I experienced a great joy when, after breathing frosty air outdoors and air heated by stoves indoors for several months, I witnessed the arrival of summer. I took a great delight in the walks, and hastened to enjoy the beautiful surroundings of St. Petersburg. I very often went to the Lake of Pergola alone with my Russian man-servant to take what I called an air-bath. I enjoyed the contemplation of its limpid water, which vividly reflected the trees on its banks. And then I would mount to the heights adjacent. On one side the horizon was bounded by the sea and I could distinguish the sails lit up by the sun. Here a silence reigned that was disturbed only by the song of a thousand birds, or sometimes by the sound of a distant bell. The pure air and the wild, picturesque place enchanted me. My faithful Peter, who warmed up my little dinner or picked flowers of the field for me, made me think of Robinson on his island with Friday. The heat being considerable, I often went with my daughter for early walks on the island of Krestovski. The extreme point of this island seemed to merge into the sea, on which large vessels were navigating. Sometimes we went there in the evening to see the Russian peasants dance, their national dress being very picturesque. I remember, on the subject of the excessive heat often prevailing at St. Petersburg, a certain day in the month of July of some year in which that month was hotter than in Italy. On this day I saw Princess Dolgoruki's mother, Princess Bariatinski, who was once as lovely as an angel, and whose clever and spontaneous wit rendered her one of the most fascinating women of St. Petersburg, established in her cellar, with her lady's companion seated on the bottom step, very quietly reading to her from a book. But to return to the island of Krestovski. Taking a row in a boat one day, we came upon a crowd of men and women all bathing together. We even saw from a distance young men naked on horseback, who were thus bathing with their horses. In any other country one would have been shocked by this, but the Russian people are really primitively ingenuous. In the winter husband, wife and children sleep together on the stove; if the stove is not large enough, they lie on wooden benches lining their hut, wrapped up simply in their sheepskins. These good people have kept the customs of the ancient patriarchs.