A small doorway leads to a steep narrow staircase communicating with the top storey, the _terem_ or women's apartments, consisting of a reception room, a bed-chamber and turret; from these rooms the nursery may also be reached by a still narrower staircase. The walls of the reception room are covered with stamped leather, the woodwork is carved in high relief, the stiff benches round the wall have stuffed seats and are covered with brocade. There are a number of old coffers and close wardrobes, also some curious clothing is displayed in cases. The four-post bedstead cannot be considered a native institution. It is peculiarly Scandinavian. The English adopted it from the Danes; the English reintroduced it into Russia, finding that the Russians themselves slept either on the stove, or on an eastern divan. More than once the early English ambassadors to Russia have complained that bedsteads were lacking, and it was long before their use became general. The boyards kept their women folk hidden away in the _terem_ in almost eastern seclusion. Jenkinson states that "the women be very obedient to their husbands, and are kept straitly from going abroad but at some seasons." Other travellers write that the women are hardly used by their husbands, who beat them unmercifully; "and the women, though young and strong, never resent even if the husband be old and weak." Herberstein relates that a foreigner in Moscow married to a Russian woman was upbraided by his wife because he never beat her as Russian husbands did their wives, and that he then beat her to please her; but as subsequently he cut off her legs, and finally her head also, the story is worth nothing as evidence of a custom. Sylvester in his "Domostroi" says a wife ought never to take the title of Lady, but always to look on her husband as Lord. She was to concern herself only with household affairs, and might be treated like a slave; only the husband is enjoined "not to use a too thick stick, or a staffe tipped with iron, nor to humiliate unduly by flogging before men." Out of doors she was carried in a shuttered litter, and she wore the _fata_ or veil; a special part of the church was assigned women, but the wives and daughters of the boyards usually worshipped in their own private chapels, and went to the Cathedrals but upon special and state occasions. Then it was that suitors caught a glimpse of their future brides, and received glances which bespake love.