Far off, through a cutting in the road, there soon stood out against
the light-blue sky, the green roof of a village church. Presently the
village itself became visible, together with the roof of the manor-house
and the garden attached to it. Who lived in that house? Children,
parents, teachers? Why should we not call there and make the
acquaintance of its inmates?

Next we overtook a file of loaded waggons--a procession to which our
vehicles had to yield the road.

"What have you got in there?" asked Vassili of one waggoner who was
dangling his legs lazily over the splashboard of his conveyance and
flicking his whip about as he gazed at us with a stolid, vacant look;
but he only made answer when we were too far off to catch what he said.

"And what have YOU got?" asked Vassili of a second waggoner who was
lying at full length under a new rug on the driving-seat of his vehicle.
The red poll and red face beneath it lifted themselves up for a
second from the folds of the rug, measured our britchka with a cold,
contemptuous look, and lay down again; whereupon I concluded that the
driver was wondering to himself who we were, whence we had come, and
whither we were going.

These various objects of interest had absorbed so much of my time that,
as yet, I had paid no attention to the crooked figures on the verst
posts as we passed them in rapid succession; but in time the sun began
to burn my head and back, the road to become increasingly dusty, the
impedimenta in the carriage to grow more and more uncomfortable, and
myself to feel more and more cramped. Consequently, I relapsed into