Of all the foreign countries in which I have travelled, Russia certainly bears off the palm in the matter of hospitality.  Every spring I found myself in possession of a large number of invitations from landed proprietors in different parts of the country—­far more than I could possibly accept—­and a great part of the summer was generally spent in wandering about from one country-house to another.  I have no intention of asking the reader to accompany me in all these expeditions—­for though pleasant in reality, they might be tedious in description—­but I wish to introduce him to some typical examples of the landed proprietors.  Among them are to be found nearly all ranks and conditions of men, from the rich magnate, surrounded with the refined luxury of West-European civilisation, to the poor, ill-clad, ignorant owner of a few acres which barely supply him with the necessaries of life.  Let us take, first of all, a few specimens from the middle ranks.

In one of the central provinces, near the bank of a sluggish, meandering stream, stands an irregular group of wooden constructions—­old, unpainted, blackened by time, and surmounted by high, sloping roofs of moss-covered planks.  The principal building is a long, one-storied dwelling-house, constructed at right angles to the road.  At the front of the house is a spacious, ill-kept yard, and at the back an equally spacious shady, garden, in which art carries on a feeble conflict with encroaching nature.  At the other side of the yard, and facing the front door—­or rather the front doors, for there are two—­stand the stables, hay-shed, and granary, and near to that end of the house which is farthest from the road are two smaller houses, one of which is the kitchen, and the other the Lyudskaya, or servants’ apartments.  Beyond these we can perceive, through a single row of lime-trees, another group of time-blackened wooden constructions in a still more dilapidated condition.  That is the farmyard.

There is certainly not much symmetry in the disposition of these buildings, but there is nevertheless a certain order and meaning in the apparent chaos.  All the buildings which do not require stoves are built at a considerable distance from the dwelling-house and kitchen, which are more liable to take fire; and the kitchen stands by itself, because the odour of cookery where oil is used is by no means agreeable, even for those whose olfactory nerves are not very sensitive.  The plan of the house is likewise not without a certain meaning.  The rigorous separation of the sexes, which formed a characteristic trait of old Russian society, has long since disappeared, but its influence may still be traced in houses built on the old model.  The house in question is one of these, and consequently it is composed of three sections—­at the one end the male apartments, at the other the female apartments, and in the middle the neutral territory, comprising the dining-room and the salon.  This arrangement has its conveniences, and explains the fact that the house has two front doors.  At the back is a third door, which opens from the neutral territory into a spacious verandah overlooking the garden.