Kuriatin had no telephone. Like most of the second-grade merchants he maintained an elaborate pretence, which, however, was a reassurance as well as a pretence, of keeping up the old ways. Sometimes he would indulge himself with the latest improvement. He had a motor-car, a 6-cylinder 50 horse-power Wolseley, of which he was proud, for there were only fifteen hundred cars or so in Moscow. But there was no electric light in his house, and you could not telephone him there.
