the winter palace—its interior—alexander ii—a russian court ball—the "bals des palmiers"—the empress—the blessing of the neva—some curiosities of the winter palace—the great orloff diamond—my friend the lady-in-waiting—sugared compensations—the attempt on the emperor's life of 1880—some unexpected finds in the palace—a most hilarious funeral—sporting expeditions—night drives through the forest in mid-winter—wolves—a typical russian village—a peasant's house—"deaf and dumb people"—the inquisitive peasant youth—curiosity about strangers—an embarrassing situation—a still more awkward one—food difficulties—a bear hunt—my first bear—alcoholic consequences—my liking for the russian peasant—the beneficent india-rubber ikon—two curious sporting incidents—village habits—the great gulf fixed between russian nobility and peasants.
the winter palace drags its lengthy, uninteresting façade for some five hundred feet along the quays of the neva. it presents a mere wearisome iteration of the same architectural features repeated again and again, and any effect it might produce is marred by the hideous shade of that crude red, called by the russians "raspberry colour," with which it is daubed, and for which they have so misplaced an affection.
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the interior of the winter palace was burned out in 1837, and only a few of the original state rooms survive. these surviving rooms are the only ones of any artistic interest, as the other innumerable and stupendous halls were all reconstructed during the "period of bad taste," and bear ample witness to that fact in every detail of their ornamentation.
the ambassadors' staircase, part of the original building, is very dignified and imposing with its groups of statuary, painted ceiling, and lavish decoration, as is peter the great's throne room, with jasper columns, and walls hung with red velvet worked in gold with great russian two-headed eagles. all the tables, chairs, and chandeliers in this room were of solid silver.
st. george's hall, another of the old rooms, i thought splendid, with its pure white marble walls and columns and rich adornments of gilt bronze, and there was also an agreeably barbaric hall with entirely gilt columns, many banners, and gigantic effigies of ancient russian warriors. all these rooms were full of collections of the gold and silver-gilt trays on which the symbolical "bread and salt" had been offered to different emperors in the various towns of their dominions.
the fifty or so other modern rooms were only remarkable for their immense size, the nicholas hall, for instance, being 200 feet long and 65 feet wide, though the so-called "golden hall" positively dazzled one with its acre or so of gilding. it would have been a happy idea for the emperor to
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assemble all the leading financiers of europe to dine together in the "golden hall." the sight of so much of the metal which they had spent their whole lives in amassing would have gratified the financiers, and would probably have stimulated them to fresh exertions.
the emperor alexander ii always received the diplomats in peter the great's throne room, seated on peter's throne. he was a wonderfully handsome man even in his old age, with a most commanding manner, and an air of freezing hauteur. when addressing junior members of the diplomatic body there was something in his voice and a look in his eye reminiscent of the great mogul addressing an earthworm.
i have only seen three sovereigns who looked their parts quite unmistakably: alexander ii of russia, william i of germany, and queen victoria. in queen victoria's case it was the more remarkable, as she was very short. yet this little old lady in her plain dress, had the most inimitable dignity, and no one could have mistaken her for anything but a queen. i remember queen victoria attending a concert at the albert hall in 1887, two months before the jubilee celebrations. the vast building was packed to the roof, and the queen received a tremendous ovation. no one who saw it can ever forget how the little old lady advanced to the front of her box and made two very low sweeping curtsies to the right and to the left of her with incomparable dignity and grace, as she smiled
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through her tears on the audience in acknowledgment of the thunders of applause that greeted her. queen victoria was always moved to tears when she received an unusually cordial ovation from her people, for they loved her, and she loved them.
the scale of everything in the winter palace was so vast that it is difficult to compare the court entertainments there with those elsewhere.
certainly the russian ladies looked well in their uniform costumes. the cut, shape, and style of these dresses never varied, be the fashions what they might. the dress, once made, lasted the owner for her lifetime, though with advancing years it might possibly require to be readjusted to an expanding figure. they were enormously expensive to start with—anything from £300 to £1,200. there was a complete under-dress of white satin, heavily embroidered. over this was worn a velvet dress lavishly trimmed with dark fur. this velvet dress might be of dull red, dark blue, green, or brown, according to the taste of the wearer. it had to have a long train embroidered with gold or silver flowers, or both mixed, as the owner's fancy dictated. on the head was worn the "kakoshnik," the traditional russian head-dress, in the form of a crescent. in the case of married women the "kakoshnik" might be of diamonds, or any gems they fancied, or could compass; for girls the "kakoshnik" must be of white silk. girls, too, had to wear white, without the velvet over-dress. the usual fault of russian faces is their undue breadth across the cheek-bones,
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and the white "kakoshnik" worn by the unmarried girls seemed to me to emphasize this defect, whereas a blazing semicircle of diamonds made a most becoming setting for an older face, although at times, as in other cases, the setting might be more ornamental than the object it enshrined. though the russian uniforms were mostly copied from german models, the national lack of attention to detail was probably to blame for the lack of effect they produced when compared with their prussian originals.
