was suspected of having taken part in some
Hungarian revolt, he travelled, not knowing
where else to go, down the Lower Danube,
intending to make halt in Roumania, and there
continue the practice of his profession. But
happening to meet a Russian prince on the
steamer, he found that this impressionable
magnate had just become convinced that all
Germans were born farmers, and after a very brief
acquaintance, he proposed that the physician
should take the place of one of his own countrymen,
who had nearly ruined the prince by an
abuse of trust. This, briefly, was the agent's
history, and when he had told it in a pleasant,
dry, humorous, German way, he proposed that
we should go and take tea with his wife. We
made quite a civilised party in the wilderness,
but the agent had a sad account to give of his
charge.

"We, my wife and I, have done all we can,"
he said, "to render ourselves popular. We
have tried to introduce dairy farming, and
many other things which I have learned from
books. For although I did not know much of
agriculture when I came here, I have since tried
to instruct myself, and in learning to teach
others. We have oppressed and worried nobody,
and done the best we could for our neighbours
in a small way. But they all get tipsy, and
care for nothing but drink. They will not work
for money nor persuasion. They are so dull of
intelligence that they are not to be trusted with
the management of the simplest steam machinery
by which their labour might be replaced; and
whenever they get offended, they revenge
themselves by burning down the barns where our
corn is housed. I have tried to entice some of
my countrymen here, to form a small colony,
but there is a strong and growing prejudice
against foreigners in Russia; and it is not
altogether unreasonable. When an ordinary
labouring man from any civilised country comes
here, he sees so much ignorance and barbarism
around him, that, in ninety-nine cases out of a
hundred, his head gets quite turned by
constantly comparing his own small acquirements
with the utter darkness and savagery of all with
whom he comes in contact. The Russian
language, too, being difficult to learn, he finds
himself cut off from all social intercourse; and there
being no local opinion to restrain him he usually
takes to drink, and becomes far worse and more
unmanageable than a native. In a word, after
having tried all I could for ten years to benefit
my employer, I am about to give up my efforts
in despair; and when I leave this place the
estate will probably fall entirely out of cultivation.
Nothing can be done at present with the
emancipated serfs. Nothing ever will be done
with them till they are brought to their senses
by some awful visitation of famine. As it is we
cannot even get a domestic servant. With the
peasantry, freedom means simply, total idleness."

And then the kindly German lady tells her
story. How she was deluded to come into
Russia by an advertisement and a sham baron.
How she found herself at the end of her journey
at a distant village remote from civilised help,
and was there ill treated, outraged, and nearly
starved. How she at length succeeded in
escaping in disguise, and was brought here by
a benevolent Jewish carrier. How her
present husband gave her home and shelter, watched
her through a long illness brought on by
hardship, and married her when she recovered.
Then she tells how they have lived cut off from
all intellectual resources, without friends, without
amusement, far from intelligent speech and
interchange of thought. How the few words
they hear are mostly sordid and unsympathetic.
How all grace and charm have been banished
from their lives; till they are glad to leave a
place which has been little better than a tomb
to them, leaving no friendships, no regrets,
behind them.

On going back to the post-house, after an
evening spent in this way, I find that my kind
host has had the forethought to send me some
bedding; and two hulking men are arranging it
in an uncouth sort of way as I come in. There
is no such thing as a chambermaid in Russia.
Women generally are rare and shy, much of the
Asiatic feeling as to the propriety of their
seclusion prevailing in the national mind.
Women may be found in the fields driving oxen,
sowing seed, and gleaning corn. They may be
found sheep-shearing, wool-washing, or even
following the plough—harsh-voiced, coarse, fiat-
faced things, with small lustreless eyes, wide
nostrils, and large mouths. Women also may
be found at court and in ball-rooms blazing with
jewels and daintily arrayed. But in the home
life of the middle classes they seem to disappear
altogether. Now and then by accident a
withered old hag with bare legs will be observed
carrying firewood for the stoves, or doing some
rough menial work; but a smart little maid, all
smiles and blushes, or a comely dame with a
bonny welcome in her face, is never seen by a
visitor in the house of a Russian under the
rank of a prince; and then only because the
higher classes of travelled people have copied
foreign manners; for even princes, when they
live in out-of-the-way places, shut up their
wives and daughters as jealously as Turks.
This is how it comes that two clumsy louts
are making my bed. I am too thankful to have
a bed at all. It is a very scarce thing in Russia.
Many Muscovite celebrities never think of going
to bed. They do not know how to go to bed,
most of them. An ex-governor-general of St.
Petersburg and a minister of state were both
discovered between sheets at one of the late
emperor's palaces in full uniform with their
jack-boots and spurs on. A Russian peasant
scarcely knows what the use of a bed means.
He rolls himself up in his sheepskin
anywhere and everywhere, and sleeps till he
is hungry. He has no fixed hours of rest;
and is as likely to be asleep at noonday
as awake at midnight. A Russian household is
never all asleep or all awake at the same time.
However, my bed is made at last and I am