SUSPICIOUS PEASANTS. 155 



At the village of Babayi there was no postayali dvor, 

 and the family of a Rostoff shipping agent, who were 

 spending the summer there, offered us the hospitality 

 of their datscha for the night, and in the morning in- 

 sisted on us remaining a day to rest. It was in com- 

 pany of this family that we paid our visit to the con- 

 vent-monastery of Karashavitch, an account of which 

 is found in later pages. In the summer nearly every 

 Russian city family, who can afford the luxury, spend 

 three or four months in the country. Here the ladies 

 pass the warm period of summer in a life of well-nigh 

 ideal lotus-eating. They take their meals under the 

 trees about the grounds, and indulge their love of 

 cigarettes and tea to the last " papyros," and the last 

 cup, demanded by the limits of utter satisfaction. 

 They gossip and read Zola, play cards, and take long 

 drives in the family linega. 



If there is water near, they indulge frequently in 

 swimming and wading in it, and get the waterman to 

 row them about in his leaking wherry. In inland Rus- 

 sia, boats always seem leaky, vehicles ramshackly, 

 harnesses old and patchy, fences broken, hedges 

 gappy, and indeed well-nigh everything out of joint. 



An interesting member of this hospitable family was 

 a young man who wore the uniform of the Imperial 

 navy. He had, to some extent, worked out his own 

 career, and had entered upon it under very extraordi- 

 nary circumstances. When he applied for admission to 

 the naval academy, it was to discover that he was de- 

 barred on account of being, according to the rules, one 

 year over age. Nothing daunted, he, in the teeth of 

 all persuasions as to the folly of so doing, wrote a letter 



