experienced it.  Of course I ought to have turned back—­at least, as soon as a sensation of faintness warned me that the circulation was being seriously impeded—­but I did not wish to confess my imprudence to the friend who accompanied me.  When we had driven about three-fourths of the way we met a peasant-woman, who gesticulated violently, and shouted something to us as we passed.  I did not hear what she said, but my friend turned to me and said in an alarming tone—­we had been speaking German—­“Mein Gott!  Ihre Nase ist abgefroren!” Now the word “abgefroren,” as the reader will understand, seemed to indicate that my nose was frozen off, so I put up my hand in some alarm to discover whether I had inadvertently lost the whole or part of the member referred to.  It was still in situ and entire, but as hard and insensible as a bit of wood.

“You may still save it,” said my companion, “if you get out at once and rub it vigorously with snow.”

I got out as directed, but was too faint to do anything vigorously.  My fur cloak flew open, the cold seemed to grasp me in the region of the heart, and I fell insensible.

How long I remained unconscious I know not.  When I awoke I found myself in a strange room, surrounded by dragoon officers in uniform, and the first words I heard were, “He is out of danger now, but he will have a fever.”

These words were spoken, as I afterwards discovered, by a very competent surgeon; but the prophecy was not fulfilled.  The promised fever never came.  The only bad consequences were that for some days my right hand remained stiff, and for a week or two I had to conceal my nose from public view.

If this little incident justifies me in drawing a general conclusion, I should say that exposure to extreme cold is an almost painless form of death; but that the process of being resuscitated is very painful indeed—­so painful, that the patient may be excused for momentarily regretting that officious people prevented the temporary insensibility from becoming “the sleep that knows no waking.”

Between the alternate reigns of winter and summer there is always a short interregnum, during which travelling in Russia by road is almost impossible.  Woe to the ill-fated mortal who has to make a long road-journey immediately after the winter snow has melted; or, worse still, at the beginning of winter, when the autumn mud has been petrified by the frost, and not yet levelled by the snow!

At all seasons the monotony of a journey is pretty sure to be broken by little unforeseen episodes of a more or less disagreeable kind.  An axle breaks, or a wheel comes off, or there is a difficulty in procuring horses.  As an illustration of the graver episodes which may occur, I shall make here a quotation from my note-book: 

Early in the morning we arrived at Maikop, a small town commanding the entrance to one of the valleys which run up towards the main range of the Caucasus.  On alighting at the post-station, we at once ordered horses for the next stage, and received the laconic reply, “There are no horses.”