3 1 o THRO UGH R US SI A ON A MUS TA NG. 



For all they knew I might be a secret agent of the 

 government coming among them for sinister reasons 

 as spy. These sectarians dread an agent of the govern- 

 ment more than the Evil One himself. 



I showed them my American passport, which puz- 

 zled them and seemed only to add to their suspicions. 

 At length, however, I was taken in. The house was 

 as scrupulously clean as a house in Holland. Shining 

 brass candlesticks stood in the broad window-sills 

 and flower-pots full of plants gladdened the eyes and 

 added to the cheerfulness of this model interior of a 

 cottage. Everything that could be polished was bright ; 

 everything of linen, as white as soap and elbow-grease 

 would make it. 



For supper I had white bread, fried eggs, cold milk, 

 and the only eatable butter I had seen since leaving 

 Moscow. In the province of Ekaterinoslav there is a 

 maxim applied to a careful housewife : " She is good, 

 like a Molokani wife." At night/I slept between clean, 

 sweet sheets, a luxury that I had given up all hopes of 

 ever enjoying in a Russian village. Though they treated 

 rne in this highly acceptable manner; the residents, 

 however, never ceased to regard me with suspicion. 

 They positively declined to talk about themselves, 

 though it is fair to presume that I might have had 

 better success in drawing them out had I been equal 

 to a less disjointed way of asking questions. They 

 were Russians, in no way different from their slovenly, 

 ignorant Orthodox brethren, except in the difference 

 that had been brought about by their emancipation 

 from the slavery of a mediaeval church. The contrast 

 between the two was so striking and so sharply defined 