there was always something a little slovenly in the way in which the russian uniforms were worn, though an exception must be made in the case of the resplendent "chevaliers gardes," and of the "gardes à cheval." the uniforms of these two crack cavalry regiments was closely copied from that of the prussian "gardes du corps" and was akin to that of our own life guards and royal horse guards; the same leather breeches and long jack-boots, and the same cuirasses; the tunics, though were white, instead of the scarlet or blue of their english prototypes. the "chevaliers gardes" had silvered cuirasses and helmets surmounted with the russian eagle, whereas those of the "gardes à cheval" were gilt. as we know, "all that glitters is not gold," and in spite of their gilding the "gardes à cheval" were considered very inferior socially to their rivals. the emperor's fiercely-moustached circassian bodyguard struck an agreeably exotic note with their grass-green trousers and long blue kaftans, covered with rows of persian
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cartridge-holders in niello of black and silver. others of the circassians wore coats of chain mail over their kaftans, and these kaftans were always sleeveless, showing the bright green, red, or blue silk shirtsleeves of their wearers. another pleasant barbaric touch.
to my mind, the smartest uniforms were those of the cossack officers; baggy green knickerbockers thrust into high boots, a hooked-and-eyed green tunic without a single button or a scrap of gold lace on it, and a plain white silk belt. no one could complain of a lack of colour at a petrograd palace ball. the russian civil and court uniforms were ingeniously hideous with their white trousers and long frock-coats covered with broad transverse bars of gold lace. the wearers of these ugly garments always looked to me like walking embodiments of what are known in commercial circles as "gilt-edged securities." as at berlin, there were hosts of pages at these entertainments. these lads were all attired like miniature "chevalier gardes," in leather breeches and jack-boots, and wore gold-laced green tunics; a singularly unpractical dress, i should have thought, for a growing boy. all russians of a certain social position were expected to send their sons to be educated at the "school for imperial pages," which was housed in an immense and ornate building and counted four hundred pupils. wise parents mistrusted the education "aux pages" for their sons, knowing that, however little else they might learn there, they would be certain to acquire
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habits of gross extravagance; the prominence, too, into which these boys were thrust at court functions tended to make them unduly precocious.
the smaller court balls were known as "les bals des palmiers." on these occasions, a hundred large palm trees, specially grown for the purpose at tsarskoe selo, were brought by road from there in huge vans. round the palm in its tub supper tables were built, each one accommodating fifteen people. it was really an extraordinarily pretty sight seeing these rows of broad-fronted palms down the great nicholas hall, and the knowledge that a few feet away there was an outside temperature of 5° below zero added piquancy to the sight of these exiles from the tropics waving their green plumes so far away in the frozen north. at the "bals des palmiers" it was alexander ii's custom to make the round of the tables as soon as his guests were seated. the emperor would go up to a table, the occupants of which of course all rose at his approach, say a few words to one or two of them, and then eat either a small piece of bread or a little fruit, and just put his lips to a glass of champagne, in order that his guests might say that he had eaten and drank with them. a delicate and graceful attention!
as electric light had not then been introduced into the palace, the entire building was lighted with wax candles. i cannot remember the number i was told was required on these occasions, but i think it was over one hundred thousand. the candles were all lighted with a thread of gun-cotton, as in st. isaac's cathedral.
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the empress appeared but very rarely. it was a matter of common knowledge that she was suffering from an incurable disease. all the rooms in which she lived were artificially impregnated with oxygen, continuously released from cylinders in which the gas had been compressed. this, though it relieved the lungs of the sufferer, proved very trying to the empress's ladies-in-waiting, as this artificial atmosphere with its excess of oxygen after an hour or so gave them all violent headaches and attacks of giddiness.
in spite of the characteristic russian carelessness about details, these petrograd palace entertainments provided a splendid glittering pageant to the eye, for the stage was so vast and the number of performers so great. there was not the same blaze of diamonds as in london, but i should say that the individual jewels were far finer. a stone must be very perfect to satisfy the critical russian eye, and, true to their oriental blood, the ladies preferred unfaceted rubies, sapphires, and emeralds. occasional emirs from central asia served, as do the indian princes at buckingham palace, as a reminder that russia's responsibilities, like those of great britain, did not cease with her european frontiers.
once a year the diplomats had much the best of the situation. this was at the blessing of the waters of the neva—"the jordan," as russians called it—on january 6, old style, or january 18, according to our reckoning. we saw the ceremonies through the double windows of the great steam-heated nicholas
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hall, whereas the emperor and all the grand dukes had to stand bareheaded in the snow outside. a great hole was cut in the ice of the neva, with a temporary chapel erected over it. at the conclusion of the religious service, the metropolitan of petrograd solemnly blessed the waters of the river, and dipped a great golden cross into them.
a cordon of soldiers had to guard the opening in the ice until it froze over again, in order to prevent fanatical peasants from bathing in the newly-consecrated waters. many had lost their lives in this way.
