easantry, and in part by the fact that
the great majority of the proprietors were by no means such inhuman
taskmasters as is sometimes supposed. When a case did occur, the
Administration always made a strict investigation--punishing the guilty
with exemplary severity, and taking no account of the provocation to
which they had been subjected. The peasantry, on the contrary--at least,
when the act was not the result of mere personal vengeance--secretly
sympathised with "the unfortunates," and long cherished their memory as
that of men who had suffered for the Mir.

In speaking of the serfs I have hitherto confined my attention to the
members of the Mir, or rural Commune--that is to say, the peasants
in the narrower sense of the term; but besides these there were the
Dvorovuye, or domestic servants, and of these I must add a word or two.

The Dvorovuye were domestic slaves rather than serfs in the proper
sense of the term. Let us, however, avoid wounding unnecessarily Russian
sensibilities by the use of the ill-sounding word. We may call the class
in question "domestics"--remembering, of course, that they were not
quite domestic servants in the ordinary sense. They received no wages,
were not at liberty to change masters, possessed almost no legal rights,
and might be punished, hired out, or sold by their owners without any
infraction of the written law.

These "domestics" were very numerous--out of all proportion to the work
to be performed--and could consequently lead a very lazy life;* but
the peasant considered it a great misfortune to be transferred to their
ranks, for he thereby lost his share of the Communal land and the little
independence which he enjoyed. It very rarely happened, however, that
the proprietor took an able-bodied peasant as domestic. The class
generally kept up its numbers by the legitimate and illegitimate method
of natural increase; and involuntary additions were occasionally made
when orphans were left without near relatives, and no other family
wished to adopt them. To this class belonged the lackeys, servant-girls,
cooks, coachmen, stable-boys, gardeners, and a large number of
nondescript old men and women who had no very clearly defined functions.
If the proprietor had a private theatre or orchestra, it was from this
class that the actors and musicians were drawn. Those of them who were
married and had children occupied a position intermediate between
the ordinary domestic servant and the p