And for what purpose?
That some woman may not have to reproach her husband with the fact that, say, the Postmaster's wife is wearing a better dress than she is--a dress which has cost a thousand roubles! 'Balls and gaiety, balls and gaiety' is the constant cry.

Yet what folly balls are! They do not consort with the Russian spirit and genius, and the devil only knows why we have them.

A grown, middle-aged man--a man dressed in black, and looking as stiff as a poker--suddenly takes the floor and begins shuffling his feet about, while another man, even though conversing with a companion on important business, will, the while, keep capering to right and left like a billy-goat! Mimicry, sheer mimicry! The fact that the Frenchman is at forty precisely what he was at fifteen leads us to imagine that we too, forsooth, ought to be the same.

No; a ball leaves one feeling that one has done a wrong thing--so much so that one does not care even to think of it.

It also leaves one's head perfectly empty, even as does the exertion of talking to a man of the world.