Everything that could be frozen had succumbed to the frost.  There were frozen chickens, partridges, and other game, thrown in heaps like bricks or stove wood.  Beef, pork, and mutton, were alike solid, and some of the vendors had placed their animals in fantastic positions before freezing them.  In one place I saw a calf standing as if ready to walk away.  His skin remained, and at first sight I thought him alive, but was undeceived when a man overturned the unresisting beast.  Frozen fish were piled carelessly in various places, and milk was offered for sale in cakes or bricks.  A stick or string was generally frozen into a corner of the mass to facilitate carrying.  One could swing a quart of milk at his side or wrap it in his kerchief at discretion.

There were many peripatetic dealers in cakes and tea, the latter carrying small kettles of the hot beverage, which they served in tumblers.  Occasionally there was a man with a whole litter of sucking pigs frozen solid and slung over his shoulder or festooned into a necklace.  The diminutive size of these pigs awakened reflections upon the brevity of swinish life.

CHAPTER XXXV.

Custom is the same at Irkutsk as in all fashionable society of the empire.  Visits of ceremony are made in full dress-uniform for an officer and evening costume for a civilian.  Ceremonious calls are pretty short, depending of course upon the position and intimacy of the parties.  The Russians are very punctilious in making and receiving visits.  So many circumstances are to be considered that I was always in dread of making a mistake of etiquette somewhere.

Nearly all my acquaintances in Irkutsk spoke French or English, though comparatively few conversed with me in the latter tongue.  The facility with which the Russians acquire language has been often remarked.  Almost all Russians who possess any education, are familiar with at least one language beside their own.  Very often I found a person conversant with two foreign languages, and it was no unusual thing to find one speaking three.  I knew a young officer at Irkutsk who spoke German, French, English, and Swedish, and had a very fair smattering of Chinese, Manjour, and Japanese.  A young lady there conversed well and charmingly in English, French, and German and knew something of Italian.  It was more the exception than the rule that I met an officer with whom I could not converse in French.  French is the society language of the Russian capital, and one of the first requisites in education.

Children are instructed almost from infancy.  Governesses are generally French or English, and conversation with their charges is rarely conducted in Russian.  Tutors are generally Germans familiar with French.  There is no other country in the world where those who can afford it are so attentive to the education of their children.  This attention added to the peculiar temperament of the Russians makes them the best linguists in the world.