The next day I drove with a friend into the country to a village called Chernaia, about 25 versts from Moscow on the Novgorod road, which before the days of railways was famous for its highway robberies and assaults on the rich merchants by the hooligans of that day. We drove in a big wooden sledge drawn by two horses, the coachman standing up all the while. We went to visit two old maids, who were peasants and lived in the village. One of them had got stranded in Moscow, and owing to the railway strike was unable to go back again and so we took her with us, otherwise she would have walked home. We started at 10.30 and arrived at 1.30. The road was absolutely still—a thick carpet of snow, upon which fresh flakes drifting in the fitful gusts of wind fell gently. Looking at the drifting flakes which seemed to be tossed about in the air, the first old maid said that a man’s life was like a snowflake in the wind, and that she had never thought she would go home with us on her sister’s name-day. When we arrived at the village we found a meal ready for us, which, although the fast of Advent was being strictly observed and the food made with fasting-butter, was far from jejune. It consisted of pies with rice and cabbage inside, and cold fish and tea and jam, and some vodka for me—the guest. The cottage consisted of one room and two very small ante-rooms—the walls, floors, and ceilings of plain deal. Five or six rich ikons hung in the corner of the room, and a coloured oleograph of Father John of Kronstadt on one of the walls. A large stove heated the room. Soon some guests arrived to congratulate old maid No. 2 on her name-day, and after a time the pope entered, blessed the room, and sat down to tea. We talked of the strike and how quiet the country was and of the hooligans in the town. “No,” said the pope with gravity, “we have our own hooligans.” A little later the village schoolmaster arrived, who looked about twenty years old, and was a little tiny man with a fresh face and gold-rimmed spectacles, with his wife, who, like the æsthetic lady in Gilbert and Sullivan’s “Patience,” was “massive.” I asked the pope if I could live unmolested in this village. He said, “Yes, but if you want to work you won’t be quiet in this house, because your two hostesses chatter and drink tea all day and all night.” At three o’clock we thought we had better be starting home; it was getting dark, the snow was falling heavily. The old maids said we couldn’t possibly go. We should (1) lose our way, (2) be robbed by tramps, (3) be massacred by strikers on the railway line, (4) not be allowed to enter the town, (5) be attacked by hooligans when we reached the dark streets. We sent for Vassili, the coachman, to consult with him. “Can you find your way home?” we asked. “Yes, I can,” he said. “Shall we lose our way?” “We might lose our way—it happens,” he said slowly, “it happens times and again; but we might not—it often doesn’t happen.” “Might we be attacked