a friend of mine, the director of the hermitage gallery, offered to take me all over the winter palace, and the visit occupied nearly an entire day. the maze of rooms was so endless that the mind got a little bewildered and surfeited with the sight of so many splendours. a detail that amused me was a small library on the second floor, opening on to an avenue of lime trees. one of the empresses had chosen for her private library this room on the second floor, looking into a courtyard. she had selected it on account of its quiet, but expressed a wish to have an avenue of trees, under which to walk in the intervals of her studies. the room being on the second floor, and looking into a yard, the wish appeared to be difficult to execute, but in those days the word "impossible" did not exist for an empress of russia. the entire courtyard was filled in with earth, and full-grown lime trees transplanted there. when i saw this aerial grove eighty years afterwards,
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there was quite a respectable avenue of limes on the second floor of the building, with a gravel walk bordered by grass-plots beneath them. another empress wished to have a place to walk in during the winter months, so a very ingenious hanging winter-garden was contrived for her, following all the exterior angles of the building. it was not in the least like an ordinary conservatory, but really did recall an outdoor garden. there were gravel walks, and lawns of lycopodium simulating grass; there were growing orange trees, and quite large palms. for some reason the creepers on the walls of this pseudo-garden were all artificial, being very cleverly made out of painted sheet-iron.
i had an opportunity later of seeing the entire winter palace collection of silver plate, and all the crown jewels, when they were arranged for the inspection of the late duke of edinburgh, who was good enough to invite me to come. there were enormous quantities of plate, of russian, french, and english make, sufficient to stock every silversmith's shop in london. some of the english plate was of william and mary's and queen anne's date, and there were some fine early georgian pieces. they, would, i confess, have appeared to greater advantage had they conveyed the idea that they had been occasionally cleaned. as it was, they looked like dull pewter that had been neglected for twenty years. of the jewels, the only things i remember were a superb "corsage" of diamonds and aquamarines—not the pale green stones we
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associate with the name, but immense stones of that bright blue tint, so highly prized in russia—and especially the great orloff diamond. the "corsage" was big enough to make a very ample cuirass for the most stalwart of lifeguardsmen, and the orloff diamond formed the head of the russian imperial sceptre. the history of the orloff, or lazareff, diamond is quite interesting. though by no means the largest, it is considered the most perfect diamond in the world, albeit it has a slight flaw in it. originally stolen from india, it came into the hands of an armenian called lazareff in some unknown manner about a.d. 1750. lazareff, so the story goes, devised a novel hiding-place for the great stone. making a deep incision into the calf of his leg, he placed the diamond in the cavity, and lay in bed for three months till the wound was completely healed over. he then started for amsterdam, and though stripped and searched several times during his journey, for he was strongly suspected of having the stone concealed about his person, its hiding-place was never discovered. at amsterdam lazareff had the wound reopened by a surgeon, and the diamond extracted. he then sold it to count orloff for 450,000 roubles, or roughly £45,000, and orloff in his turn made a present of the great stone to catherine the great. the diamond is set under a jewelled russian eagle at the extremity of the sceptre, where it probably shows to greater advantage than it did when concealed for six months in the calf of an armenian's leg.
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the accommodation provided for the suites of the imperial family is hardly on a par with the magnificence of the rest of the palace. the duchess of edinburgh, daughter of alexander ii, made a yearly visit to petrograd, as long as her mother the empress was alive. as the duchess's lady-in-waiting happened to be one of my oldest friends, during her stay i was at the palace at least three days a week, and i retain vivid recollections of the dreary, bare, whitewashed vault assigned to her as a sitting-room. the only redeeming feature of this room was a five-storied glass tray packed with some fifty varieties of the most delicious bon-bons the mind of man could conceive. these were all fresh-baked every day by the palace confectioner, and the tray was renewed every morning. there were some sixty of these trays prepared daily, and their arrangement was always absolutely identical, precisely the same number of caramels and fondants being placed on each shelf of the tray. everyone knew that the palace confectioner owned a fashionable sweet shop on the nevsky, where he traded under a french name, and i imagine that his shop was entirely stocked from the remains of the palace trays.
in the spring of 1880 an attempt was made on alexander's ii's life by a bomb which completely wrecked the white marble private dining-room. the emperor's dinner hour was 7, and the bomb was timed to explode at 7.20 p.m. the emperor happened at the time to be overwhelmed with work, and at the last moment he postponed dinner until 7.30.
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the bomb exploded at the minute it had been timed for, killing many of the servants. my poor friend the lady-in-waiting was passing along the corridor as the explosion occurred. she fell unhurt amongst the wreckage, but the shock and the sight of the horribly mangled bodies of the servants were too much for her. she never recovered from their effects, and died in england within a year. after this crime, the winter palace was thoroughly searched from cellars to attics, and some curious discoveries were made.
some of the countless moujiks employed in the palace had vast unauthorized colonies of their relatives living with them on the top floor of the building. in one bedroom a full-grown cow was found, placidly chewing the cud. one of the moujiks had smuggled it in as a new-born calf, had brought it up by hand, and afterwards fed it on hay purloined from the stables. though it may have kept his family well provided with milk, stabling a cow in a bedroom unprovided with proper drainage, on the top floor of a building, is not a proceeding to be unduly encouraged; nor does it tend to add to the sanitary amenities of a palace.
russians are fond of calling the nevsky "the street of toleration," for within a third of a mile of its length a dutch calvinist, a german lutheran, a roman catholic, and an armenian church rise almost side by side. "nevsky" is, of course, only the adjective of "neva," and the street is termed "perspective" in french and "prospect" in russian.
