Stavropol, through which he had to pass, irked him.

The signboards, some of them even in French, ladies in carriages, cabs in the marketplace, and a gentleman wearing a fur cloak and tall hat who was walking along the boulevard and staring at the passersby, quite upset him.

"Perhaps these people know some of my acquaintances," he thought; and the club, his tailor, cards, society ...

came back to his mind.

But after Stavropol everything was satisfactory--wild and also beautiful and warlike, and Olenin felt happier and happier.