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One magnificent dress remains yet to be mentioned, viz. the dress of honor, or festival dress which answers in every respect to the modern CAFTAN. This was used on all occasions of ceremony, as splendid weddings, presentations at the courts of kings, sumptuous entertainments, &c.; and all persons who stood in close connection with the throne, as favorites, crown-officers, distinguished military commanders, &c., received such a dress as a gift from the royal treasury, in order to prepare them at all times for the royal presence.
But that same young gentleman in the pea-green caftan, whom I have mentioned, and one of whose tales you have already read, I think, came from Poltava, bringing with him a little book, and, opening it in the middle, shows it to us.
He wore a long Persian caftan of pink satin, profusely and beautifully embroidered with gold, full oriental trousers of red velvet and elaborately adorned slippers of tiger skin. On his long, bony fingers sparkled several diamond rings undoubtedly of immense value and a cluster of brilliant emeralds magnificently set in gold adorned his breast.
In the front rank the Budzhakovsky colonel stood proudly in his red cap ornamented with gold. He was a tall, stout man, and his rich and ample caftan hardly covered him. Near the side gate stood another colonel.
At the base of the pillar six persons were standing around an old gray-haired man, of lofty king-like aspect. A splendid caftan of gold cloth surrounded by a white Cashmere shawl, a snowy turban spangled with glittering precious stones, pointed him out as a man of opulence and nobility. To him Labakan proceeded, and bowing low before him, said, as he extended the dagger
Indeed, the luxury and profligate indulgence of the Christian leaders had occasioned a motley concourse in their tents of musicians, courtesans, Jewish merchants, Copts, Turks, and all the varied refuse of the Eastern nations; so that the caftan and turban, though to drive both from the Holy Land was the professed object of the expedition, were, nevertheless, neither an uncommon nor an alarming sight in the camp of the Crusaders.
Over a coat of mail, with cuishes and brassarts, he wore an ample pair of red trousers, fastened round his ankles by broad rings of gilt brass. His long caftan of black cloth, embroidered with scarlet and gold, was bound round his waist and wrist by other large rings of gilt metal. This sombre costume imparted to him an aspect still more ferocious.
All at once the spell seemed to dissolve: his hand fell, and he said in his ordinary voice "You sing remarkably well. Go, now: you shall have ten rubles and an embroidered caftan for your singing." But any one would have made a great mistake who dared to awaken Prince Alexis a second time in the same manner. Prince Boris, in St. Petersburg, adopted the usual habits of his class.
A yellow, oblique-eyed oriental in slippers and long black caftan was balancing himself carelessly on the steps of the basement milk-shop with a bowl of cream in one hand and a loaf of bread in the other. Above on the pavement two boys were playing hopscotch, just below the large red lamp which all night long advertised its "corn-operator" right up to the main thoroughfare.
Then Samuel Brohl recovered strength, life, movement; clinching his hands, he sprang forward to dispute with Abel Larinski his prey. Suddenly, with a shiver of terror and dismay, he paused; he had heard proceeding from a distant corner of the chamber a shrill, malignant laugh. He turned, and distinctly perceived his father a greasy cap on his head, wrapped in a forlorn, threadbare, dirty caftan.
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