Even "fallen family state" could be interpreted in terms of money--absent money--and that, as once established, was a trifling matter.

Hadn't I earned money myself?
Heaps of it! Only look at this, and this, and this that I brought from Vitebsk, bought with my own money! No, I did not remain old.

For many years more I was a very childish child.
Perhaps I had spent my time in Vitebsk to better advantage than at the milliner's, from any point of view.

When I returned to my native town I _saw_ things.

I saw the narrowness, the stifling narrowness, of life in Polotzk.