Russia

RUSSIA

by Donald Mackenzie Wallace

Copyright 1905

Contents

Preface

CHAPTER I

TRAVELLING IN RUSSIA

Railways--State Interference--River Communications--Russian "Grand

Tour"--The Volga--Kazan--Zhigulinskiya Gori--Finns and Tartars--The

Don--Difficulties of Navigation--Discomforts--Rats--Hotels and

Their Peculiar Customs--Roads--Hibernian Phraseology

Explained--Bridges--Posting--A Tarantass--Requisites for

Travelling--Travelling in Winter--Frostbitten--Disagreeable

Episodes--Scene at a Post-Station.

CHAPTER II

IN THE NORTHERN FORESTS

Bird's-eye View of Russia--The Northern Forests--Purpose of

my Journey--Negotiations--The Road--A Village--A Peasant's

House--Vapour-Baths--Curious Custom--Arrival.

CHAPTER III

VOLUNTARY EXILE

Ivanofka--History of the Place--The Steward of the Estate--Slav and

Teutonic Natures--A German's View of the Emancipation--Justices of the

Peace--New School of Morals--The Russian Language--Linguistic Talent of

the Russians--My Teacher--A Big Dose of Current History.

CHAPTER IV

THE VILLAGE PRIEST

Priests' Names--Clerical Marriages--The White and the Black Clergy--Why

the People do not Respect the Parish Priests--History of the White

Clergy--The Parish Priest and the Protestant Pastor--In What Sense

the Russian People are Religious--Icons--The Clergy and Popular

Education--Ecclesiastical Reform--Premonitory Symptoms of Change--Two

Typical Specimens of the Parochial Clergy of the Present Day.

CHAPTER V

A MEDICAL CONSULTATION

Unexpected Illness--A Village Doctor--Siberian Plague--My

Studies--Russian Historians--A Russian Imitator of Dickens--A ci-devant

Domestic Serf--Medicine and Witchcraft--A Remnant of Paganism--Credulity

of the Peasantry--Absurd Rumours--A Mysterious Visit from St.

Barbara--Cholera on Board a Steamer--Hospitals--Lunatic Asylums--Amongst

Maniacs.

CHAPTER VI

A PEASANT FAMILY OF THE OLD TYPE

Ivan Petroff--His Past Life--Co-operative Associations--Constitution of

a Peasant's Household--Predominance of Economic Conceptions over those

of Blood-relationship--Peasant Marriages--Advantages of Living in Large

Families--Its Defects--Family Disruptions and their Consequences.

CHAPTER VII

THE PEASANTRY OF THE NORTH

Communal Land--System of Agriculture--Parish Fetes--Fasting--Winter

Occupations--Yearly Migrations--Domestic Industries--Influence

of Capital and Wholesale Enterprise--The State

Peasants--Serf-dues--Buckle's "History of Civilisation"--A precocious

Yamstchik--"People Who Play Pranks"--A Midnight Alarm--The Far North.

CHAPTER VIII

THE MIR, OR VILLAGE COMMUNITY

Social and Political Importance of the Mir--The Mir and the Family

Compared--Theory of the Communal System--Practical Deviations from the

Theory--The Mir a Good Specimen of Constitutional Government of the

Extreme Democratic Type--The Village Assembly--Female Members--The

Elections--Distribution of the Communal Land.

CHAPTER IX

HOW THE COMMUNE HAS BEEN PRESERVED, AND WHAT IT IS TO EFFECT IN THE

FUTURE

Sweeping Reforms after the Crimean War--Protest Against the Laissez

Faire Principle--Fear of the Proletariat--English and Russian Methods of

Legislation Contrasted--Sanguine Expectations--Evil Consequences of

the Communal System--The Commune of the Future--Proletariat of the

Towns--The Present State of Things Merely Temporary.

CHAPTER X

FINNISH AND TARTAR VILLAGES

A Finnish Tribe--Finnish Villages--Various Stages of

Russification--Finnish Women--Finnish Religions--Method of "Laying"

Ghosts--Curious Mixture of Christianity and Paganism--Conversion of

the Finns--A Tartar Village--A Russian Peasant's Conception of

Mahometanism--A Mahometan's View of Christianity--Propaganda--The

Russian Colonist--Migrations of Peoples During the Dark Ages.

CHAPTER XI

LORD NOVGOROD THE GREAT

Departure from Ivanofka and Arrival at Novgorod--The Eastern Half of

the Town--The Kremlin--An Old Legend--The Armed Men of Rus--The

Northmen--Popular Liberty in Novgorod--The Prince and the Popular

Assembly--Civil Dissensions and Faction-fights--The Commercial Republic

Conquered by the Muscovite Tsars--Ivan the Terrible--Present Condition

of the Town--Provincial Society--Card-playing--Periodicals--"Eternal

Stillness."

CHAPTER XII

THE TOWNS AND THE MERCANTILE CLASSES

General Character of Russian Towns--Scarcity of Towns in Russia--Why

the Urban Element in the Population is so Small--History of

Russian Municipal Institutions--Unsuccessful Efforts to Create a

Tiers-etat--Merchants, Burghers, and Artisans--Town Council--A Rich

Merchant--His House--His Love of Ostentation--His Conception of

Aristocracy--Official Decorations--Ignorance and Dishonesty of the

Commercial Classes--Symptoms of Change.

CHAPTER XIII

THE PASTORAL TRIBES OF THE STEPPE

A Journey to the Steppe Region of the Southeast--The Volga--Town

and Province of Samara--Farther Eastward--Appearance of the

Villages--Characteristic Incident--Peasant Mendacity--Explanation of the

Phenomenon--I Awake in Asia--A Bashkir Aoul--Diner la Tartare--Kumyss--A

Bashkir Troubadour--Honest Mehemet Zian--Actual Economic Condition of

the Bashkirs Throws Light on a Well-known Philosophical Theory--Why

a Pastoral Race Adopts Agriculture--The Genuine Steppe--The

Kirghiz--Letter from Genghis Khan--The Kalmyks--Nogai Tartars--Struggle

between Nomadic Hordes and Agricultural Colonists.

CHAPTER XIV

THE MONGOL DOMINATION

The Conquest--Genghis Khan and his People--Creation and Rapid

Disintegration of the Mongol Empire--The Golden Horde--The Real

Character of the Mongol Domination--Religious Toleration--Mongol System

of Government--Grand Princes--The Princes of Moscow--Influence of the

Mongol Domination--Practical Importance of the Subject.

CHAPTER XV

THE COSSACKS

Lawlessness on the Steppe--Slave-markets of the Crimea--The Military

Cordon and the Free Cossacks--The Zaporovian Commonwealth Compared with

Sparta and with the Mediaeval Military Orders--The Cossacks of the Don,

of the Volga, and of the Ural--Border Warfare--The Modern Cossacks--Land

Tenure among the Cossacks of the Don--The Transition from Pastoral to

Agriculture Life--"Universal Law" of Social Development--Communal versus

Private Property--Flogging as a Means of Land-registration.

CHAPTER XVI

FOREIGN COLONISTS ON THE STEPPE

The Steppe--Variety of Races, Languages, and Religions--The German

Colonists--In What Sense the Russians are an Imitative

People--The Mennonites--Climate and Arboriculture--Bulgarian

Colonists--Tartar-Speaking Greeks--Jewish

Agriculturists--Russification--A Circassian Scotchman--Numerical

Strength of the Foreign Element.

CHAPTER XVII

AMONG THE HERETICS

The Molokanye--My Method of Investigation--Alexandrof-Hai--An Unexpected

Theological Discussion--Doctrines and Ecclesiastical Organisation of

the Molokanye--Moral Supervision and Mutual Assistance--History of the

Sect--A False Prophet--Utilitarian Christianity--Classification of

the Fantastic Sects--The "Khlysti"--Policy of the Government towards

Sectarianism--Two Kinds of Heresy--Probable Future of the Heretical

Sects--Political Disaffection.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE DISSENTERS

Dissenters not to be Confounded with Heretics--Extreme Importance

Attached to Ritual Observances--The Raskol, or Great Schism in the

Seventeenth Century--Antichrist Appears!--Policy of Peter the Great

and Catherine II.--Present Ingenious Method of Securing Religious

Toleration--Internal Development of the Raskol--Schism among the

Schismatics--The Old Ritualists--The Priestless People--Cooling of the

Fanatical Enthusiasm and Formation of New Sects--Recent Policy of

the Government towards the Sectarians--Numerical Force and Political

Significance of Sectarianism.

CHAPTER XIX

CHURCH AND STATE

The Russian Orthodox Church--Russia Outside of the Mediaeval Papal

Commonwealth--Influence of the Greek Church--Ecclesiastical History of

Russia--Relations between Church and State--Eastern Orthodoxy and the

Russian National Church--The Synod--Ecclesiastical Grumbling--Local

Ecclesiastical Administration--The Black Clergy and the Monasteries--The

Character of the Eastern Church Reflected in the History of Religious

Art--Practical Consequences--The Union Scheme.

CHAPTER XX

THE NOBLESSE

The Nobles In Early Times--The Mongol Domination--The Tsardom of

Muscovy--Family Dignity--Reforms of Peter the Great--The Nobles Adopt

West-European Conceptions--Abolition of Obligatory Service--Influence of

Catherine II.--The Russian Dvoryanstvo Compared with the French Noblesse

and the English Aristocracy--Russian Titles--Probable Future of the

Russian Noblesse.

CHAPTER XXI

LANDED PROPRIETORS OF THE OLD SCHOOL

Russian Hospitality--A Country-House--Its Owner Described--His Life,

Past and Present--Winter Evenings--Books---Connection with the Outer

World--The Crimean War and the Emancipation--A Drunken, Dissolute

Proprietor--An Old General and his Wife--"Name Days"--A Legendary

Monster--A Retired Judge--A Clever Scribe--Social Leniency--Cause of

Demoralisation.