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close to the armenian church lived m. delyanoff, who was the minister of education in those days. both m. and madame delyanoff were exceedingly hospitable and kind to the diplomatic body, so, when m. delyanoff died, most of the diplomats attended his funeral, appearing, according to russian custom, in full uniform. the delyanoffs being armenians, the funeral took place in the armenian church, and none of us had had any previous experience of the extraordinary noises which pass for singing amongst armenians. when six individuals appeared and began bleating like sheep, and followed this by an excellent imitation of hungry wolves howling, it was too much for us. we hastily composed our features into the decorum the occasion demanded, amid furtive little snorts of semi-suppressed laughter. after three grey-bearded priests had stepped from behind the ikonostas, and, putting their chins up in the air, proceeded to yelp together in unison, exactly like dogs baying the moon, the entire corps diplomatique broke down utterly. never have i seen men laugh so unrestrainedly. as we had each been given a large lighted candle, the movements of our swaying bodies were communicated to the tapers, and showers of melted wax began flying in all directions. with the prudence of the land of my birth, i placed myself against a pillar, so as to have no one behind me, but each time the three grey-beards recommenced their comical howling, i must have scattered perfect niagaras of wax on to the embroidered coat-tails
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and extensive back of the swedish minister in front of me. i should think that i must have expended the combined labours of several hives of bees on his garments, congratulating myself the while that that genial personage, not being a peacock, did not enjoy the advantage of having eyes in his tail. the swedish minister, m. dué, his massive frame quivering with laughter, was meanwhile engaged in performing a like kindly office on to the back of his roumanian colleague, prince ghika, who in his turn was anointing the uniform of m. van der hooven, the netherlands minister. providentially, the delyanoff family were all grouped together before the altar, and the farmyard imitations of the armenian choir so effectually drowned our unseemly merriment that any faint echoes which reached the family were ascribed by them to our very natural emotions in the circumstances. i heard, indeed, afterwards that the family were much touched by our attendance and by our sympathetic behaviour, but never, before or since, have i attended so hilarious a funeral.
lord dufferin, in common with most of the members of the embassy, was filled with an intense desire to kill a bear. these animals, of course, hibernate, and certain peasants made a regular livelihood by discovering bears' lairs (the russian term, a corruption from the german, is "bear-loge") and then coming to petrograd and selling the beast at so much per "pood" of forty russian pounds. the finder undertook to provide sledges and beaters for the sum
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agreed upon, but nothing was to be paid unless a shot at the bear was obtained. these expeditions involved a considerable amount of discomfort. there was invariably a long drive of from forty to eighty miles to be made in rough country sledges from the nearest available railway station; the accommodation in a peasant's house would consist of the bare floor with some hay laid on it, and every scrap of food, including bread, butter, tea, and sugar, would have to be carried from petrograd, as european stomachs could not assimilate the sour, wet heavy black bread the peasants eat, and their brick-tea, which contained bullocks' blood, was undrinkable to those unaccustomed to it. it usually fell to my lot, as i spoke the language, to go on ahead to the particular village to which we were bound, and there to make the best arrangements possible for lord and lady dufferin's comfort. my instructions were always to endeavour to get a room in the latest house built, as this was likely to be less infested with vermin than the others. after a four or five hours' run from petrograd by train, one would find the vendor of the bear waiting at the station with a country sledge. these sledges were merely a few poles tied together, mounted on iron-shod wooden runners, and filled with hay. the sledges were so long that it was possible to lie at full length in them. the rifles, baggage, and food being packed under the hay, one lay down at full length, clad in long felt boots and heavy furs, an air-cushion under one's head, and a persian "bashilik," or hood of fine camel's hair, drawn over it to
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prevent ears or nose from being frostbitten. tucked into a thick fur rug, one composed oneself for an all-night drive through the endless forests. the two drivers sat on a plank in front, and one or other of them was continually dropping off to sleep, and tumbling backwards on to the occupants of the sledge. it was not a very comfortable experience, and sleep was very fickle to woo. in the first place, the sledge-tracks through the forest were very rough indeed, and the jolting was incessant; in the second place, should the actual driver go to sleep as well as his relieving colleague, the sledge would bump against the tree-trunks and overturn, and baggage, rifles and occupants would find themselves struggling in the deep snow. i always tied my baggage together with strings, so as to avoid losing anything in these upsets, but even then it took a considerable time retrieving the impedimenta from the deep snowdrifts.
