seven o'clock
The old cathedral could be seen from the window , and down below lay the Volga , seven miles wide , wrapt in a dazzling sheet of snow , its steamers moored to their wharves . The family lived as a community at first , but their communism was nominal , for each barricaded and entrenched himself in his own room , with his own pot and samovar . They lived tedious , mean , malignant , worthless lives , execrating existence and the Revolution ; they lived utterly apart from the turmoil that now replaced the placid even flow of the old regime : they were outside current events , and their thoughts for ever turned back to the past , awaiting its return . General Kirill Lvovich awoke at seven o'clock . Everything was crowded closely together in the room , which was bedroom , drawing-room and dining-room combined . The blue dusk of morning was visible through the heavy blinds of the low window . The general put on his tasselled Bukhara dressing-gown and went outside , then returned coughing hoarsely .