never answering his reproaches, incapable of theft. But after drinking a
little too much brandy he becomes a perfect monster; and drunkenness is
the vice of the whole nation.

A coachman knows no other way of resisting the bitter cold to which he is
exposed, than by drinking rye brandy. It sometimes happens that he drinks
till he falls asleep, and then there is no awaking for him in this world.
Unless one is very careful, it is easy to lose an ear, the nose, a cheek,
or a lip by frost bites. One day as I was walking out on a bitterly cold
day, a Russian noticed that one of my ears was frozen. He ran up to me
and rubbed the affected part with a handful of snow till the circulation
was restored. I asked him how he had noticed my state, and he said he had
remarked the livid whiteness of my ear, and this, he said, was always a
sign that the frost had taken it. What surprised me most of all is that
sometimes the part grows again after it has dropped off. Prince Charles
of Courland assured me that he had cost his nose in Siberia, and that it
had grown again the next summer. I have been assured of the truth of this
by several Russians.

About this time the empress made the architect Rinaldi, who had been
fifty years in St. Petersburg, build her an enormous wooden amphitheatre
so large as to cover the whole of the space in front of the palace. It
would contain a hundred thousand spectators, and in it Catherine intended
to give a vast tournament to all the knights of her empire. There were to
be four parties of a hundred knights each, and all the cavaliers were to
be clad in the national costume of the nations they represented. All the
Russians were informed of this great festival, which was to be given at
the expense of the sovereign, and the princes, counts, and barons were
already arriving with their chargers from the most remote parts of the
empire. Prince Charles of Courland wrote informing me of his intention to
be present.

It had been ordained, that the tournament should take place on the first
fine day, and this precaution was a very wise one; for, excepting in the
season of the hard frosts, a day without rain, or snow, or wind, is a
marvel. In Italy, Spain, and France, one can reckon on fine weather, and
bad weather is the exception, but it is quite the contrary in Russia.
Ever since I have known this home of frost and the cold north wind, I
laugh when I hear travelling Russians talking of the fine climate of
their n