and all died out? You may imagine the questions that assailed me, once
I had lain down. But whether evil was connected with the house or
no, it was innocuous for me. Nothing happened; only the moon looked
through the open doorway; winds wandered among the broken rafters, and
far away owls shrieked.

Again, on the way to Otchemchiri I came upon a beautiful cottage in
the forest and went to ask hospitality, but found no one there. The
front door was bolted but the back door was open. I walked in and took
a seat. As there were red-hot embers in the fire some one had lately
been there, and would no doubt come back--so I thought. But no one
came: twilight grew to night in loneliness and I lay down on the long
sleeping bench and slept. It was like the house of the three bears but
that there was no hot porridge on the table. But no bears came; only
next morning I was confronted by a half-dressed savage, a veritable
Caliban by appearance but quite harmless, an idiot and deaf and dumb.
I made signs to him and he went out and brought in wood, and we remade
the fire together.

I have slept out in many places--in England, in the Caucasus where
it was amongst the most lawless people in Europe, in North Russian
forests where the bear is something to be reckoned with--but I have
never come to harm. The most glorious and wonderful nights I ever had
were almost sleepless ones, spent looking at the stars and tasting
the new sensations. Yet even in respect of rest it seems to me I
have thriven better out of doors. There is a real tranquillity on a
mountain side after the sun has gone down, and a silence, even though
the crickets whistle and owls cry, though the wind murmurs in the
trees above or the waves on the shore below. The noises in houses are
often intolerable and one has to wait all every noise in the house