But why is Lieutenant-Captain Miháylof afraid, and unable to muster courage to approach them? “And supposing they don’t return my greeting,” he thinks, “or merely bow and go on talking among themselves as if I were not there, or simply walk away and leave me standing among the aristocrats ?” The word aristocrats (in the sense of the highest, select circle of any class) has lately gained great popularity in Russia, where one would think it ought not to exist. It has made its way to every part of the country and into every grade of society that is reached by vanity (and to what conditions of time and circumstance does this pitiful propensity not reach?). It is found among merchants, officials, clerks, officers⁠—in Sarátof, Mamadíshi, Vínnitza: wherever men are found. And since in the besieged town of Sevastopol there are many men, and consequently much vanity, the aristocrats are here also, though death hangs over each one, be he aristocrat or not.