the head, while some of the dealers in clothing indulged in overcoats and flat caps with visors, of dark blue cloth. "Now, if I address one of these men, he will call me bátiushka, and he will call you mátushka." "" 1

We began to price shoes, new and old, and so forth, with the result which the count had predicted.

"You can get very good clothing here," the count remarked, as a man passed us, his arm passed through the armholes of a pile of new vests. "These mittens," exhibiting the coarse, white-fingered mittens which he wore, piles of the same and stockings to match being beside us, are very stout and warm. They cost only thirty kopeks. And the other day, I bought a capital shirt here, for a man, at fifty kopeks" (about twenty-five cents).

66

I magnanimously refrained from applying to that shirt the argument which had been used against my suggestion in regard to giving bread. This market goes on every day in the year, hot or cold, rain, sun, or shine. It is a model of neatness. Roofs improvised from scraps of canvas protect the delicate (?) eatables during inclement weather. In very severe weather the throng is smaller, the first to beat a retreat being, apparently, the Tatárs in their odd kaftáns "cut goring," as old women say, who deal in old clothes, lambskins, and "beggars' lace." Otherwise, it is always the same.

Our publisher's shop proved to be closed, in accordance with the law, which permits trading-in buildings only between twelve and three o'clock on Sundays. On our way home the count expressed

1 A respectfully affectionate diminutive, equivalent to dear little father, dear little mother.

his regret at the rapid decline of the republican idea in America, and the surprising growth of the baneful" aristocratic not to say snobbish sense. His deductions were drawn from articles in various recent periodical publications, and from the general tone of the American works which had come under his observation. I have heard a good deal from other Russians about the snobbishness of Americans; but they generally speak of it with aversion, not, as did Count Tolstóy, with regret at a splendid opportunity missed by a whole nation.

I am sorry to say that we never got our expedition to the Old Believers' Church, or the others that were planned. Two days later, the count was taken with an attack of liver complaint, dyspepsia, caused, I am sure, by too much pedestrian exercise on a vegetable diet, which does not agree with him, - and a bad cold. We attended Christmas Eve service in the magnificent new Cathedral of the Saviour, and left Moscow before the count was able to go outof-doors again, though not without seeing him once

more.

I am aware that it has become customary of late to call Count Tolstoy "crazy," or "not quite right in the head," etc. The inevitable conclusion of any one who talks much with him is that he is nothing of the sort; but simply a man with a hobby, or an idea. His idea happens to be one which, granting that it ought to be adopted by everybody, is still one which is very difficult of adoption by anybody, - peculiarly difficult in his own case. And it is an uncomfortable theory of self-denial which very few people like to have preached to them in any form. Add to this that his philosophical expositions of his theory

lack the clearness which generally not always results from a course of strict preparatory training, and we have more than sufficient foundation for the reports of his mental aberration. On personal acquaintance he proves to be a remarkably earnest, thoroughly convinced, and winning man, although he does not deliberately do or say anything to attract one. His very earnestness is provocative of argument.1

1 From The Independent.

VIII.

COUNT TOLSTOY AT HOME.

ON one winter's day in Moscow, the Countess Tolstóy said to us: "You must come and visit us at Yásnaya Polyána next summer. You should see Russian country life, and you will see it with us. Our house is not elegant, but you will find it plain, clean, and comfortable."

Such an invitation was not to be resisted. When summer came, the family wrote to say that they would meet us at the nearest station, where no carriages were to be had by casual travelers, if we would notify them of our arrival. But the weather had been too bad for country visits, and we were afraid to give Fate a hint of our intentions by announcing our movements; moreover, all the trains seemed to reach that station at a very late hour of the night. We decided to make our appearance from another quarter, in our own conveyance, on a fair day, and long before any meal. If it should prove inconvenient for the family to receive us, they would not be occasioned even momentary awkwardness, and our retreat would be secured. We had seen enough of the charmingly easy Russian hospitality to feel sure of our ground otherwise.

Accordingly, we set out for Túla on a June day that was dazzling with sunshine and heat, after the autumnal chill of the recent rains. As we progressed

southward from Moscow the country was more varied than north of it, with ever-changing vistas of gently sloping hills and verdant valleys, well cultivated, and dotted with thatched cottages which stood flatter on the ground here than where wood is more plentiful.

The train was besieged at every station, during the long halts customary on Russian railways, by hordes of peasant children with bottles of rich cream and dishes of fragrant wild strawberries. The strawberries cost from three to four cents a pound, — not enough to pay for picking, and the cream from three to five cents a bottle.

Halfway to Túla the train crosses the river Oká, which makes so fine a show when it enters the Volga at Nízhni Novgorod, and which even here is imposing in breadth and busy with steamers. It was not far from here that an acquaintance of mine one day overtook a wayfarer. He was weather-beaten and travel-stained, dressed like a peasant, and carried his boots slung over his shoulder. But there was something about him which, to her woman's eye, seemed out of keeping with his garb. She invited him to take advantage of her carriage. He accepted gladly, and conversed agreeably. It appeared that it was Count Tolstoy making the journey between his estate and Moscow. His utterances produced such an effect upon her young son that the lad insisted upon making his next journey on foot also.

We reached Túla late in the evening. The guidebook says, in that amusing German fashion on which a chapter might be written, that "the town lies fifteen minutes distant from the station." Ordinarily, that would mean twice or thrice fifteen minutes.