SART WOMEN

would pass, and then some aged hag, with her face
bound up in a cloth like the pictures one sees of
Lazarus in his grave-clothes, would look out of a
kind of stable door and beckon to us. The first
time this happened I began to think I should find
the poor ladies living in the stables, especially when
the old woman led us down a dark passage between
heaps of rubbish and shavings. However, we found
ourselves at last in a cheerful courtyard, quite equal
to that belonging to the men.
The size of the women's rooms, the quality of the
carpets, as also the quality of the clothes and of the
jewellery they wore, corresponded as a rule with the
wealth of the husband. When a Sart builds himself
a Russian house he generally thinks the old one
good enough for his wives, and so leaves them
there; partly for that reason, but also because, as
the new house is built solely for the entertainment
of his gentleman friends, it would be impossible to
bring the women and children into it without con-
siderably increasing its size. So long as the women
are doomed to live in seclusion I see nothing un-
reasonable in this arrangement, but a Russian lady
friend, when pointing out such a house to me,
remarked: "That fine house was built by a Sart !
Would you believe it ? But the ladies, poor things,
have no share in its comforts, they are still im-
prisoned in the old one; anything seems to be good
enough for them,"