Every time I pay a fresh visit to the Duma I am struck by the originality of the appearance of its members. There is a Polish member who is dressed in light blue tights, a short Eton jacket and Hessian boots. He has curly hair, and looks exactly like the hero of the “Cavalleria Rusticana.” There is a Polish member who is dressed in a long white flannel coat reaching to his knees, adorned with an intricate pattern of dark crimson braid, and he also wears a long, soft, brown sleeveless cloak hanging from his shoulders, bordered with vermilion stripes. There are some Socialists who wear no collars, and there is, of course, every kind of head-dress you can conceive. The second, and what is to me the principal impression of the Duma, is the familiar ease with which the members speak; some of them speak well, and some of them speak badly, but they all speak as if they had spoken in Parliament all their lives, without the slightest evidence of nervousness or shyness. The sittings of the Duma are like a meeting of acquaintances in a club or a _café_. There is nothing formal about them. The member walks up to the tribune and sometimes has a short conversation with the President before beginning his speech. Sometimes when he is called to order he indulges in a brief explanation. The last sitting I attended they did their work in a most business-like manner and got through it fairly quickly and without many speeches. The peasants think there is too much speaking altogether. One of them said to me, “There are people here who have no right to be here.” “Who?” I asked. “Popes, for instance,” he said. “Why shouldn’t Popes be members?” I asked. “Because they get 200 roubles a year,” he answered; “what more can they want?” If this principle were carried out in England there would be no members of Parliament at all. Nobody can possibly say the Duma is disorderly; it takes itself with profound seriousness. Only one person has made a joke so far. But there have been many dramatic moments; for instance, when the President announced that he was not to be received by the Emperor, and when for the first time, in breathless silence, one of the Under Ministers spoke from the Ministerial Bench. The beauty of the hall in which the members sit is increased by its outlook, for the windows form a semicircle behind the President’s chair and they look out on a sheet of water and trees; a kind of Watteau-Versailles landscape where _fêtes galantes_ were once probably held. Two peasants cross-questioned me narrowly the other day about England and English Parliamentary institutions. They asked me if there was an income tax in England, what sort of education I had received, what was the state of agriculture in England, what was the rotation of the crops (to which question I gave a vaguely complicated answer), and how long the House of Commons had existed.