Petrovna and Ivan take their sleds every morning as soon as lessons are over, and away they run up the steps of their ice hill. Hurrah! Now hold your breath, for away they go, faster and faster, down the hill and over the pond below. How they shout with delight! They travel more quickly than any express train you ever saw.
I am afraid you will be a little envious of their fun and wish you had a private ice hill like theirs. The best part of it is that these little Russians don't have to wait for a good snow-storm to make coasting for them. It is always on hand and made to order.
Petrovna has a hill made of polished wood at her summer home on the island. It cost a good deal of money, but her papa thought, "What does that matter? The children like coasting better than any other sport, so coasting they shall have."
There are public ice-hills in several parts of the city. Both old and young people are very fond of coasting. The Emperor himself has a slide of beautiful mahogany in his palace. It has been polished until it shines like one of the finest pieces of furniture.
Petrovna and Ivan do not go to school as some of the poor children do. They have a French governess. She teaches them to read, write, and spell. She also gives them lessons in French and German. She is a fine scholar, and Petrovna's papa and mamma respect her greatly. She is treated like one of the family and meets all of their friends. Petrovna's mamma wished her children's governess to be a Frenchwoman, because French is generally spoken in good society in Russia. Of course she can teach them to pronounce it better than a person of their own country could.
Besides the two languages they are studying now, Ivan and Petrovna will soon take Latin, and perhaps Italian. Well-educated people of Russia often speak several different languages. But there are thousands, yes, millions of the poor in their land who cannot read their own language or even write their own names! The schools are not as common, you see, as in this country, but they are growing better every year.
By the way, I must tell you that there are more than forty different tongues spoken in the various parts of the great country of Russia. If you learned to speak the Russian language in one part of it, you might not understand what the people say in a different part.
In Petrovna's yard there is a little house close to the main one. If she should let you look in, you would see a large brick oven at the end of the room. Wide shelves are fastened one above another on the side of the wall. You can't imagine what this place is used for, so I shall certainly have to tell you. It is the family bath-house. I can hear you cry, "What a bath-house! I don't see any tub, or, in fact, anything that looks like a bath-house." But the children of Russia do not take water baths as you do. They are bathed by steam.
Every Saturday a big fire is made in the stove, and when the bricks are very hot, water is poured over them. The room is filled with hot steam. Petrovna delights in this weekly bath. At first she lies on a low shelf until she gets quite warm. The perspiration starts out all over her little naked body. Then her maid places her on a higher shelf and pours more water over the stove. More steam rises, and Petrovna grows warmer and warmer. It seems as though she would suffocate. Now for a still higher shelf in the room. Of course the higher up the little girl goes, the hotter she grows. The water fairly runs out of the pores of her skin, now. Instead of looking like a lily, she would remind you of a boiled lobster.