CHAPTER XXII

PROPRIETORS OF THE MODERN SCHOOL

A Russian Petit Maitre--His House and Surroundings--Abortive Attempts

to Improve Agriculture and the Condition of the Serfs--A Comparison--A

"Liberal" Tchinovnik--His Idea of Progress--A Justice of the Peace--His

Opinion of Russian Literature, Tchinovniks, and Petits Maitres--His

Supposed and Real Character--An Extreme Radical--Disorders in

the Universities--Administrative Procedure--Russia's Capacity for

Accomplishing Political and Social Evolutions--A Court Dignitary in his

Country House.

CHAPTER XXIII

SOCIAL CLASSES

Do Social Classes or Castes Exist in Russia?--Well-marked Social

Types--Classes Recognised by the Legislation and the Official

Statistics--Origin and Gradual Formation of these Classes--Peculiarity

in the Historical Development of Russia--Political Life and Political

Parties.

CHAPTER XXIV

THE IMPERIAL ADMINISTRATION AND THE OFFICIALS

The Officials in Norgorod Assist Me in My Studies--The Modern Imperial

Administration Created by Peter the Great, and Developed by his

Successors--A Slavophil's View of the Administration--The Administration

Briefly Described--The Tchinovniks, or Officials--Official Titles, and

Their Real Significance--What the Administration Has Done for Russia in

the Past--Its Character Determined by the Peculiar Relation between

the Government and the People--Its Radical Vices--Bureaucratic

Remedies--Complicated Formal Procedure--The Gendarmerie: My Personal

Relations with this Branch of the Administration; Arrest and Release--A

Strong, Healthy Public Opinion the Only Effectual Remedy for Bad

Administration.

CHAPTER XXV

MOSCOW AND THE SLAVOPHILS

Two Ancient Cities--Kief Not a Good Point for Studying Old Russian

National Life--Great Russians and Little Russians--Moscow--Easter Eve

in the Kremlin--Curious Custom--Anecdote of the Emperor

Nicholas--Domiciliary Visits of the Iberian Madonna--The Streets of

Moscow--Recent Changes in the Character of the City--Vulgar Conception

of the Slavophils--Opinion Founded on Personal Acquaintance--Slavophil

Sentiment a Century Ago--Origin and Development of the Slavophil

Doctrine--Slavophilism Essentially Muscovite--The Panslavist

Element--The Slavophils and the Emancipation.

CHAPTER XXVI

ST. PETERSBURG AND EUROPEAN INFLUENCE

St. Petersburg and Berlin--Big Houses--The "Lions"--Peter the Great--His

Aims and Policy--The German Regime--Nationalist Reaction--French

Influence--Consequent Intellectual Sterility--Influence of the

Sentimental School--Hostility to Foreign Influences--A New Period of

Literary Importation--Secret Societies--The Catastrophe--The Age of

Nicholas--A Terrible War on Parnassus--Decline of Romanticism and

Transcendentalism--Gogol--The Revolutionary Agitation of 1848--New

Reaction--Conclusion.

CHAPTER XXVII

THE CRIMEAN WAR AND ITS CONSEQUENCES

The Emperor Nicholas and his System--The Men with Aspirations and the

Apathetically Contented--National Humiliation--Popular Discontent

and the Manuscript Literature--Death of Nicholas--Alexander II.--New

Spirit--Reform Enthusiasm--Change in the Periodical Literature--The

Kolokol--The Conservatives--The Tchinovniks--First Specific

Proposals--Joint-Stock Companies--The Serf Question Comes to the Front.

CHAPTER XXVIII

THE SERFS

The Rural Population in Ancient Times--The Peasantry in the Eighteenth

Century--How Was This Change Effected?--The Common Explanation

Inaccurate--Serfage the Result of Permanent Economic and Political

Causes--Origin of the Adscriptio Glebae--Its Consequences--Serf

Insurrection--Turning-point in the History of Serfage--Serfage in

Russia and in Western Europe--State Peasants--Numbers and Geographical

Distribution of the Serf Population--Serf Dues--Legal and Actual Power

of the Proprietors--The Serfs' Means of Defence--Fugitives--Domestic

Serfs--Strange Advertisements in the Moscow Gazette--Moral Influence of

Serfage.

CHAPTER XXIX

THE EMANCIPATION OF THE SERFS

The Question Raised--Chief Committee--The Nobles of the Lithuanian

Provinces--The Tsar's Broad Hint to the Noblesse--Enthusiasm in the

Press--The Proprietors--Political Aspirations--No Opposition--The

Government--Public Opinion--Fear of the Proletariat--The Provincial

Committees--The Elaboration Commission--The Question Ripens--Provincial

Deputies--Discontent and Demonstrations--The Manifesto--Fundamental

Principles of the Law--Illusions and Disappointment of the

Serfs--Arbiters of the Peace--A Characteristic Incident--Redemption--Who

Effected the Emancipation?

CHAPTER XXX

THE LANDED PROPRIETORS SINCE THE EMANCIPATION

Two Opposite Opinions--Difficulties of Investigation--The Problem

Simplified--Direct and Indirect Compensation--The Direct Compensation

Inadequate--What the Proprietors Have Done with the Remainder of

Their Estates--Immediate Moral Effect of the Abolition of Serfage--The

Economic Problem--The Ideal Solution and the Difficulty of Realising

It--More Primitive Arrangements--The Northern Agricultural Zone--The

Black-earth Zone--The Labour Difficulty--The Impoverishment of

the Noblesse Not a New Phenomenon--Mortgaging of Estates--Gradual

Expropriation of the Noblesse-Rapid Increase in the Production and

Export of Grain--How Far this Has Benefited the Landed Proprietors.

CHAPTER XXXI

THE EMANCIPATED PEASANTRY

The Effects of Liberty--Difficulty of Obtaining Accurate

Information--Pessimist Testimony of the Proprietors--Vague Replies of

the Peasants--My Conclusions in 1877--Necessity of Revising Them--My

Investigations Renewed in 1903--Recent Researches by Native Political

Economists--Peasant Impoverishment Universally Recognised--Various

Explanations Suggested--Demoralisation of the Common People--Peasant

Self-government--Communal System of Land Tenure--Heavy

Taxation--Disruption of Peasant Families--Natural Increase of

Population--Remedies Proposed--Migration--Reclamation of Waste

Land--Land-purchase by Peasantry--Manufacturing Industry--Improvement of

Agricultural Methods--Indications of Progress.

CHAPTER XXXII

THE ZEMSTVO AND THE LOCAL SELF-GOVERNMENT

Necessity of Reorganising the Provincial Administration--Zemstvo Created

in 1864--My First Acquaintance with the Institution--District and

Provincial Assemblies--The Leading Members--Great Expectations Created

by the Institution--These Expectations Not Realised--Suspicions and

Hostility of the Bureaucracy--Zemstvo Brought More Under Control of the

Centralised Administration--What It Has Really Done--Why It Has Not

Done More---Rapid Increase of the Rates--How Far the Expenditure

Is Judicious--Why the Impoverishment of the Peasantry Was

Neglected--Unpractical, Pedantic Spirit--Evil Consequences--Chinese and

Russian Formalism--Local Self-Government of Russia Contrasted with That

of England--Zemstvo Better than Its Predecessors--Its Future.

CHAPTER XXXIII

THE NEW LAW COURTS

Judicial Procedure in the Olden Times--Defects and Abuses--Radical

Reform--The New System--Justices of the Peace and Monthly Sessions--The

Regular Tribunals--Court of Revision--Modification of the Original

Plan--How Does the System Work?--Rapid Acclimatisation--The Bench--The

Jury--Acquittal of Criminals Who Confess Their Crimes--Peasants,

Merchants, and Nobles as Jurymen--Independence and Political

Significance of the New Courts.

CHAPTER XXXIV

REVOLUTIONARY NIHILISM AND THE REACTION

The Reform-enthusiasm Becomes Unpractical and Culminates in

Nihilism--Nihilism, the Distorted Reflection of Academic Western

Socialism--Russia Well Prepared for Reception of Ultra-Socialist

Virus--Social Reorganisation According to Latest Results of

Science--Positivist Theory--Leniency of Press-censure--Chief

Representatives of New Movement--Government Becomes Alarmed--Repressive

Measures--Reaction in the Public--The Term Nihilist Invented--The

Nihilist and His Theory--Further Repressive Measures--Attitude of Landed

Proprietors--Foundation of a Liberal Party--Liberalism Checked by Polish

Insurrection--Practical Reform Continued--An Attempt at Regicide Forms

a Turning-point of Government's Policy--Change in Educational

System--Decline of Nihilism.

CHAPTER XXXV

SOCIALIST PROPAGANDA, REVOLUTIONARY AGITATION, AND TERRORISM

Closer Relations with Western Socialism--Attempts to Influence

the Masses--Bakunin and Lavroff--"Going in among the People"--The

Missionaries of Revolutionary Socialism--Distinction between Propaganda

and Agitation--Revolutionary Pamphlets for the Common People--Aims

and Motives of the Propagandists--Failure of Propaganda--Energetic

Repression--Fruitless Attempts at Agitation--Proposal to Combine

with Liberals--Genesis of Terrorism--My Personal Relations with the

Revolutionists--Shadowers and Shadowed--A Series of Terrorist Crimes--A

Revolutionist Congress--Unsuccessful Attempts to Assassinate

the Tsar--Ineffectual Attempt at Conciliation by Loris

Melikof--Assassination of Alexander II.--The Executive Committee

Shows Itself Unpractical--Widespread Indignation and Severe

Repression--Temporary Collapse of the Revolutionary Movement--A New

Revolutionary Movement in Sight.

