“Yes,” she answered. “They set him free last week. He will join me in London. We shall be able to finish our honeymoon.” She smiled, revealing to me that once she had been a girl. I read in the English papers of the exhibition in London. It was said the artist showed much promise. So possibly a career may at last be opening out for him. Nature has made life hard to Russian rich and poor alike. To the banks of the Neva, with its ague and influenza-bestowing fogs and mists, one imagines that the Devil himself must have guided Peter the Great. “Show me in all my dominions the most hopelessly unattractive site on which to build a city,” Peter must have prayed; and the Devil having discovered the site on which St. Petersburg now stands, must have returned to his master in high good feather. “I think, my dear Peter, I have found you something really unique. It is a pestilent swamp to which a mighty river brings bitter blasts and marrow-chilling fogs, while during the brief summer time the wind will bring you sand. In this way you will combine the disadvantages of the North Pole with those of the desert of Sahara.” In the winter time the Russians light their great stoves, and doubly barricade their doors and windows; and in this atmosphere, like to that of a greenhouse, many of their women will pass six months, never venturing out of doors. Even the men only go out at intervals. Every office, every shop is an oven. Men of forty have white hair and parchment faces; and the women are old at thirty. The farm labourers, during the few summer months, work almost entirely without sleep. They leave that for the winter, when they shut themselves up like dormice in their hovels, their store of food and vodka buried underneath the floor. For days together they sleep, then wake and dig, then sleep again. The Russian party lasts all night. In an adjoining room are beds and couches; half a dozen guests are always sleeping. An hour contents them, then they rejoin the company, and other guests take their places. The Russian eats when he feels so disposed; the table is always spread, the guests come and go. Once a year there is a great feast in Moscow. The Russian merchant and his friends sit down early in the day, and a sort of thick, sweet pancake is served up hot. The feast continues for many hours, and the ambition of the Russian merchant is to eat more than his neighbour. Fifty or sixty of these hot cakes a man will consume at a sitting, and a dozen funerals in Moscow is often the result. An uncivilised people, we call them in our lordly way, but they are young. Russian history is not yet three hundred years old. They will see us out, I am inclined to think. Their energy, their intelligence—when these show above the groundwork—are monstrous. I have known a Russian learn Chinese within six months. English! they learn it while you are talking to them. The children play at chess and study the violin for their own amusement.