into each other at the corners, the interstices filled with moss
and mud, a mode of building warmer than it sounds. In the interior
there is always an enormous brick stove, five or six feet high,
on which and on the floor the whole family sleep in their rags.
The heat and the stench are frightful. No one undresses, washing
is unknown, and sheepskin pelisses with the wool inside are not
conducive to cleanliness. Wood, however, is becoming very scarce,
the forests are used up in fuel for railway engines, for wooden
constructions of all kind, and are set fire to wastefully--in many
places the peasants are forced to burn dung, weeds, or anything
they can pick up--fifty years, it is said, will exhaust the peasant
forests, and fresh trees are never planted.

The women are more diligent than the men, and the hardest work is
often turned over to them, as is generally the case in countries
where peasant properties prevail. "They are only the females of
the male," and have few womanly qualities. They toil at the same
tasks in the field as the men, ride astride like them, often without
saddles, and the mortality is excessive among the neglected children,
who are carried out into the fields, where the babies lie the whole
day with a bough over them and covered with flies, while the poor
mother is at work. Eight out of ten children are said to die before
ten years old in rural Russia.

In the little church (generally built of wood) there are no seats,
the worshippers prostrate themselves and knock their heads two or
three times on the ground, and must stand or kneel through the
whole service. The roof consists of a number of bulbous-shaped
cupolas; four, round the central dome, in the form of a cross is
the completed ideal, with a separate minaret for the Virgin. These
are covered with tiles of the brightest blue, green, and red, and gilt
metal. The priest is a picturesque figure, with his long unclipped
hair, tall felt hat largest at the top, and a flowing robe. He must
be married when appointed to a cure, but is not allowed a second
venture if his wife dies. Until lately they formed an hereditary
caste, and it was unlawful for the son of a pope to be other than
a pope. They are taken from the lowest class, and are generally
quite as uneducated, and are looked down upon by their flocks.
"One loves the Pope, and one the Popess" is an uncomplimentary
proverb given by Gogol. "To have priests' eyes," meaning to be
covetous or extort