the country--far more than I could
possibly accept--and a great part of the summer was generally spent in
wandering about from one country-house to another. I have no intention
of asking the reader to accompany me in all these expeditions--for
though pleasant in reality, they might be tedious in description--but
I wish to introduce him to some typical examples of the landed
proprietors. Among them are to be found nearly all ranks and conditions
of men, from the rich magnate, surrounded with the refined luxury of
West-European civilisation, to the poor, ill-clad, ignorant owner of a
few acres which barely supply him with the necessaries of life. Let us
take, first of all, a few specimens from the middle ranks.

In one of the central provinces, near the bank of a sluggish, meandering
stream, stands an irregular group of wooden constructions--old,
unpainted, blackened by time, and surmounted by high, sloping roofs
of moss-covered planks. The principal building is a long, one-storied
dwelling-house, constructed at right angles to the road. At the front
of the house is a spacious, ill-kept yard, and at the back an equally
spacious shady, garden, in which art carries on a feeble conflict with
encroaching nature. At the other side of the yard, and facing the front
door--or rather the front doors, for there are two--stand the stables,
hay-shed, and granary, and near to that end of the house which is
farthest from the road are two smaller houses, one of which is the
kitchen, and the other the Lyudskaya, or servants' apartments. Beyond
these we can perceive, through a single row of lime-trees, another
group of time-blackened wooden constructions in a still more dilapidated
condition. That is the farmyard.

There is certainly not much symmetry in the disposition of these
buildings, but there is nevertheless a certain order and meaning in the
apparent chaos. All the buildings which do not require stoves are built
at a considerable distance from the dwelling-house and kitchen, which
are more liable to take fire; and the kitchen stands by itself, because
the odour of cookery where oil is used is by no means agreeable, even
for those whose olfactory nerves are not very sensitive. The plan of the
house is likewise not without a certain meaning. The rigorous separation
of the sexes, which formed a characteristic trait of old Russian
society, has long since disappeared, but its influence may still be
traced in houses built on the old mo