ty by the
ideal and appropriate name of "Paradise"--appropriate, because in it
many a sinner had been tempted and had fallen from grace. It was the
popular rendezvous of the village peasants. Thither the serfs living in
the village of Togarog and for miles around, would repair after their
labors in the fields, and forget their fatigue in a dram of rank Russian
_vodka_. Upon the barren plot of ground before the tavern, the _mir_, or
communal assembly, was wont to meet, and in open session elect its
Elder, decide its quarrels, allot its ground to the heads of families,
and frame its rude and primitive laws.

In its bare and smoke-begrimed public room, the people of Togarog
assembled night after night, and discussed, as far as the autocratic
government of the Czar Nicholas would allow, the political news of the
day. Poor souls! They enjoyed little latitude in this direction. Items
of information concerning the acts of the central government in St.
Petersburg were few and vague. The newspapers, owing to an extremely
severe censorship, gave but meagre accounts of the political situation
in the capital, and these were of necessity favorable to the government.
Now and then, however, came rambling accounts of insurrections, of acts
of cruelty, of large bodies of political offenders banished to a
life-long slavery in Siberia. At times came the news that the Czar had
been inspired by Providence to inaugurate some new and important reform,
only to be followed by the announcement that Satan had held a conference
with his Imperial Majesty, and that the reform had fallen through. All
such information was carried into Togarog by word of mouth, for few of
the good _moujiks_ could read the papers. Woe to anyone, however, who
allowed his tongue too great a license! Woe to him who dared utter a
suggestion that the existing laws bore heavily upon him. It was a
dangerous experiment to criticise in a hostile spirit any of the abuses
heaped upon the degraded people. The condition of Russia was
deplorable.[1] Insurrection and rebellion nourished in all parts of the
Empire. Degraded to the lowest depths, the crushed worm turned
occasionally, but free itself it could not. Brave spirits arose for whom
exile had no terrors. With their rude eloquence they incited their
fellow-sufferers to throw off the yoke of tyranny and assert their
freedom; and the morrow found them wandering toward the snow-bound
confines of Siberia. Patriotism was not very muc