one swoop; snow-gusts obscured the little remaining
sunshine; the inhabitants came forth in furs and bulky wrappings;
oysters and French pears became unreasonably dear; and sledges of frozen
fish and game crowded down from the northern forests. In a few days the
physiognomy of the capital was completely changed. All its life and stir
withdrew from the extremities and gathered into a few central
thoroughfares, as if huddling together for mutual warmth and
encouragement in the cold air and under the gloomy sky.

For darkness, rather than cold, is the characteristic of the St.
Petersburg winter. The temperature, which at Montreal or St. Paul would
not be thought remarkably low, seems to be more severely felt here,
owing to the absence of pure daylight. Although both Lake Ladoga and the
Gulf of Finland are frozen, the air always retains a damp, raw,
penetrating quality, and the snow is more frequently sticky and clammy
than dry and crystalline. Few, indeed, are the days which are not
cheerless and depressing. In December, when the sky is overcast for
weeks together, the sun, rising after nine o'clock, and sliding along
just above the horizon, enables you to dispense with lamplight somewhere
between ten and eleven; but by two in the afternoon you must call for
lights again. Even when a clear day comes, the yellow, level sunshine is
a combination of sunrise and sunset, and neither tempers the air nor
mitigates the general expression of gloom, almost of despair, upon the
face of Nature.

The preparations for the season, of course, have been made long before.
In most houses the double windows are allowed to remain through the
summer, but they must be carefully examined, the layer of cotton between
them, at the bottom, replenished, a small vessel of salt added to absorb
the moisture and prevent it from freezing on the panes, and strips of
paper pasted over every possible crack. The outer doors are covered with
wadded leather, overlapping the frames on all sides. The habitations
being thus almost hermetically sealed, they are easily warmed by the
huge porcelain stoves, which retain warmth so tenaciously that one fire
per day is sufficient for the most sensitive constitutions. In my own
room, I found that one armful of birch-wood reduced to coal, every
alternate morning, created a steady temperature of 64 deg. Although the
rooms are always spacious, and arranged in suites of from three to a
dozen, according to the extent and sple