An old woman passes by on her way to church, where a few wax candles burn with a red light reflected on the gilt mountings of the icons.

Workmen are already getting up after the long winter night and going to their work--but for the gentlefolk it is still evening.
From a window in Chevalier's Restaurant a light--illegal at that hour--is still to be seen through a chink in the shutter.

At the entrance a carriage, a sledge, and a cabman's sledge, stand close together with their backs to the curbstone.

A three-horse sledge from the post-station is there also.

A yard-porter muffled up and pinched with cold is sheltering behind the corner of the house.
'And what's the good of all this jawing ?' thinks the footman who sits in the hall weary and haggard.