A railway company director, or rather a man who was arranging the purchase of a line, got into the carriage and began at once to harangue against the Government and say that the way in which it had changed the election law was a piece of insolence and would only make everybody more radical. Then he told me that life in Yaroslav was simply intolerable owing to the manner in which all newspapers and all free discussion had been stopped. We arrived at Yaroslav on the next morning. I went on to Moscow in a third-class carriage. The train stopped at every small station, and there was a constant flow of people coming and going. An old gentleman of the middle class sat opposite to me for a time, and read a newspaper in an audible whisper. Whenever he came to some doings of the Government he said, “Disgraceful, disgraceful!” Later on in the day a boy of seventeen got into the train. He carried a large box. I was reading a book by Gogol, and had put it down for a moment on the seat. He took it up and said, “I very much like reading books.” I asked him how he had learnt. He said he had been at school for one year, and had then learnt at home. He could not stay at school as he was the only son, his father was dead, and he had to look after his small sisters; he was a stone quarrier and life was very hard. He loved reading. In winter the moujiks came to him and he read aloud to them. His favourite book was called _Ivan Mazeppa_. What that work may be I do not know. I gave him my Gogol. I have never seen any one so pleased. He began to read it--at the end--then and there, and said it would last for several evenings. When he got out he said, “I will never forget you,” and he took out of his pocket a lot of sunflower seeds and gave them to me. As we neared Moscow the carriage got fuller and fuller. Two peasants had no railway tickets. One of them asked me if I would lend my ticket to him to show the guard. I said, “With pleasure, only my ticket is for Moscow and yours is for the next station.” When the guard came one of the peasants gave him 30 kopecks. “That is very little for two of you,” the guard said. They had been travelling nearly all the way from Yaroslav; but finally he let them be. We arrived at Moscow in the evening.