CHAPTER XXXVI

INDUSTRIAL PROGRESS AND THE PROLETARIAT

Russia till Lately a Peasant Empire--Early Efforts to Introduce Arts and

Crafts--Peter the Great and His Successors--Manufacturing Industry

Long Remains an Exotic--The Cotton Industry--The Reforms of Alexander

II.--Protectionists and Free Trade--Progress under High Tariffs--M.

Witte's Policy--How Capital Was Obtained--Increase of Exports--Foreign

Firms Cross the Customs Frontier--Rapid Development of Iron Industry--A

Commercial Crisis--M. Witte's Position Undermined by Agrarians and

Doctrinaires--M. Plehve a Formidable Opponent--His Apprehensions of

Revolution--Fall of M. Witte--The Industrial Proletariat

CHAPTER XXXVII

THE REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT IN ITS LATEST PHASE

Influence of Capitalism and Proletariat on the Revolutionary

Movement--What is to be Done?--Reply of Plekhanof--A New Departure--Karl

Marx's Theories Applied to Russia--Beginnings of a Social Democratic

Movement--The Labour Troubles of 1894-96 in St. Petersburg--The Social

Democrats' Plan of Campaign--Schism in the Party--Trade-unionism and

Political Agitation--The Labour Troubles of 1902--How the Revolutionary

Groups are Differentiated from Each Other--Social Democracy and

Constitutionalism--Terrorism--The Socialist Revolutionaries--The

Militant Organisation--Attitude of the Government--Factory

Legislation--Government's Scheme for Undermining Social

Democracy--Father Gapon and His Labour Association--The Great Strike in

St. Petersburg--Father Gapon goes over to the Revolutionaries.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

TERRITORIAL EXPANSION AND FOREIGN POLICY

Rapid Growth of Russia--Expansive Tendency of Agricultural Peoples--The

Russo-Slavonians--The Northern Forest and the Steppe--Colonisation--The

Part of the Government in the Process of Expansion--Expansion towards

the West--Growth of the Empire Represented in a Tabular Form--Commercial

Motive for Expansion--The Expansive Force in the Future--Possibilities

of Expansion in Europe--Persia, Afghanistan, and India--Trans-Siberian

Railway and Weltpolitik--A Grandiose Scheme--Determined Opposition of

Japan--Negotiations and War--Russia's Imprudence Explained--Conclusion.

CHAPTER XXXIX

THE PRESENT SITUATION

Reform or Revolution?--Reigns of Alexander II. and Nicholas II.

Compared and Contrasted--The Present Opposition--Various Groups--The

Constitutionalists--Zemski Sobors--The Young Tsar Dispels

Illusions--Liberal Frondeurs--Plehve's Repressive Policy--Discontent

Increased by the War--Relaxation and Wavering under Prince

Mirski--Reform Enthusiasm--The Constitutionalists Formulate their

Demands--The Social Democrats--Father Gapon's Demonstration--The

Socialist-Revolutionaries--The Agrarian Agitators--The

Subject-Nationalities--Numerical Strength of the Various Groups--All

United on One Point--Their Different Aims--Possible Solutions of the

Crisis--Difficulties of Introducing Constitutional Regime--A Strong Man

Wanted--Uncertainty of the Future.

PREFACE

The first edition of this work, published early in January, 1877,

contained the concentrated results of my studies during an uninterrupted

residence of six years in Russia--from the beginning of 1870 to the end

of 1875. Since that time I have spent in the European and Central Asian

provinces, at different periods, nearly two years more; and in the

intervals I have endeavoured to keep in touch with the progress of

events. My observations thus extend over a period of thirty-five years.

When I began, a few months ago, to prepare for publication the results

of my more recent observations and researches, my intention was to

write an entirely new work under the title of "Russia in the Twentieth

Century," but I soon perceived that it would be impossible to explain

clearly the present state of things without referring constantly to

events of the past, and that I should be obliged to embody in the new

work a large portion of the old one. The portion to be embodied grew

rapidly to such proportions that, in the course of a few weeks, I

began to ask myself whether it would not be better simply to recast

and complete my old material. With a view to deciding the question I

prepared a list of the principal changes which had taken place during

the last quarter of a century, and when I had marshalled them in logical

order, I recognised that they were neither so numerous nor so important

as I had supposed. Certainly there had been much progress, but it had

been nearly all on the old lines. Everywhere I perceived continuity and

evolution; nowhere could I discover radical changes and new departures.

In the central and local administration the reactionary policy of the

latter half of Alexander II.'s reign had been steadily maintained;

the revolutionary movement had waxed and waned, but its aims were

essentially the same as of old; the Church had remained in its usual

somnolent condition; a grave agricultural crisis affecting landed

proprietors and peasants had begun, but it was merely a development of

a state of things which I had previously described; the manufacturing

industry had made gigantic strides, but they were all in the direction

which the most competent observers had predicted; in foreign policy the

old principles of guiding the natural expansive forces along the lines

of least resistance, seeking to reach warm-water ports, and pegging out

territorial claims for the future were persistently followed. No doubt

there were pretty clear indications of more radical changes to come, but

these changes must belong to the future, and it is merely with the past

and the present that a writer who has no pretensions to being a prophet

has to deal.

Under these circumstances it seemed to me advisable to adopt a middle

course. Instead of writing an entirely new work I determined to prepare

a much extended and amplified edition of the old one, retaining such

information about the past as seemed to me of permanent value, and at

the same time meeting as far as possible the requirements of those who

wish to know the present condition of the country.

In accordance with this view I have revised, rearranged, and

supplemented the old material in the light of subsequent events, and

I have added five entirely new chapters--three on the revolutionary

movement, which has come into prominence since 1877; one on the

industrial progress, with which the latest phase of the movement is

closely connected; and one on the main lines of the present situation as

it appears to me at the moment of going to press.

During the many years which I have devoted to the study of Russia, I

have received unstinted assistance from many different quarters. Of the

friends who originally facilitated my task, and to whom I expressed my

gratitude in the preface and notes of the early editions, only three

survive--Mme. de Novikoff, M. E. I. Yakushkin, and Dr. Asher. To the

numerous friends who have kindly assisted me in the present edition I

must express my thanks collectively, but there are two who stand out

from the group so prominently that I may be allowed to mention them

personally: these are Prince Alexander Grigorievitch Stcherbatof, who

supplied me with voluminous materials regarding the agrarian question

generally and the present condition of the peasantry in particular,

and M. Albert Brockhaus, who placed at my disposal the gigantic Russian

Encyclopaedia recently published by his firm (Entsiklopeditcheski

Slovar, Leipzig and St. Petersburg, 1890-1904). This monumental work,

in forty-one volumes, is an inexhaustible storehouse of accurate and

well-digested information on all subjects connected with the Russian

Empire, and it has often been of great use to me in matters of detail.

With regard to the last chapter of this edition I must claim the

reader's indulgence, because the meaning of the title, "the present

situation," changes from day to day, and I cannot foresee what further

changes may occur before the work reaches the hands of the public.

LONDON, 22nd May, 1905.

RUSSIA

CHAPTER I

TRAVELLING IN RUSSIA

Railways--State Interference--River Communications--Russian "Grand

Tour"--The Volga--Kazan--Zhigulinskiya Gori--Finns and Tartars--The

Don--Difficulties of Navigation--Discomforts--Rats--Hotels and

Their Peculiar Customs--Roads--Hibernian Phraseology

Explained--Bridges--Posting--A Tarantass--Requisites for

Travelling--Travelling in Winter--Frostbitten--Disagreeable

Episodes--Scene at a Post-Station.

Of course travelling in Russia is no longer what it was. During the last

half century a vast network of railways has been constructed, and one

can now travel in a comfortable first-class carriage from Berlin to St.

Petersburg or Moscow, and thence to Odessa, Sebastopol, the Lower Volga,

the Caucasus, Central Asia, or Eastern Siberia. Until the outbreak of

the war there was a train twice a week, with through carriages, from

Moscow to Port Arthur. And it must be admitted that on the main lines

the passengers have not much to complain of. The carriages are decidedly

better than in England, and in winter they are kept warm by small iron

stoves, assisted by double windows and double doors--a very necessary

precaution in a land where the thermometer often descends to 30

degrees below zero. The train never attains, it is true, a high rate

of speed--so at least English and Americans think--but then we must

remember that Russians are rarely in a hurry, and like to have frequent

opportunities of eating and drinking. In Russia time is not money; if

it were, nearly all the subjects of the Tsar would always have a large

stock of ready money on hand, and would often have great difficulty in

spending it. In reality, be it parenthetically remarked, a Russian with

a superabundance of ready money is a phenomenon rarely met with in real

life.

In conveying passengers at the rate of from fifteen to thirty miles an

hour, the railway companies do at least all that they promise; but in

one very important respect they do not always strictly fulfil their

engagements. The traveller takes a ticket for a certain town, and on

arriving at what he imagines to be his destination, he may find merely a

railway-station surrounded by fields. On making inquiries, he discovers,

to his disappointment, that the station is by no means identical with

the town bearing the same name, and that the railway has fallen several

miles short of fulfilling the bargain, as he understood the terms of

the contract. Indeed, it might almost be said that as a general rule

railways in Russia, like camel-drivers in certain Eastern countries,

studiously avoid the towns. This seems at first a strange fact. It is

possible to conceive that the Bedouin is so enamoured of tent life and

nomadic habits that he shuns a town as he would a man-trap; but surely

civil engineers and railway contractors have no such dread of brick and

mortar. The true reason, I suspect, is that land within or immediately

beyond the municipal barrier is relatively dear, and that the

railways, being completely beyond the invigorating influence of healthy

competition, can afford to look upon the comfort and convenience of

passengers as a secondary consideration. Gradually, it is true, this

state of things is being improved by private initiative. As the railways

refuse to come to the towns, the towns are extending towards the

railways, and already some prophets are found bold enough to predict

that in the course of time those long, new, straggling streets, without

an inhabited hinterland, which at present try so severely the springs of

the ricketty droshkis, will be properly paved and kept in decent repair.

