There is no particular discomfort in travelling third class on the steamer. The bunks are, with the aid of blankets, as comfortable as those in the first class. One can obtain the same food, and there is plenty of fresh air. Nevertheless, if one only travels thus for a day and a night it is indescribably fatiguing, because one has to change and readjust one’s hours. For at the first streak of dawn the people begin to talk, and by sunrise they have washed and are having tea. It is not as if they went to bed earlier. For all day long they talk and they go to sleep quite late, about eleven. But they have the blessed gift possessed by Napoleon and Sarah Bernhardt of snatching half-hours or five minutes of sleep whenever they feel in need of it. If one travels like this for several days running, one gets used to it, of course, and one also acquires the habit of snatching sleep at odd moments during the daytime, but if one travels like this for a day or two the result is, as I have said before, extreme bodily fatigue. The public servant, who had a small post in some provincial town, came and talked to me. He asked me if Shaliapin, the famous singer, had sung at Nijni. Shaliapin, he added, was his master. “I have,” he said, “a magnificent bass voice.” “Are you fond of music?” I asked. “Fond of music!” he cried. “When I hear music I am like a wild animal. I go mad.” “Do you mean to go on the stage?” I asked. “Yes,” he said, “when I have learnt enough. In the meantime I am a public servant--I am in the Government service.” “That, I suppose, you find tedious,” I said. “It is more than tedious, it is disgusting,” and he began to abuse the Government. I said there was a great difference between the Russia of to-day and the Russia of four years ago. “There is no difference at all,” he said; “we have obtained absolutely nothing except paper promises.” I said: “I am not talking of what the Government has done or failed to do; I am talking of the general aspect of things, of Russian life as it strikes a foreigner. I was here three or four years ago, and I am struck by the great difference between then and now. Had I met you then you would not have talked politics with me; there were no politics to talk.” “That is true,” he answered, “we have now a political life.” Here one of the Cossacks asked him who he was. “I am a famous singer,” he answered. “I have sung at the Merchants’ Club at the district town of A----. I am a pupil of Shaliapin, who is the king of basses and is well known throughout the whole civilised world, and who has sung in America. He is a Russian. Think of that.” The Cossack seemed impressed. The singer got out at one of the stations; perhaps one day he will be as well known as Shaliapin; perhaps, on the other hand, he has merely been called and will not be chosen.