As superstition and ignorance generally go together, we need not be surprised to find that, as the Russian peasants possess the latter, so they have the former quality. Many of their ideas have changed but little since their forefathers’ heathen state in days of yore. They have the greatest faith in ghost-stories, sorcery, the evil eye, and the tricks of a mischievous kind of Puck called the Domovoi or house-spirit, who is a very useful being in a household, as everything that nobody wishes to take upon himself is laid on this naughty sprite. If the horses become thin, it is not because the groom sells the corn and hay; if the wine diminish or the sugar vanish, it is of course not Grushia or Marousha, but it is the ne’er-do-weel Domovoi; if the tray of china fall down and the best set is destroyed, of course it is all _his doing_: in fact, there is scarcely a wicked act that he _does not do_. One day some cottages caught fire in the village near our country-house. Being only of wood and very dry, the flames soon rose to a considerable height. Suddenly I saw several men run out of the isbas opposite. At the first moment I thought they were going to help in extinguishing the flames. I was soon undeceived, for as fast as their legs could carry them they rushed in exactly the contrary direction, but stopped when they had reached the middle of a field, when they began beckoning and making the most violent gestures with their hands. “Are those men mad?” I asked of a gentleman who was standing near, “or what are they doing?” “O no, they are sane enough,” replied he; “but they fancy that by acting so they will induce the wind to change, so that their own cottages may not be destroyed by the flames.” Another time we were passing through an immense village, every house of which was burning. The peasants were standing in a group watching the cracking walls and rafters and the long crimson columns of fire, as if it were some raree-show got up expressly for their amusement: they made no effort to save anything; perhaps they had tried the wind-conjuring and did not find it answer; so they let things take their course, and philosophically resigned themselves to whatever might happen. The only words I heard them utter were “Vot tak posmaterite!” a common expression among them, which may be translated “So only look!” and then with open mouths they were again absorbed in watching the ascending flames. The crown allows a certain sum to the people in the imperial villages, if their houses are burned, to help to rebuild them. I was staying for some time in the house of a provincial governor, and frequently saw the peasants come for money to enable them to reconstruct their isbas.