For my own part, I confess I am a little sceptical with regard to this

prediction, and I can only use a favourite expression of the Russian

peasants--daï Bog! God grant it may be so!

It is but fair to state that in one celebrated instance neither

engineers nor railway contractors were directly to blame. From St.

Petersburg to Moscow the locomotive runs for a distance of 400 miles

almost as "the crow" is supposed to fly, turning neither to the right

hand nor to the left. For twelve weary hours the passenger in the

express train looks out on forest and morass, and rarely catches sight

of human habitation. Only once he perceives in the distance what may be

called a town; it is Tver which has been thus favoured, not because it

is a place of importance, but simply because it happened to be near

the bee-line. And why was the railway constructed in this extraordinary

fashion? For the best of all reasons--because the Tsar so ordered it.

When the preliminary survey was being made, Nicholas I. learned that the

officers entrusted with the task--and the Minister of Ways and Roads

in the number--were being influenced more by personal than technical

considerations, and he determined to cut the Gordian knot in true

Imperial style. When the Minister laid before him the map with the

intention of explaining the proposed route, he took a ruler, drew a

straight line from the one terminus to the other, and remarked in a tone

that precluded all discussion, "You will construct the line so!" And

the line was so constructed--remaining to all future ages, like St.

Petersburg and the Pyramids, a magnificent monument of autocratic power.

Formerly this well-known incident was often cited in whispered

philippics to illustrate the evils of the autocratic form of government.

Imperial whims, it was said, over-ride grave economic considerations.

In recent years, however, a change seems to have taken place in public

opinion, and some people now assert that this so-called Imperial whim

was an act of far-seeing policy. As by far the greater part of the goods

and passengers are carried the whole length of the line, it is well that

the line should be as short as possible, and that branch lines should be

constructed to the towns lying to the right and left. Evidently there is

a good deal to be said in favour of this view.

In the development of the railway system there has been another

disturbing cause, which is not likely to occur to the English mind. In

England, individuals and companies habitually act according to their

private interests, and the State interferes as little as possible;

private initiative does as it pleases, unless the authorities can prove

that important bad consequences will necessarily result. In Russia, the

onus probandi lies on the other side; private initiative is allowed

to do nothing until it gives guarantees against all possible bad

consequences. When any great enterprise is projected, the first question

is--"How will this new scheme affect the interests of the State?" Thus,

when the course of a new railway has to be determined, the military

authorities are among the first to be consulted, and their opinion has

a great influence on the ultimate decision. The natural consequence is

that the railway-map of Russia presents to the eye of the strategist

much that is quite unintelligible to the ordinary observer--a fact that

will become apparent even to the uninitiated as soon as a war breaks out

in Eastern Europe. Russia is no longer what she was in the days of the

Crimean War, when troops and stores had to be conveyed hundreds of miles

by the most primitive means of transport. At that time she had only

750 miles of railway; now she has over 36,000 miles, and every year new

lines are constructed.

The water-communication has likewise in recent years been greatly

improved. On the principal rivers there are now good steamers.

Unfortunately, the climate puts serious obstructions in the way of

navigation. For nearly half of the year the rivers are covered with ice,

and during a great part of the open season navigation is difficult. When

the ice and snow melt the rivers overflow their banks and lay a great

part of the low-lying country under water, so that many villages can

only be approached in boats; but very soon the flood subsides, and the

water falls so rapidly that by midsummer the larger steamers have

great difficulty in picking their way among the sandbanks. The Neva

alone--that queen of northern rivers--has at all times a plentiful

supply of water.

Besides the Neva, the rivers commonly visited by the tourist are the

Volga and the Don, which form part of what may be called the Russian

grand tour. Englishmen who wish to see something more than St.

Petersburg and Moscow generally go by rail to Nizhni-Novgorod, where

they visit the great fair, and then get on board one of the Volga

steamers. For those who have mastered the important fact that Russia

is not a country of fine scenery, the voyage down the river is pleasant

enough. The left bank is as flat as the banks of the Rhine below

Cologne, but the right bank is high, occasionally well wooded, and not

devoid of a certain tame picturesqueness. Early on the second day

the steamer reaches Kazan, once the capital of an independent Tartar

khanate, and still containing a considerable Tartar population. Several

metchets (as the Mahometan houses of prayer are here termed), with their

diminutive minarets in the lower part of the town, show that Islamism

still survives, though the khanate was annexed to Muscovy more than

three centuries ago; but the town, as a whole, has a European rather

than an Asiatic character. If any one visits it in the hope of getting

"a glimpse of the East," he will be grievously disappointed, unless,

indeed, he happens to be one of those imaginative tourists who always

discover what they wish to see. And yet it must be admitted that, of

all the towns on the route, Kazan is the most interesting. Though

not Oriental, it has a peculiar character of its own, whilst all the

others--Simbirsk, Samara, Saratof--are as uninteresting as Russian

provincial towns commonly are. The full force and solemnity of that

expression will be explained in the sequel.

Probably about sunrise on the third day something like a range of

mountains will appear on the horizon. It may be well to say at once, to

prevent disappointment, that in reality nothing worthy of the name

of mountain is to be found in that part of the country. The nearest

mountain-range in that direction is the Caucasus, which is hundreds of

miles distant, and consequently cannot by any possibility be seen from

the deck of a steamer. The elevations in question are simply a low range

of hills, called the Zhigulinskiya Gori. In Western Europe they would

not attract much attention, but "in the kingdom of the blind," as the

French proverb has it, "the one-eyed man is king"; and in a flat region

like Eastern Russia these hills form a prominent feature. Though they

have nothing of Alpine grandeur, yet their well-wooded slopes, coming

down to the water's edge--especially when covered with the delicate

tints of early spring, or the rich yellow and red of autumnal

foliage--leave an impression on the memory not easily effaced.

On the whole--with all due deference to the opinions of my patriotic

Russian friends--I must say that Volga scenery hardly repays the time,

trouble and expense which a voyage from Nizhni to Tsaritsin demands.

There are some pretty bits here and there, but they are "few and far

between." A glass of the most exquisite wine diluted with a gallon

of water makes a very insipid beverage. The deck of the steamer is

generally much more interesting than the banks of the river. There one

meets with curious travelling companions. The majority of the passengers

are probably Russian peasants, who are always ready to chat freely

without demanding a formal introduction, and to relate--with certain

restrictions--to a new acquaintance the simple story of their lives.

Often I have thus whiled away the weary hours both pleasantly and

profitably, and have always been impressed with the peasant's homely

common sense, good-natured kindliness, half-fatalistic resignation,

and strong desire to learn something about foreign countries. This

last peculiarity makes him question as well as communicate, and his

questions, though sometimes apparently childish, are generally to the

point.

Among the passengers are probably also some representatives of the

various Finnish tribes inhabiting this part of the country; they may be

interesting to the ethnologist who loves to study physiognomy, but they

are far less sociable than the Russians. Nature seems to have made them

silent and morose, whilst their conditions of life have made them shy

and distrustful. The Tartar, on the other hand, is almost sure to be

a lively and amusing companion. Most probably he is a peddler or small

trader of some kind. The bundle on which he reclines contains his

stock-in-trade, composed, perhaps, of cotton printed goods and

especially bright-coloured cotton handkerchiefs. He himself is enveloped

in a capacious greasy khalát, or dressing-gown, and wears a fur cap,

though the thermometer may be at 90 degrees in the shade. The roguish

twinkle in his small piercing eyes contrasts strongly with the sombre,

stolid expression of the Finnish peasants sitting near him. He has much

to relate about St. Petersburg, Moscow, and perhaps Astrakhan; but, like

a genuine trader, he is very reticent regarding the mysteries of his own

craft. Towards sunset he retires with his companions to some quiet spot

on the deck to recite evening prayers. Here all the good Mahometans on

board assemble and stroke their beards, kneel on their little strips

of carpet and prostrate themselves, all keeping time as if they

were performing some new kind of drill under the eve of a severe

drill-sergeant.

If the voyage is made about the end of September, when the traders are

returning home from the fair at Nizhni-Novgorod, the ethnologist will

have a still better opportunity of study. He will then find not only

representatives of the Finnish and Tartar races, but also Armenians,

Circassians, Persians, Bokhariots, and other Orientals--a motley and

picturesque but decidedly unsavoury cargo.

However great the ethnographical variety on board may be, the traveller

will probably find that four days on the Volga are quite enough for all

practical and aesthetic purposes, and instead of going on to Astrakhan

he will quit the steamer at Tsaritsin. Here he will find a railway of

about fifty miles in length, connecting the Volga and the Don. I say

advisedly a railway, and not a train, because trains on this line are

not very frequent. When I first visited the locality, thirty years ago,

there were only two a week, so that if you inadvertently missed one

train you had to wait about three days for the next. Prudent, nervous

people preferred travelling by the road, for on the railway the strange

jolts and mysterious creakings were very alarming. On the other hand the

pace was so slow that running off the rails would have been merely an

amusing episode, and even a collision could scarcely have been attended

with serious consequences. Happily things are improving, even in this

outlying part of the country. Now there is one train daily, and it goes

at a less funereal pace.

