Red Dusk and the Morrow by Paul Dukes

The room in which I found myself was a spacious one. On the right stood a big white stove, always the most prominent object in a Russian peasant dwelling, occupying nearly a quarter of the room. Beyond the stove in the far corner was a bedstead on which an old woman lay. The floor was strewn with several rough straw mattresses. Two strapping boys, a little lass of ten, and two girls of eighteen or nineteen had just dressed, and one of the latter was doing her hair in front of a piece of broken mirror.

In the other far corner stood a rectangular wooden table, with an oil lamp hanging over it. The little glass closet of icons behind the table, in what is called "beautiful corner" because it shelters the holy pictures, showed the inmates to be Russians, though the district is inhabited largely by men of Finnish race. To the left of the door stood an empty wooden bedstead, with heaped-up bedcovers and sheepskin coats, as if someone had lately risen from it. All these things, picturesque, though customary, I took in at a glance. But I was interested to notice an old harmonium, an unusual decoration in a village hut, the musical accomplishments of the peasant generally being limited to the concertina, the guitar, the balalaika, and the voice, in all of which, however, he is adept.