it always gave me pleasure watching the black conical points of the fir trees outlined against the pale burnished steel of the sky, and in the intense cold the stars blazed like diamonds out of the clear grey vault above. the biting cold burnt like a hot iron against the cheeks, until prudence, and a regard for the preservation of one's ears, dictated the pulling of the "bashilik" over one's face again. the intense stillness, and the absolute silence, for there are no sleigh-bells in northern russia, except in the imagination of novelists, had some subtle attraction for me. the silence was occasionally—very
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occasionally only—broken by an ominous, long-drawn howl; then a spectral swift-trotting outline would appear, keeping pace easily with the sledge, but half-hidden amongst the tree-trunks. in that case the smooth-bore gun and the buckshot cartridges were quickly disinterred from the hay, and the driver urged his horses into a furious gallop. there was no need to use the whip; the horses knew. everyone would give a sigh of relief as the silent grey swift-moving spectral figure, with its fox-like lope, vanished after a shot or two had been fired at it. the drivers would take off their caps and cross themselves, muttering "thanks be to god! oh! those cursed wolves!" and the horses slowed down of their own accord into an easy amble. there were compensations for a sleepless night in the beauty of the pictures in strong black and white, or in shadowy half-tones of grey which the endless forest displayed at every turn. when the earth is wrapped in its snow-mantle, it is never dark, and the gleams of light from the white carpet down the long-drawn aisles of the dark firs were like the pillared shadows of a great cathedral when the dusk is filling it with mystery and a vague sense of immense size.
all villages that i have seen in northern russia are alike, and when you have seen one peasant's house you have seen all.
the village consists of one long street, and in the winter the kindly snow covers much of its unspeakable untidiness. the "isbas," or wooden houses, are all of the same pattern; they are solidly built of
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rough logs, the projecting ends firmly morticed into each other. their gable ends all front the street, each with two windows, and every "isba" has its courtyard, where the door is situated. there are no gardens, or attempts at gardens, and the houses are one and all roofed with grey shingles. each house is raised some six feet from the ground, and they are all water-tight, and most of them air-tight as well. the houses are never painted, and their weathered logs stand out silver-grey against the white background. a good deal of imagination is shown in the fret-saw carving of the barg-boards, which are either ornamented in conventional patterns, or have roughly outlined grotesque animals clambering up their angles; very often too there are fretsaw ornaments round the window-frames as well. prominent on the gate of every "isba" is the painting, in black on a white ground, of the particular implement each occupant is bound to supply in case of a fire, that dire and relentless foe to russian wooden-built villages. on some houses a ladder will be depicted; on others an axe or a pail. the interior arrangement of every "isba" i have ever seen is also identical. they always consist of two fair-sized rooms; the "hot room," which the family inhabit in winter, facing the street; the "cold room," used only in summertime, looking into the courtyard. these houses are not uncomfortable, though, a russian peasant's wants being but few, they are not overburdened with furniture. the disposition of the "hot room" is unvarying. supposing it facing
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due south, the door will be in the north-west corner. the north-east corner is occupied by an immense brick stove, filling up one-eighth of the floor-space. these stoves are about five feet high, and their tops are covered with loose sheepskins. here the entire family sleep in the stifling heat, their resting-place being shared with thousands of voracious, crawling, uninvited guests. in the south-east corner is the ikon shelf, where the family ikons are ranged in line, with a red lamp burning before them. there will be a table and benches in another corner, and a rough dresser, with a samovar, and a collection of those wooden bowls and receptacles, lacquered in scarlet, black, and gold, which russian peasants make so beautifully; and that is all. the temperature of the "hot room" is overpowering, and the atmosphere fetid beyond the power of description. every male, on entering takes off his cap and makes a bow before the ikons. i always conformed to this custom, for there is no use in gratuitously wounding people's religious susceptibilities. i invariably slept in the "cold room," for its temperature being probably five or six degrees below freezing point, it was free from vermin, and the atmosphere was purer. the master of the house laid a few armfuls of hay on the floor, and his wife would produce one of those towels russian women embroider so skilfully in red and blue, and lay it down for the cheek to rest against. i slept in my clothes, with long felt boots on, and my furs thrown over me, and i could sleep there as well as in any bed.
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the russian peasant's idea as to the relation of holy russia to the rest of the world is curious. it is rather the point of view of the chinaman, who thinks that beyond the confines of the "middle kingdom" there is only outer barbarism. everything to the west of russia is known as "germania," an intelligible mistake enough when it is remembered that germany marks russia's western frontier. "slavs" (akin, i think, to "slova," "a word") are the only people who can talk; "germania" is inhabited by deaf and dumb people ("nyémski") who can only make inarticulate noises. on one of my shooting expeditions, i stopped for an hour at a tea-house to change horses and to get warmed up. the proprietor told me that his son was very much excited at hearing that there was a "deaf and dumb man" in the house, as he had never seen one. would i speak to the young man. who was then putting on his sunday clothes on the chance of the interview being granted?
in due course the son appeared; a handsome youth in glorified peasant's costume. the first outward sign of a russian peasant's rise in the social scale is that he tucks his shirt into his trousers, instead of wearing it outside; the second stage is marked by his wearing his trousers over his boots, instead of thrusting the trousers into the boots. this young fellow had not reached this point of evolution, and wore his shirt outside, but it was a dark-blue silk shirt, secured by a girdle of rainbow-coloured persian silk. he still wore his long boots outside too,
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but they had scarlet morocco tops, and the legs of them were elaborately embroidered with gold wire. in modern parlance, this gay young spark was a terrific village "nut." never have i met a youth of such insatiable curiosity, or one so crassly and densely ignorant. he was one perpetual note of interrogation. "were there roads and villages in germania?" to the best of my belief there were. "there were no towns though as large as petrograd." i rather fancied the contrary, and instanced a flourishing little community of some five million souls, situated on an island, with which i was very well acquainted.