From Kalatch, at the Don end of the line, a steamer starts for Rostoff,

which is situated near the mouth of the river. The navigation of the Don

is much more difficult than that of the Volga. The river is extremely

shallow, and the sand-banks are continually shifting, so that many times

in the course of the day the steamer runs aground. Sometimes she is got

off by simply reversing the engines, but not unfrequently she sticks so

fast that the engines have to be assisted. This is effected in a curious

way. The captain always gives a number of stalwart Cossacks a free

passage on condition that they will give him the assistance he requires;

and as soon as the ship sticks fast he orders them to jump overboard

with a stout hawser and haul her off! The task is not a pleasant one,

especially as the poor fellows cannot afterwards change their clothes;

but the order is always obeyed with alacrity and without grumbling.

Cossacks, it would seem, have no personal acquaintance with colds and

rheumatism.

In the most approved manuals of geography the Don figures as one of the

principal European rivers, and its length and breadth give it a right to

be considered as such; but its depth in many parts is ludicrously out

of proportion to its length and breadth. I remember one day seeing

the captain of a large, flat-bottomed steamer slacken speed, to avoid

running down a man on horseback who was attempting to cross his bows in

the middle of the stream. Another day a not less characteristic incident

happened. A Cossack passenger wished to be set down at a place where

there was no pier, and on being informed that there was no means of

landing him, coolly jumped overboard and walked ashore. This simple

method of disembarking cannot, of course, be recommended to those who

have no local knowledge regarding the exact position of sand-banks and

deep pools.

Good serviceable fellows are those Cossacks who drag the steamer off

the sand-banks, and are often entertaining companions. Many of them can

relate from their own experience, in plain, unvarnished style,

stirring episodes of irregular warfare, and if they happen to be in

a communicative mood they may divulge a few secrets regarding their

simple, primitive commissariat system. Whether they are confidential

or not, the traveller who knows the language will spend his time

more profitably and pleasantly in chatting with them than in gazing

listlessly at the uninteresting country through which he is passing.

Unfortunately, these Don steamers carry a large number of free

passengers of another and more objectionable kind, who do not confine

themselves to the deck, but unceremoniously find their way into the

cabin, and prevent thin-skinned travellers from sleeping. I know too

little of natural history to decide whether these agile, bloodthirsty

parasites are of the same species as those which in England assist

unofficially the Sanitary Commissioners by punishing uncleanliness;

but I may say that their function in the system of created things is

essentially the same, and they fulfil it with a zeal and energy beyond

all praise. Possessing for my own part a happy immunity from their

indelicate attentions, and being perfectly innocent of entomological

curiosity, I might, had I been alone, have overlooked their existence,

but I was constantly reminded of their presence by less happily

constituted mortals, and the complaints of the sufferers received a

curious official confirmation. On arriving at the end of the journey

I asked permission to spend the night on board, and I noticed that the

captain acceded to my request with more readiness and warmth than I

expected. Next morning the fact was fully explained. When I began

to express my thanks for having been allowed to pass the night in a

comfortable cabin, my host interrupted me with a good-natured laugh, and

assured me that, on the contrary, he was under obligations to me. "You

see," he said, assuming an air of mock gravity, "I have always on board

a large body of light cavalry, and when I have all this part of the ship

to myself they make a combined attack on me; whereas, when some one is

sleeping close by, they divide their forces!"

On certain steamers on the Sea of Azof the privacy of the sleeping-cabin

is disturbed by still more objectionable intruders; I mean rats. During

one short voyage which I made on board the Kertch, these disagreeable

visitors became so importunate in the lower regions of the vessel that

the ladies obtained permission to sleep in the deck-saloon. After this

arrangement had been made, we unfortunate male passengers received

redoubled attention from our tormentors. Awakened early one morning

by the sensation of something running over me as I lay in my berth, I

conceived a method of retaliation. It seemed to me possible that, in the

event of another visit, I might, by seizing the proper moment, kick the

rat up to the ceiling with such force as to produce concussion of the

brain and instant death. Very soon I had an opportunity of putting my

plan into execution. A significant shaking of the little curtain at the

foot of the berth showed that it was being used as a scaling-ladder. I

lay perfectly still, quite as much interested in the sport as if I had

been waiting, rifle in hand, for big game. Soon the intruder peeped

into my berth, looked cautiously around him, and then proceeded to walk

stealthily across my feet. In an instant he was shot upwards. First was

heard a sharp knock on the ceiling, and then a dull "thud" on the floor.

The precise extent of the injuries inflicted I never discovered, for

the victim had sufficient strength and presence of mind to effect his

escape; and the gentleman at the other side of the cabin, who had been

roused by the noise, protested against my repeating the experiment,

on the ground that, though he was willing to take his own share of the

intruders, he strongly objected to having other people's rats kicked

into his berth.

On such occasions it is of no use to complain to the authorities. When

I met the captain on deck I related to him what had happened,

and protested vigorously against passengers being exposed to such

annoyances. After listening to me patiently, he coolly replied, entirely

overlooking my protestations, "Ah! I did better than that this morning;

I allowed my rat to get under the blanket, and then smothered him!"

Railways and steamboats, even when their arrangements leave much to be

desired, invariably effect a salutary revolution in hotel accommodation;

but this revolution is of necessity gradual. Foreign hotelkeepers must

immigrate and give the example; suitable houses must be built; servants

must be properly trained; and, above all, the native travellers must

learn the usages of civilised society. In Russia this revolution is in

progress, but still far from being complete. The cities where foreigners

most do congregate--St. Petersburg, Moscow, Odessa--already possess

hotels that will bear comparison with those of Western Europe, and

some of the more important provincial towns can offer very respectable

accommodation; but there is still much to be done before the

West-European can travel with comfort even on the principal routes.

Cleanliness, the first and most essential element of comfort, as we

understand the term, is still a rare commodity, and often cannot be

procured at any price.

Even in good hotels, when they are of the genuine Russian type, there

are certain peculiarities which, though not in themselves objectionable,

strike a foreigner as peculiar. Thus, when you alight at such an hotel,

you are expected to examine a considerable number of rooms, and to

inquire about the respective prices. When you have fixed upon a suitable

apartment, you will do well, if you wish to practise economy, to

propose to the landlord considerably less than he demands; and you will

generally find, if you have a talent for bargaining, that the rooms

may be hired for somewhat less than the sum first stated. You must be

careful, however, to leave no possibility of doubt as to the terms of

the contract. Perhaps you assume that, as in taking a cab, a horse is

always supplied without special stipulation, so in hiring a bedroom

the bargain includes a bed and the necessary appurtenances. Such an

assumption will not always be justified. The landlord may perhaps give

you a bedstead without extra charge, but if he be uncorrupted by foreign

notions, he will certainly not spontaneously supply you with bed-linen,

pillows, blankets, and towels. On the contrary, he will assume that you

carry all these articles with you, and if you do not, you must pay for

them.

This ancient custom has produced among Russians of the old school a kind

of fastidiousness to which we are strangers. They strongly dislike

using sheets, blankets, and towels which are in a certain sense public

property, just as we should strongly object to putting on clothes which

had been already worn by other people. And the feeling may be developed

in people not Russian by birth. For my own part, I confess to having

been conscious of a certain disagreeable feeling on returning in this

respect to the usages of so-called civilised Europe.

The inconvenience of carrying about the essential articles of bedroom

furniture is by no means so great as might be supposed. Bedrooms in

Russia are always heated during cold weather, so that one light blanket,

which may be also used as a railway rug, is quite sufficient, whilst

sheets, pillow-cases, and towels take up little space in a portmanteau.

The most cumbrous object is the pillow, for air-cushions, having a

disagreeable odour, are not well suited for the purpose. But Russians

are accustomed to this encumbrance. In former days--as at the present

time in those parts of the country where there are neither railways

nor macadamised roads--people travelled in carts or carriages without

springs and in these instruments of torture a huge pile of cushions

or pillows is necessary to avoid contusions and dislocations. On the

railways the jolts and shaking are not deadly enough to require such

an antidote; but, even in unconservative Russia, customs outlive the

conditions that created them; and at every railway-station you may see

men and women carrying about their pillows with them as we carry wraps.

A genuine Russian merchant who loves comfort and respects tradition

may travel without a portmanteau, but he considers his pillow as an

indispensable article de voyage.

To return to the old-fashioned hotel. When you have completed the

negotiations with the landlord, you will notice that, unless you have a

servant with you, the waiter prepares to perform the duties of valet de

chambre. Do not be surprised at his officiousness, which seems founded

on the assumption that you are three-fourths paralysed. Formerly, every

well-born Russian had a valet always in attendance, and never dreamed

of doing for himself anything which could by any possibility be done

for him. You notice that there is no bell in the room, and no mechanical

means of communicating with the world below stairs. That is because the

attendant is supposed to be always within call, and it is so much easier

to shout than to get up and ring the bell.

In the good old times all this was quite natural. The well-born Russian

had commonly a superabundance of domestic serfs, and there was no reason

why one or two of them should not accompany their master when his Honour

undertook a journey. An additional person in the tarantass did not

increase the expense, and considerably diminished the little unavoidable

inconveniences of travel. But times have changed. In 1861 the domestic

serfs were emancipated by Imperial ukaz. Free servants demand wages; and

on railways or steamers a single ticket does not include an attendant.

The present generation must therefore get through life with a more

modest supply of valets, and must learn to do with its own hands much

that was formerly performed by serf labour. Still, a gentleman brought

up in the old conditions cannot be expected to dress himself without

assistance, and accordingly the waiter remains in your room to act as

valet. Perhaps, too, in the early morning you may learn in an unpleasant

way that other parts of the old system are not yet extinct. You may

hear, for instance, resounding along the corridors such an order

as--"Petrusha! Petrusha! Stakán vodý!" ("Little Peter, little Peter, a

glass of water!") shouted in a stentorian voice that would startle the

Seven Sleepers.

