ing
man, although he does not deliberately do or say anything to attract
one. His very earnestness is provocative of argument.*

* From _The Independent_.

VIII.

COUNT TOLSTOY AT HOME.

On one winter's day in Moscow, the Countess Tolstoy said to us: "You
must come and visit us at Yasnaya Polyana next summer. You should see
Russian country life, and you will see it with us. Our house is not
elegant, but you will find it plain, clean, and comfortable."

Such an invitation was not to be resisted. When summer came, the family
wrote to say that they would meet us at the nearest station, where no
carriages were to be had by casual travelers, if we would notify them of
our arrival. But the weather had been too bad for country visits, and we
were afraid to give Fate a hint of our intentions by announcing our
movements; moreover, all the trains seemed to reach that station at a
very late hour of the night. We decided to make our appearance from
another quarter, in our own conveyance, on a fair day, and long before
any meal. If it should prove inconvenient for the family to receive us,
they would not be occasioned even momentary awkwardness, and our retreat
would be secured. We had seen enough of the charmingly easy Russian
hospitality to feel sure of our ground otherwise.

Accordingly, we set out for Tula on a June day that was dazzling with
sunshine and heat, after the autumnal chill of the recent rains. As we
progressed southward from Moscow the country was more varied than north
of it, with ever-changing vistas of gently sloping hills and verdant
valleys, well cultivated, and dotted with thatched cottages which stood
flatter on the ground here than where wood is more plentiful.

The train was besieged at every station, during the long halts customary
on Russian railways, by hordes of peasant children with bottles of rich
cream and dishes of fragrant wild strawberries. The strawberries cost
from three to four cents a pound,--not enough to pay for picking,--
and the cream from three to five cents a bottle.

Halfway to Tula the train crosses the river Oka, which makes so fine a
show when it enters the Volga at Nizhni Novgorod, and which even here is
imposing in breadth and busy with steamers. It was not far from here
that an acquaintance of mine one day overtook a wayfarer. He was
weather-beaten and travel-stained, dressed like a peasant, and carried
his boots slung over his shoulder. But there was something ab