the youth eyed me with deep suspicion. "were there railways in germania?" only about a hundred times the mileage of the russian railways. "there was no electric light though, because jablochkoff, a russian, had invented that." (i found this a fixed idea with all russian peasants.) i had a vague impression of having seen one or two arc lights feebly glimmering in the streets of the benighted cities of germania. "could people read and write there, and could they really talk? it was easy to see that i had learned to talk since i had been in russia." i showed him a copy of the london times. "these were not real letters. could anyone read these meaningless signs," and so on ad infinitum. i am persuaded that when i left that youth he was convinced that i was the nearest relative to ananias that he had ever met.
no matter which hour of the twenty-four it might
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happen to be, ten minutes after my arrival in any of these remote villages the entire population assembled to gaze at the "nyemetz," the deaf and dumb man from remote "germania," who had arrived in their midst. they crowded into the "hot room," men, women, and children, and gaped on the mysterious stranger from another world, who sat there drinking tea, as we should gaze on a visitor from mars. i always carried with me on those occasions a small collapsible india-rubber bath and a rubber folding basin. on my first expedition, after my arrival in the village, i procured a bucket of hot water from the mistress of the house, carried it to the "cold room," and, having removed all my garments, proceeded to take a bath. like wildfire the news spread through the village that the "deaf and dumb" man was washing himself, and they all flocked in to look. i succeeded in "shooing" away the first arrivals, but they returned with reinforcements, until half the population, men, women, and children, were standing in serried rows in my room, following my every movement with breathless interest. i have never suffered from agoraphobia, so i proceeded cheerfully with my ablutions. "look at him! he is soaping himself!" would be murmured. "how dirty deaf and dumb people must be to want such a lot of washing!" "why does he rub his teeth with little brushes?" these and similar observations fell from the eager crowd, only broken occasionally by a piercing yell from a child, as she wailed plaintively the russian
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equivalent of "mummy! sonia not like ugly man!" it was distinctly an embarrassing situation, and only once in my life have i been placed in a more awkward position.
that was at bahia, in brazil, when i was at the rio de janeiro legation. i went to call on the british consul's wife there, and had to walk half a mile from the tram, through the gorgeous tropical vegetation of the charming suburb of vittoria, amongst villas faced with cool-looking blue and white tiles; the pretty "azulejos" which the portuguese adopted from the moors. oddly enough, a tram and a tramcar are always called "a bond" in brazil. the first tram-lines were built out of bonds guaranteed by the state. the people took this to mean the tram itself; so "bond" it is, and "bond" it will remain. being the height of a sweltering brazilian summer, i was clad in white from head to foot. suddenly, as happens in the tropics, without any warning whatever, the heavens opened, and solid sheets of water fell on the earth. i reached the consul's house with my clean white linen soaked through, and most woefully bedraggled. the west indian butler (an old acquaintance) who opened the door informed me that the ladies were out. after a glance at my extraordinary disreputable garments, he added, "you gib me dem clothes, sar, i hab dem all cleaned and ironed in ten minutes, before de ladies come back." on the assurances of this swarthy servitor that he and i were the only souls in the house, i divested myself of every stitch
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of clothing, and going into the drawing-room, sat down to read a book in precisely the same attire as adam adopted in the earlier days of his married life. time went by, and my clothes did not reappear; i should have known that to a jamaican coloured man measures of time are very elastic. suddenly i heard voices, and, to my horror, i saw our consul's wife approaching through the garden with her two daughters and some other ladies.
there was not a moment to lose! in that tropical drawing-room the only available scrap of drapery was a red plush table-cover. bundling everything on the table ruthlessly to the ground, i had just time to snatch up the table-cloth and drape myself in it (i trust gracefully) when the ladies entered the room. i explained my predicament and lamented my inability to rise, and so we had tea together. it is the only occasion in the course of a long life in which i ever remember taking tea with six ladies, clad only in a red plush table-cloth with bead fringes.
returning to russia, the peasants fingered everything i possessed with the insatiable curiosity of children; socks, ties, and shirts. i am bound to say that i never had the smallest thing stolen. as our shooting expeditions were always during lent, i felt great compunction at shocking the peasants' religious scruples by eating beef, ham, and butter, all forbidden things at that season. i tried hard to persuade one woman that my cold sirloin of roast beef was part of a rare english fish, specially
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imported, but she was, i fear, of a naturally sceptical bent of mind.
lady dufferin had one curious gift. she could spend the night in a rough country sledge, or sleep in her clothes on a truss of hay, and yet appear in the morning as fresh and neat, and spick and span, as though she had had the most elaborate toilet appliances at her disposal. on these occasions she usually wore a canadian blanket-suit of dark blue and scarlet, with a scarlet belt and hood, and a jaunty little sealskin cap. she always went out to the forest with us.