When the toilet operations are completed, and you order tea--one always

orders tea in Russia--you will be asked whether you have your own tea

and sugar with you. If you are an experienced traveller you will be able

to reply in the affirmative, for good tea can be bought only in certain

well-known shops, and can rarely be found in hotels. A huge, steaming

tea-urn, called a samovar--etymologically, a "self-boiler"--will be

brought in, and you will make your tea according to your taste. The

tumbler, you know of course, is to be used as a cup, and when using it

you must be careful not to cauterise the points of your fingers. If you

should happen to have anything eatable or drinkable in your travelling

basket, you need not hesitate to take it out at once, for the waiter

will not feel at all aggrieved or astonished at your doing nothing "for

the good of the house." The twenty or twenty-five kopeks that you pay

for the samovar--teapot, tumbler, saucer, spoon, and slop-basin being

included under the generic term pribor--frees you from all corkage and

similar dues.

These and other remnants of old customs are now rapidly disappearing,

and will, doubtless, in a very few years be things of the past--things

to be picked up in out-of-the-way corners, and chronicled by social

archaeology; but they are still to be found in towns not unknown to

Western Europe.

Many of these old customs, and especially the old method of travelling,

may be studied in their pristine purity throughout a great part of the

country. Though railway construction has been pushed forward with great

energy during the last forty years, there are still vast regions where

the ancient solitudes have never been disturbed by the shrill whistle

of the locomotive, and roads have remained in their primitive condition.

Even in the central provinces one may still travel hundreds of miles

without ever encountering anything that recalls the name of Macadam.

If popular rumour is to be trusted, there is somewhere in the Highlands

of Scotland, by the side of a turnpike, a large stone bearing the

following doggerel inscription:

"If you had seen this road before it was made, You'd lift up your hands

and bless General Wade."

Any educated Englishman reading this strange announcement would

naturally remark that the first line of the couplet contains a logical

contradiction, probably of Hibernian origin; but I have often thought,

during my wanderings in Russia, that the expression, if not logically

justifiable, might for the sake of vulgar convenience be legalised by a

Permissive Bill. The truth is that, as a Frenchman might say, "there

are roads and roads"--roads made and roads unmade, roads artificial

and roads natural. Now, in Russia, roads are nearly all of the unmade,

natural kind, and are so conservative in their nature that they have at

the present day precisely the same appearance as they had many centuries

ago. They have thus for imaginative minds something of what is called

"the charm of historical association." The only perceptible change that

takes place in them during a series of generations is that the ruts

shift their position. When these become so deep that fore-wheels can no

longer fathom them, it becomes necessary to begin making a new pair of

ruts to the right or left of the old ones; and as the roads are commonly

of gigantic breadth, there is no difficulty in finding a place for the

operation. How the old ones get filled up I cannot explain; but as

I have rarely seen in any part of the country, except perhaps in the

immediate vicinity of towns, a human being engaged in road repairing,

I assume that beneficent Nature somehow accomplishes the task without

human assistance, either by means of alluvial deposits, or by some other

cosmical action only known to physical geographers.

On the roads one occasionally encounters bridges; and here, again,

I have discovered in Russia a key to the mysteries of Hibernian

phraseology. An Irish member once declared to the House of Commons that

the Church was "the bridge that separated the two great sections of the

Irish people." As bridges commonly connect rather than separate, the

metaphor was received with roars of laughter. If the honourable members

who joined in the hilarious applause had travelled much in Russia, they

would have been more moderate in their merriment; for in that

country, despite the laudable activity of the modern system of local

administration created in the sixties, bridges often act still as a

barrier rather than a connecting link, and to cross a river by a

bridge may still be what is termed in popular phrase "a tempting of

Providence." The cautious driver will generally prefer to take to the

water, if there is a ford within a reasonable distance, though both he

and his human load may be obliged, in order to avoid getting wet feet,

to assume undignified postures that would afford admirable material for

the caricaturist. But this little bit of discomfort, even though the

luggage should be soaked in the process of fording, is as nothing

compared to the danger of crossing by the bridge. As I have no desire

to harrow unnecessarily the feelings of the reader, I refrain from all

description of ugly accidents, ending in bruises and fractures,

and shall simply explain in a few words how a successful passage is

effected.

When it is possible to approach the bridge without sinking up to the

knees in mud, it is better to avoid all risks by walking over and

waiting for the vehicle on the other side; and when this is impossible,

a preliminary survey is advisable. To your inquiries whether it is safe,

your yamstchik (post-boy) is sure to reply, "Nitchevo!"--a word which,

according to the dictionaries, means "nothing" but which has, in the

mouths of the peasantry, a great variety of meanings, as I may explain

at some future time. In the present case it may be roughly translated.

"There is no danger." "Nitchevo, Barin, proyedem" ("There is no danger,

sir; we shall get over"), he repeats. You may refer to the generally

rotten appearance of the structure, and point in particular to the great

holes sufficient to engulf half a post-horse. "Ne bos', Bog pomozhet"

("Do not fear. God will help"), replies coolly your phlegmatic Jehu. You

may have your doubts as to whether in this irreligious age Providence

will intervene specially for your benefit; but your yamstchik, who has

more faith or fatalism, leaves you little time to solve the problem.

Making hurriedly the sign of the cross, he gathers up his reins, waves

his little whip in the air, and, shouting lustily, urges on his team.

The operation is not wanting in excitement. First there is a short

descent; then the horses plunge wildly through a zone of deep mud;

next comes a fearful jolt, as the vehicle is jerked up on to the first

planks; then the transverse planks, which are but loosely held in their

places, rattle and rumble ominously, as the experienced, sagacious

animals pick their way cautiously and gingerly among the dangerous holes

and crevices; lastly, you plunge with a horrible jolt into a second

mud zone, and finally regain terra firma, conscious of that pleasant

sensation which a young officer may be supposed to feel after his first

cavalry charge in real warfare.

Of course here, as elsewhere, familiarity breeds indifference. When you

have successfully crossed without serious accident a few hundred bridges

of this kind you learn to be as cool and fatalistic as your yamstchik.

The reader who has heard of the gigantic reforms that have been

repeatedly imposed on Russia by a paternal Government may naturally

be astonished to learn that the roads are still in such a disgraceful

condition. But for this, as for everything else in the world, there is

a good and sufficient reason. The country is still, comparatively

speaking, thinly populated, and in many regions it is difficult, or

practically impossible, to procure in sufficient quantity stone of any

kind, and especially hard stone fit for road-making. Besides this, when

roads are made, the severity of the climate renders it difficult to keep

them in good repair.

When a long journey has to be undertaken through a region in which there

are no railways, there are several ways in which it may be effected.

In former days, when time was of still less value than at present, many

landed proprietors travelled with their own horses, and carried with

them, in one or more capacious, lumbering vehicles, all that was

required for the degree of civilisation which they had attained; and

their requirements were often considerable. The grand seigneur, for

instance, who spent the greater part of his life amidst the luxury of

the court society, naturally took with him all the portable elements of

civilisation. His baggage included, therefore, camp-beds, table-linen,

silver plate, a batterie de cuisine, and a French cook. The pioneers

and part of the commissariat force were sent on in advance, so that

his Excellency found at each halting-place everything prepared for his

arrival. The poor owner of a few dozen serfs dispensed, of course, with

the elaborate commissariat department, and contented himself with such

modest fare as could be packed in the holes and corners of a single

tarantass.

It will be well to explain here, parenthetically, what a tarantass

is, for I shall often have occasion to use the word. It may be briefly

defined as a phaeton without springs. The function of springs

is imperfectly fulfilled by two parallel wooden bars, placed

longitudinally, on which is fixed the body of the vehicle. It is

commonly drawn by three horses--a strong, fast trotter in the shafts,

flanked on each side by a light, loosely-attached horse that goes along

at a gallop. The points of the shafts are connected by the duga, which

looks like a gigantic, badly formed horseshoe rising high above

the collar of the trotter. To the top of the duga is attached the

bearing-rein, and underneath the highest part of it is fastened a big

bell--in the southern provinces I found two, and sometimes even three

bells--which, when the country is open and the atmosphere still, may be

heard a mile off. The use of the bell is variously explained. Some say

it is in order to frighten the wolves, and others that it is to avoid

collisions on the narrow forest-paths. But neither of these explanations

is entirely satisfactory. It is used chiefly in summer, when there is no

danger of an attack from wolves; and the number of bells is greater in

the south, where there are no forests. Perhaps the original intention

was--I throw out the hint for the benefit of a certain school of

archaeologists--to frighten away evil spirits; and the practice has been

retained partly from unreasoning conservatism, and partly with a view to

lessen the chances of collisions. As the roads are noiselessly soft,

and the drivers not always vigilant, the dangers of collision are

considerably diminished by the ceaseless peal.

Altogether, the tarantass is well adapted to the conditions in which it

is used. By the curious way in which the horses are harnessed it recalls

the war-chariot of ancient times. The horse in the shafts is compelled

by the bearing-rein to keep his head high and straight before

him--though the movement of his ears shows plainly that he would very

much like to put it somewhere farther away from the tongue of the

bell--but the side horses gallop freely, turning their heads outwards in

classical fashion. I believe that this position is assumed not from any

sympathy on the part of these animals for the remains of classical art,

but rather from the natural desire to keep a sharp eye on the driver.

Every movement of his right hand they watch with close attention, and as

soon as they discover any symptoms indicating an intention of using the

whip they immediately show a desire to quicken the pace.

Now that the reader has gained some idea of what a tarantass is, we may

return to the modes of travelling through the regions which are not yet

supplied with railways.

