r months, I obtained several very special privileges
which required the prefect's signature,--as foreigners were by no
means common residents there,--and as I had become so well known by
sight to most of the police force of the town that they saluted me when
I passed, and their dogs wagged their tails at me and begged for a
caress, I imagined that I was properly introduced to the authorities,
and that they could lay hands upon me at any moment when the necessity
for so doing should become apparent. Nevertheless, one friend, having
applied to the police for my address, spent two whole days in finding
me, at haphazard. After a residence of three months, other friends
appealed in vain to the police; then obtained from the prefect, who had
certified to us, the information that no such persons lived in the town,
the only foreigners there being two sisters named Genrut! With this
lucid clue our friends cleverly found us. Those who understand Russian
script will be able to unravel the process by which we were thus
disguised and lost. We had been lost before that in St. Petersburg, and
we recognized the situation, with variations, at a glance. There is no
such thing as a real practical directory in Russian cities. When one's
passport is _vised_ by the police, the name and information therein set
forth are copied on a large sheet of paper, and this document takes its
place among many thousand others, on the thick wire files of the Address
Office. I went there once. That was enough in every way. It lingers in
my mind as the darkest, dirtiest, worst-ventilated, most depressing
place I saw in Russia.

If one wishes to obtain the address of any person, he goes or sends to
this Address Office, fills out a blank, for which he pays a couple of
kopeks, and, after patient waiting for the over-busy officials to search
the big files, he receives a written reply, with which he must content
himself. The difficulty, in general, about this system lies here: one
must know the exact Christian name, patronymic, and surname of the
person wanted, and how to spell them correctly (according to police
lights). One must also know the exact occupation of the person, if he be
not a noble living on his income, without business or official position.
Otherwise, the attempt to find any one is a harder task than finding the
proverbial needle in a haystack. A person who had been asked to call
upon us, and who afterward became a valued friend, tried three times