the procedure on these occasions was invariably the same. an army of beaters was assembled, about two-thirds of them women. this made me uneasy at first, until i learnt that the beaters run no danger whatever from the bear. the beaters form five-sixths, or perhaps less, of a circle round the bear's sleeping place, and the guns are placed in the intervening open space. i may add that, personally, i always used for bear an ordinary smooth-bore sporting gun, with a leaden bullet. i passed every one of these bullets down the barrels of my gun myself to avoid the risk of the gun bursting, before they were loaded into cartridges, and i had them secured with melted tallow. the advantages of a smooth-bore is that at close quarters, as with bear, where you must kill your beast to avoid disagreeable consequences, you lose no time in getting your sights on a rapidly-moving object. you shoot as you would a rabbit; and you can make
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absolutely sure of your animal, if you keep your head. a leaden bullet at close quarters has tremendous stopping power. of course you want a rifle as well for longer shots. i found this method most successful with tiger, later in india, only you must remain quite cool.
at a given signal, the beaters begin yelling, beating iron pans with sticks, blowing horns, shouting, and generally making enough pandemonium to awaken the seven sleepers. it effectually awakes the bear, who emerges from his bedroom in an exceedingly evil temper, to see what all this fearful din is about. as he is surrounded with noise on three sides, he naturally makes for the only quiet spot, where the guns are posted. by this time he is in a distinctly unamiable mood.
i always took off my ski, and stood nearly waist-deep in the snow so as to get a firm footing. then you can make quite certain of your shot. ski or no ski, if it came to running away, the bear would always have the pull on you. the first time i was very lucky. the bear came straight to me. when he was within fifteen feet, and i felt absolutely certain of getting him, i fired. he reared himself on his hind legs to an unbelievable height, and fell stone dead at lady dufferin's very feet. that bear's skin is within three feet of me as i write these lines. we went back to the village in orthodox fashion, all with fir-branches in our hands, as a sign of rejoicing; i seated on the dead bear.
as a small boy of nine i had been tossed in a
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blanket at school, up to the ceiling, caught again, then up a second time and third time. it was not, and was not intended to be, a pleasant experience, but in my day all little boys had to submit to it. the unhappy little brats stuck their teeth together, and tried hard to grin as they were being hurled skywards. these curious russians, though, appeared to consider it a delightful exercise.
arrived at the village again, i was captured by some thirty buxom, stalwart women, and sent spinning up and up, again and again, till i was absolutely giddy. not only had one to thank them profusely for this honour, but also to disburse a considerable amount of roubles in acknowledgement of it. poor lady dufferin was then caught, in spite of her protests, and sent hurtling skywards through the air half a dozen times. needless to say that she alighted with not one hair of her head out of place or one fold of her garments disarranged. being young and inexperienced then, i was foolish enough to follow the russian custom, and to present the village with a small cask of vodka. i regretted it bitterly. two hours later not a male in the place was sober. old grey-beards and young men lay dead drunk in the snow; and quite little boys reeled about hopelessly intoxicated. i could have kicked myself for being so thoughtless. during all the years i was in russia, i never saw a peasant woman drink spirits, or under the influence of liquor. in my house at petrograd i had a young peasant as house-boy. he was quite a
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nice lad of sixteen; clean, willing, and capable, but, young as he was, he had already fallen a victim to the national failing, in which he indulged regularly once a month, when his wages were paid him, and nothing could break him of this habit. i could always tell when ephim, the boy, had gone out with the deliberate intention of getting drunk, by glancing into his bedroom. he always took the precaution of turning the ikons over his bed, with their faces to the wall, before leaving, and invariably blew out the little red lamp, in order that ikons might not see him reeling into the room upon his return, or deposited unconscious upon his bed. being a singularly neat boy in his habits, he always put on his very oldest clothes on these occasions, in order not to damage his better ones, should he fall down in the street after losing control of his limbs. this drunkenness spreads like a cancer from top to bottom of russian society. a friend of mine, who afterwards occupied one of the highest administrative posts, told me quite casually that, on the occasion of his youngest brother's seventeenth birthday, the boy had been allowed to invite six young friends of his own age to dinner; my friend thought it quite amusing that every one of these lads had been carried to bed dead drunk. i attribute the dry-rot which ate into the whole structure of the mighty empire, and brought it crashing to the ground, in a very large degree to the intemperate habits prevailing amongst all classes of russian men, which in justice one must add, may be due to climatic reasons.
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in the villages our imported food was a constant source of difficulty. we were all averse to shocking the peasants by eating meat openly during lent, but what were we to do? out of deference to their scruples, we refrained from buying eggs and milk, which could have been procured in abundance, and furtively devoured ham, cold beef, and pickles behind cunningly contrived ramparts of newspaper, in the hope that it might pass unnoticed. remembering how meagre at the best of times the diet of these peasants is, it is impossible to help admiring them for the conscientious manner in which they obey the rules of their church during lent. i once gave a pretty peasant child a piece of plum cake. her mother snatched it from her, and asked me whether the cake contained butter or eggs. on my acknowledgement that it contained both, she threw it into the stove, and asked me indignantly how i dared to imperil her child's immortal soul by giving her forbidden food in lent. even my sixteen-year-old house-boy in petrograd, the bibulous ephim, although he regularly succumbed to the charms of vodka, lived entirely on porridge and dry bread during lent, and would not touch meat, butter, or eggs on any consideration whatever. the more i saw of the peasants the more i liked them. the men all drank, and were not particularly truthful, but they were like great simple, bearded, unkempt children, with (drunkenness apart) all a child's faults, and all a nice child's power of attraction. i liked the
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great, stalwart, big-framed women too. they were seldom good-looking, but their broad faces glowed with health and good nature, and they had as a rule very good skins, nice teeth, and beautiful complexions. i found that i could get on with these villagers like a house on fire. however cold the weather, no village girl or woman wears anything on her head but a gaudy folded cotton handkerchief.
