Two of the strongest of human motives, hunger and curiosity, impelled me to enter the house at once.  Without waiting for an invitation, I went up to the door—­half protected against the winter snows by a small open portico—­and unceremoniously walked in.  The first apartment was empty, but I noticed a low door in the wall to the left, and passing through this, entered the principal room.  As the scene was new to me, I noted the principal objects.  In the wall before me were two small square windows looking out upon the road, and in the corner to the right, nearer to the ceiling than to the floor, was a little triangular shelf, on which stood a religious picture.  Before the picture hung a curious oil lamp.  In the corner to the left of the door was a gigantic stove, built of brick, and whitewashed.  From the top of the stove to the wall on the right stretched what might be called an enormous shelf, six or eight feet in breadth.  This is the so-called palati, as I afterwards discovered, and serves as a bed for part of the family.  The furniture consisted of a long wooden bench attached to the wall on the right, a big, heavy, deal table, and a few wooden stools.

Whilst I was leisurely surveying these objects, I heard a noise on the top of the stove, and, looking up, perceived a human face, with long hair parted in the middle, and a full yellow beard.  I was considerably astonished by this apparition, for the air in the room was stifling, and I had some difficulty in believing that any created being—­except perhaps a salamander or a negro—­could exist in such a position.  I looked hard to convince myself that I was not the victim of a delusion.  As I stared, the head nodded slowly and pronounced the customary form of greeting.

I returned the greeting slowly, wondering what was to come next.

“Ill, very ill!” sighed the head.

“I’m not astonished at that,” I remarked, in an “aside.”  “If I were lying on the stove as you are I should be very ill too.”

“Hot, very hot?” I remarked, interrogatively.

“Nitchevo”—­that is to say, “not particularly.”  This remark astonished me all the more as I noticed that the body to which the head belonged was enveloped in a sheep-skin!

After living some time in Russia I was no longer surprised by such incidents, for I soon discovered that the Russian peasant has a marvellous power of bearing extreme heat as well as extreme cold.  When a coachman takes his master or mistress to the theatre or to a party, he never thinks of going home and returning at an appointed time.  Hour after hour he sits placidly on the box, and though the cold be of an intensity such as is never experienced in our temperate climate, he can sleep as tranquilly as the lazzaroni at midday in Naples.  In that respect the Russian peasant seems to be first-cousin to the polar bear, but, unlike the animals of the Arctic regions, he is not at all incommoded by excessive heat.  On the contrary, he likes it when he can get it, and never omits an opportunity of laying in a reserve supply of caloric.  He even delights in rapid transitions from one extreme to the other, as is amply proved by a curious custom which deserves to be recorded.