However enduring and long-winded horses may be, they must be allowed

sometimes, during a long journey, to rest and feed. Travelling long

distances with one's own horses is therefore necessarily a slow

operation, and is now quite antiquated. People who value their time

prefer to make use of the Imperial Post organisation. On all the

principal lines of communication there are regular post-stations, at

from ten to twenty miles apart, where a certain number of horses and

vehicles are kept for the convenience of travellers. To enjoy

the privilege of this arrangement, one has to apply to the proper

authorities for a podorozhnaya--a large sheet of paper stamped with the

Imperial Eagle, and bearing the name of the recipient, the destination,

and the number of horses to be supplied. In return, a small sum is paid

for imaginary road-repairs; the rest of the sum is paid by instalments

at the respective stations.

Armed with this document you go to the post-station and demand the

requisite number of horses. Three is the number generally used, but if

you travel lightly and are indifferent to appearances, you may content

yourself with a pair. The vehicle is a kind of tarantass, but not such

as I have just described. The essentials in both are the same, but those

which the Imperial Government provides resemble an enormous cradle on

wheels rather than a phaeton. An armful of hay spread over the bottom of

the wooden box is supposed to play the part of seats and cushions. You

are expected to sit under the arched covering, and extend your legs so

that the feet lie beneath the driver's seat; but it is advisable, unless

the rain happens to be coming down in torrents, to get this covering

unshipped, and travel without it. When used, it painfully curtails the

little freedom of movement that you enjoy, and when you are shot upwards

by some obstruction on the road it is apt to arrest your ascent by

giving you a violent blow on the top of the head.

It is to be hoped that you are in no hurry to start, otherwise your

patience may be sorely tried. The horses, when at last produced, may

seem to you the most miserable screws that it was ever your misfortune

to behold; but you had better refrain from expressing your feelings, for

if you use violent, uncomplimentary language, it may turn out that you

have been guilty of gross calumny. I have seen many a team composed of

animals which a third-class London costermonger would have spurned, and

in which it was barely possible to recognise the equine form, do their

duty in highly creditable style, and go along at the rate of ten or

twelve miles an hour, under no stronger incentive then the voice of the

yamstchik. Indeed, the capabilities of these lean, slouching, ungainly

quadrupeds are often astounding when they are under the guidance of a

man who knows how to drive them. Though such a man commonly carries a

little harmless whip, he rarely uses it except by waving it horizontally

in the air. His incitements are all oral. He talks to his cattle as he

would to animals of his own species--now encouraging them by tender,

caressing epithets, and now launching at them expressions of indignant

scorn. At one moment they are his "little doves," and at the next they

have been transformed into "cursed hounds." How far they understand and

appreciate this curious mixture of endearing cajolery and contemptuous

abuse it is difficult to say, but there is no doubt that it somehow has

upon them a strange and powerful influence.

Any one who undertakes a journey of this kind should possess a

well-knit, muscular frame and good tough sinews, capable of supporting

an unlimited amount of jolting and shaking; at the same time he should

be well inured to all the hardships and discomforts incidental to

what is vaguely termed "roughing it." When he wishes to sleep in a

post-station, he will find nothing softer than a wooden bench, unless he

can induce the keeper to put for him on the floor a bundle of hay, which

is perhaps softer, but on the whole more disagreeable than the deal

board. Sometimes he will not get even the wooden bench, for in ordinary

post-stations there is but one room for travellers, and the two

benches--there are rarely more--may be already occupied. When he

does obtain a bench, and succeeds in falling asleep, he must not be

astonished if he is disturbed once or twice during the night by people

who use the apartment as a waiting-room whilst the post-horses are being

changed. These passers-by may even order a samovar, and drink tea,

chat, laugh, smoke, and make themselves otherwise disagreeable, utterly

regardless of the sleepers. Then there are the other intruders, smaller

in size but equally objectionable, of which I have already spoken when

describing the steamers on the Don. Regarding them I desire to give

merely one word of advice: As you will have abundant occupation in the

work of self-defence, learn to distinguish between belligerents and

neutrals, and follow the simple principle of international law, that

neutrals should not be molested. They may be very ugly, but ugliness

does not justify assassination. If, for instance, you should happen

in awaking to notice a few black or brown beetles running about your

pillow, restrain your murderous hand! If you kill them you commit an act

of unnecessary bloodshed; for though they may playfully scamper around

you, they will do you no bodily harm.

Another requisite for a journey in unfrequented districts is a knowledge

of the language. It is popularly supposed that if you are familiar with

French and German you may travel anywhere in Russia. So far as the great

cities and chief lines of communication are concerned, this may be true,

but beyond that it is a delusion. The Russian has not, any more than

the West-European, received from Nature the gift of tongues. Educated

Russians often speak one or two foreign languages fluently, but the

peasants know no language but their own, and it is with the peasantry

that one comes in contact. And to converse freely with the peasant

requires a considerable familiarity with the language--far more than is

required for simply reading a book. Though there are few provincialisms,

and all classes of the people use the same words--except the words of

foreign origin, which are used only by the upper classes--the peasant

always speaks in a more laconic and more idiomatic way than the educated

man.

In the winter months travelling is in some respects pleasanter than in

summer, for snow and frost are great macadamisers. If the snow falls

evenly, there is for some time the most delightful road that can be

imagined. No jolts, no shaking, but a smooth, gliding motion, like

that of a boat in calm water, and the horses gallop along as if totally

unconscious of the sledge behind them. Unfortunately, this happy state

of things does not last all through the winter. The road soon gets cut

up, and deep transverse furrows (ukhaby) are formed. How these furrows

come into existence I have never been able clearly to comprehend, though

I have often heard the phenomenon explained by men who imagined they

understood it. Whatever the cause and mode of formation may be, certain

it is that little hills and valleys do get formed, and the sledge, as it

crosses over them, bobs up and down like a boat in a chopping sea, with

this important difference, that the boat falls into a yielding liquid,

whereas the sledge falls upon a solid substance, unyielding and

unelastic. The shaking and jolting which result may readily be imagined.

There are other discomforts, too, in winter travelling. So long as

the air is perfectly still, the cold may be very intense without being

disagreeable; but if a strong head wind is blowing, and the thermometer

ever so many degrees below zero, driving in an open sledge is a very

disagreeable operation, and noses may get frostbitten without their

owners perceiving the fact in time to take preventive measures. Then why

not take covered sledges on such occasions? For the simple reason that

they are not to be had; and if they could be procured, it would be well

to avoid using them, for they are apt to produce something very like

seasickness. Besides this, when the sledge gets overturned, it is

pleasanter to be shot out on to the clean, refreshing snow than to be

buried ignominiously under a pile of miscellaneous baggage.

The chief requisite for winter travelling in these icy regions is a

plentiful supply of warm furs. An Englishman is very apt to be imprudent

in this respect, and to trust too much to his natural power of resisting

cold. To a certain extent this confidence is justifiable, for an

Englishman often feels quite comfortable in an ordinary great coat when

his Russian friends consider it necessary to envelop themselves in furs

of the warmest kind; but it may be carried too far, in which case severe

punishment is sure to follow, as I once learned by experience. I may

relate the incident as a warning to others:

One day in mid-winter I started from Novgorod, with the intention of

visiting some friends at a cavalry barracks situated about ten miles

from the town. As the sun was shining brightly, and the distance to

be traversed was short, I considered that a light fur and a bashlyk--a

cloth hood which protects the ears--would be quite sufficient to keep

out the cold, and foolishly disregarded the warnings of a Russian friend

who happened to call as I was about to start. Our route lay along the

river due northward, right in the teeth of a strong north wind. A wintry

north wind is always and everywhere a disagreeable enemy to face; let

the reader try to imagine what it is when the Fahrenheit thermometer

is at 30 degrees below zero--or rather let him refrain from such an

attempt, for the sensation produced cannot be imagined by those who have

not experienced it. Of course I ought to have turned back--at least,

as soon as a sensation of faintness warned me that the circulation was

being seriously impeded--but I did not wish to confess my imprudence to

the friend who accompanied me. When we had driven about three-fourths of

the way we met a peasant-woman, who gesticulated violently, and shouted

something to us as we passed. I did not hear what she said, but my

friend turned to me and said in an alarming tone--we had been

speaking German--"Mein Gott! Ihre Nase ist abgefroren!" Now the word

"abgefroren," as the reader will understand, seemed to indicate that

my nose was frozen off, so I put up my hand in some alarm to discover

whether I had inadvertently lost the whole or part of the member

referred to. It was still in situ and entire, but as hard and insensible

as a bit of wood.

"You may still save it," said my companion, "if you get out at once and

rub it vigorously with snow."

I got out as directed, but was too faint to do anything vigorously. My

fur cloak flew open, the cold seemed to grasp me in the region of the

heart, and I fell insensible.

How long I remained unconscious I know not. When I awoke I found myself

in a strange room, surrounded by dragoon officers in uniform, and the

first words I heard were, "He is out of danger now, but he will have a

fever."

These words were spoken, as I afterwards discovered, by a very competent

surgeon; but the prophecy was not fulfilled. The promised fever never

came. The only bad consequences were that for some days my right hand

remained stiff, and for a week or two I had to conceal my nose from

public view.

If this little incident justifies me in drawing a general conclusion, I

should say that exposure to extreme cold is an almost painless form

of death; but that the process of being resuscitated is very painful

indeed--so painful, that the patient may be excused for momentarily

regretting that officious people prevented the temporary insensibility

from becoming "the sleep that knows no waking."

Between the alternate reigns of winter and summer there is always a

short interregnum, during which travelling in Russia by road is

almost impossible. Woe to the ill-fated mortal who has to make a long

road-journey immediately after the winter snow has melted; or, worse

still, at the beginning of winter, when the autumn mud has been

petrified by the frost, and not yet levelled by the snow!