i never shared the resentment of my russian friends at being addressed with the familiar "thou" by the peasants. they intended no discourtesy; it was their natural form of address, and they could not be expected to know that beyond the narrow confines of their village there was another world where the ceremonious "you" was habitually employed. i rather fancy that anyone bred in the country, and accustomed from his earliest childhood to mix with farmers, cottagers, and farm-labourers, can get on with other country-bred people, whether at home, or in russia, india, or canada—a town-bred man would not know what to talk about. in spite of the peasants' reputation for pilfering, not one of us ever had the smallest thing stolen. i did indeed lose a rubber air-cushion in the snow, but that was owing to the overturning of a sledge. a colleague of mine, whom i had hitherto always regarded as a truthful man, assured me a year afterwards that he had seen my air-cushion ranged on the ikon shelf in a peasant's house, with two red lamps burning before it. the owner of the house declared, according
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to my friend, that my air-cushion was an ikon of peculiar sanctity, though the painting had in some mysterious manner become obliterated from it. my colleague further assured me that my air-cushion was building up a very gratifying little local connection as a miracle-working ikon of quite unusual efficiency, and that, under its kindly tutelage, crops prospered and flocks and herds increased; of course within reasonable limits only, for the new ikon held essentially moderate views, and was temperamentally opposed to anything in the way of undue optimism. i wished that i could have credited this, for it would have been satisfactory to imagine oneself, through the agency of the air-cushion, a vicarious yet untiring benefactor of a whole countryside.
on one of our shooting expeditions a curious incident occurred. lord dufferin had taken a long shot at a bear, and had wounded without killing him. for some reason, the animal stopped, and climbed to the top of a high fir tree. lord dufferin approached, fired again, and the bear dropped dead to the ground. it is but seldom that one sees a dead bear fall from the top of a tree. i witnessed an equally strange sporting incident once in india. it was just over the borders of assam, and we were returning to camp on elephants, after a day's big game shooting. as we approached a hollow clothed with thick jungle, the elephants all commenced trumpeting. knowing how wonderfully keen the elephant's sense of smell is, that told us that some beast lay concealed in the hollow. thinking it
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would prove to be a bear, i took up my favourite smooth-bore charged with leaden bullets, when with a great crashing and rending of boughs the jungle parted, and a galloping rhinoceros charged out, his head well down, making straight for the elephant that was carrying a nephew of mine. my nephew had just time to snatch up a heavy 4-bore elephant rifle. he fired, and by an extraordinary piece of luck succeeded in hitting the huge beast in his one vulnerable spot, just behind the shoulder. the rhinoceros rolled right over like a shot rabbit and lay stone dead. it was a thousand to one chance, and if i live to a hundred i shall never see anything of the sort again. it was also very fortunate, for had he missed his shot, nothing on earth could have saved my nephew's life.
we found that the most acceptable presents in the villages were packets of sugar and tins of sardines. sugar is costly and difficult to procure in russian villages. the usual way of employing it, when friends are gathered round the table of some "isba" with the samovar in the middle and steaming glasses of tea before each guest, is for no. 1 to take a piece of sugar, place it between his teeth, and then suck his tea through it. no. 1 quickly passes the piece of sugar to his neighbor, who uses it in the same way, and transfers it to the next person, and so on, till the sugar is all dissolved. this method of using sugar, though doubtless economical, always struck me as being of dubious cleanliness. a gift of a pound of lump sugar was always welcomed with
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grateful thanks. sardines were even more acceptable, as they could be eaten in lent. the grown-ups devoured the fish, lifting them out of the tin with their fingers; and the children were given the oil to smear on their bread, in place of forbidden butter.
after days in the keen fresh air, and in the limitless expanse of forest and snow, life in petrograd seemed terribly artificial. i used to marvel that my cultured, omniscient, polygot friends were fellow-countrymen of the bearded, red-shirted, illiterate peasants we had just left. the gulf seemed so unbridgable between them, and apart from a common language and a common religion (both, i acknowledge, very potent bonds of union) there seemed no link between them, or any possible community of ideas. now in england there is that community of ideas. all classes, from the highest to the lowest, share to some extent the same tastes and the same prejudices. there is too that most powerful of connecting links, a common love of sport. the cricket ground and the football field are witnesses to this, and it shows in a hundred little ways beside. the freemasonry of sport is very real.
it was perfectly delightful to live with and to mix so much amongst charming people of such wide culture and education, but they seemed to me to bear the same relation to the world outside their own that a rare orchid in its glass shelter bears to a wild flower growing in the open air. the one is
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indigenous to the soil; the other was originally imported, and can only thrive in an artificial atmosphere, and under artificial conditions. if the glass gets broken, or the fire goes out, the orchid dies, but the wild flower is not affected. after all, man made the towns, but god made the country.
