov, giving him a violent push in the direction where her bright mantle was waving: “Go on, you ninny, you’ll miss her! And I’ll follow the blonde.” The two friends parted company.

“We know you all,” Pirogov thought to himself with a self-satisfied and self-assured smile, confident that no beauty alive could resist him.

The young man in the dress-coat and cloak walked with shy and fearful steps after the colored cape which floated on in the distance, now clothed in a bright sheen as it neared the light of a lamp, now momentarily covered with shadows as it passed beyond. His heart beat fast and he involuntarily quickened his pace. He did not even dare to imagine that he might gain any right to the attention of the beautiful woman fleeing into the distance, far less permit the black thought at which Pirogov had hinted; he just wanted to see the house, to note where stood the dwelling of the lovely being who, it seemed, had alighted on the Nevski Prospect straight from the skies and would probably soar away again to an unknown destination. He sped along so fast that he constantly pushed dignified personages with grey side-whiskers from the pavement.

This young man belonged to a class which is rather a strange phenomenon in our midst, and no more belongs to the citizens of St. Petersburg than a face which we see in dreams belongs to real life. This exceptional class of society is very unusual in a town where everyone is either a clerk, a merchant or a German skilled craftsman. He was an artist. A strange phenomenon is it not—a St. Petersburg artist? An artist in a land of snows, an artist in the land of Finns, where everything is wet, smooth, flat, pale, grey, and misty! These artists are quite unlike Italian artists, who are proud and fiery as Italy and her skies; on the contrary, these are for the most part kind, meek people, shy and indifferent, loving their art quietly, drinking tea with two friends in a little room and modestly discussing a favourite subject without raving at anything beside the point.