At all seasons the monotony of a journey is pretty sure to be broken by

little unforeseen episodes of a more or less disagreeable kind. An axle

breaks, or a wheel comes off, or there is a difficulty in procuring

horses. As an illustration of the graver episodes which may occur, I

shall make here a quotation from my note-book:

Early in the morning we arrived at Maikop, a small town commanding the

entrance to one of the valleys which run up towards the main range

of the Caucasus. On alighting at the post-station, we at once ordered

horses for the next stage, and received the laconic reply, "There are no

horses."

"And when will there be some?"

"To-morrow!"

This last reply we took for a piece of playful exaggeration, and

demanded the book in which, according to law, the departure of horses

is duly inscribed, and from which it is easy to calculate when the first

team should be ready to start. A short calculation proved that we

ought to get horses by four o'clock in the afternoon, so we showed the

station-keeper various documents signed by the Minister of the

Interior and other influential personages, and advised him to avoid all

contravention of the postal regulations.

These documents, which proved that we enjoyed the special protection

of the authorities, had generally been of great service to us in our

dealings with rascally station-keepers; but this station-keeper was not

one of the ordinary type. He was a Cossack, of herculean proportions,

with a bullet-shaped head, short-cropped bristly hair, shaggy eyebrows,

an enormous pendent moustache, a defiant air, and a peculiar expression

of countenance which plainly indicated "an ugly customer." Though it was

still early in the day, he had evidently already imbibed a considerable

quantity of alcohol, and his whole demeanour showed clearly enough that

he was not of those who are "pleasant in their liquor." After glancing

superciliously at the documents, as if to intimate he could read them

were he so disposed, he threw them down on the table, and, thrusting his

gigantic paws into his capacious trouser-pockets, remarked slowly and

decisively, in something deeper than a double-bass voice, "You'll have

horses to-morrow morning."

Wishing to avoid a quarrel we tried to hire horses in the village, and

when our efforts in that direction proved fruitless, we applied to the

head of the rural police. He came and used all his influence with the

refractory station-keeper, but in vain. Hercules was not in a mood to

listen to officials any more than to ordinary mortals. At last, after

considerable trouble to himself, our friend of the police contrived to

find horses for us, and we contented ourselves with entering an account

of the circumstances in the Complaint Book, but our difficulties were by

no means at an end. As soon as Hercules perceived that we had obtained

horses without his assistance, and that he had thereby lost his

opportunity of blackmailing us, he offered us one of his own teams, and

insisted on detaining us until we should cancel the complaint against

him. This we refused to do, and our relations with him became what is

called in diplomatic language "extremement tendues." Again we had to

apply to the police.

My friend mounted guard over the baggage whilst I went to the police

office. I was not long absent, but I found, on my return, that important

events had taken place in the interval. A crowd had collected round

the post-station, and on the steps stood the keeper and his post-boys,

declaring that the traveller inside had attempted to shoot them! I

rushed in and soon perceived, by the smell of gunpowder, that firearms

had been used, but found no trace of casualties. My friend was tramping

up and down the little room, and evidently for the moment there was an

armistice.

In a very short time the local authorities had assembled, a candle had

been lit, two armed Cossacks stood as sentries at the door, and the

preliminary investigation had begun. The Chief of Police sat at the

table and wrote rapidly on a sheet of foolscap. The investigation showed

that two shots had been fired from a revolver, and two bullets were

found imbedded in the wall. All those who had been present, and some who

knew nothing of the incident except by hearsay, were duly examined. Our

opponents always assumed that my friend had been the assailant, in

spite of his protestations to the contrary, and more than once the

words pokyshenie na ubiistvo (attempt to murder) were pronounced. Things

looked very black indeed. We had the prospect of being detained for days

and weeks in the miserable place, till the insatiable demon of official

formality had been propitiated. And then?

When things were thus at their blackest they suddenly took an unexpected

turn, and the deus ex machinâ appeared precisely at the right moment,

just as if we had all been puppets in a sensation novel. There was

the usual momentary silence, and then, mixed with the sound of an

approaching tarantass, a confused murmur: "There he is! He is coming!"

The "he" thus vaguely and mysteriously indicated turned out to be an

official of the judicial administration, who had reason to visit the

village for an entirely different affair. As soon as he had been told

briefly what had happened he took the matter in hand and showed himself

equal to the occasion. Unlike the majority of Russian officials he

disliked lengthy procedure, and succeeded in making the case quite clear

in a very short time. There had been, he perceived, no attempt to murder

or anything of the kind. The station-keeper and his two post-boys, who

had no right to be in the traveller's room, had entered with threatening

mien, and when they refused to retire peaceably, my friend had fired

two shots in order to frighten them and bring assistance. The falsity of

their statement that he had fired at them as they entered the room was

proved by the fact that the bullets were lodged near the ceiling in the

wall farthest away from the door.

I must confess that I was agreeably surprised by this unexpected turn

of affairs. The conclusions arrived at were nothing more than a simple

statement of what had taken place; but I was surprised at the fact that

a man who was at once a lawyer and a Russian official should have been

able to take such a plain, commonsense view of the case.

Before midnight we were once more free men, driving rapidly in the

clear moonlight to the next station, under the escort of a fully-armed

Circassian Cossack; but the idea that we might have been detained for

weeks in that miserable place haunted us like a nightmare.

CHAPTER II

IN THE NORTHERN FORESTS

Bird's-eye View of Russia--The Northern Forests--Purpose of

my Journey--Negotiations--The Road--A Village--A Peasant's

House--Vapour-Baths--Curious Custom--Arrival.

There are many ways of describing a country that one has visited. The

simplest and most common method is to give a chronological account of

the journey; and this is perhaps the best way when the journey does

not extend over more than a few weeks. But it cannot be conveniently

employed in the case of a residence of many years. Did I adopt it, I

should very soon exhaust the reader's patience. I should have to take

him with me to a secluded village, and make him wait for me till I had

learned to speak the language. Thence he would have to accompany me to

a provincial town, and spend months in a public office, whilst I

endeavoured to master the mysteries of local self-government. After

this he would have to spend two years with me in a big library, where I

studied the history and literature of the country. And so on, and so

on. Even my journeys would prove tedious to him, as they often were to

myself, for he would have to drive with me many a score of weary miles,

where even the most zealous diary-writer would find nothing to record

beyond the names of the post-stations.

It will be well for me, then, to avoid the strictly chronological

method, and confine myself to a description of the more striking objects

and incidents that came under my notice. The knowledge which I derived

from books will help me to supply a running commentary on what I

happened to see and hear.

Instead of beginning in the usual way with St. Petersburg, I prefer for

many reasons to leave the description of the capital till some future

time, and plunge at once into the great northern forest region.

If it were possible to get a bird's-eye view of European Russia, the

spectator would perceive that the country is composed of two halves

widely differing from each other in character. The northern half is a

land of forest and morass, plentifully supplied with water in the form

of rivers, lakes, and marshes, and broken up by numerous patches of

cultivation. The southern half is, as it were, the other side of

the pattern--an immense expanse of rich, arable land, broken up by

occasional patches of sand or forest. The imaginary undulating line

separating those two regions starts from the western frontier about the

50th parallel of latitude, and runs in a northeasterly direction till it

enters the Ural range at about 56 degrees N.L.

Well do I remember my first experience of travel in the northern region,

and the weeks of voluntary exile which formed the goal of the journey.

It was in the summer of 1870. My reason for undertaking the journey was

this: a few months of life in St. Petersburg had fully convinced me that

the Russian language is one of those things which can only be acquired

by practice, and that even a person of antediluvian longevity might

spend all his life in that city without learning to express himself

fluently in the vernacular--especially if he has the misfortune of

being able to speak English, French, and German. With his friends and

associates he speaks French or English. German serves as a medium of

communication with waiters, shop keepers, and other people of that

class. It is only with isvoshtchiki--the drivers of the little open

droshkis which fulfil the function of cabs--that he is obliged to use

the native tongue, and with them a very limited vocabulary suffices. The

ordinal numerals and four short, easily-acquired expressions--poshól

(go on), na právo (to the right), na lyévo (to the left), and stoi

(stop)--are all that is required.

Whilst I was considering how I could get beyond the sphere of

West-European languages, a friend came to my assistance, and suggested

that I should go to his estate in the province of Novgorod, where I

should find an intelligent, amiable parish priest, quite innocent of

any linguistic acquirements. This proposal I at once adopted, and

accordingly found myself one morning at a small station of the Moscow

Railway, endeavouring to explain to a peasant in sheep's clothing that

I wished to be conveyed to Ivanofka, the village where my future teacher

lived. At that time I still spoke Russian in a very fragmentary and

confused way--pretty much as Spanish cows are popularly supposed to

speak French. My first remark therefore being literally interpreted,

was--"Ivanofka. Horses. You can?" The point of interrogation was

expressed by a simultaneous raising of the voice and the eyebrows.

"Ivanofka?" cried the peasant, in an interrogatory tone of voice.

In Russia, as in other countries, the peasantry when speaking with

strangers like to repeat questions, apparently for the purpose of

gaining time.

"Ivanofka," I replied.

"Now?"

"Now!"

After some reflection the peasant nodded and said something which I did

not understand, but which I assumed to mean that he was open to consider

proposals for transporting me to my destination.

"Roubles. How many?"

To judge by the knitting of the brows and the scratching of the head,

I should say that that question gave occasion to a very abstruse

mathematical calculation. Gradually the look of concentrated attention

gave place to an expression such as children assume when they endeavour

to get a parental decision reversed by means of coaxing. Then came a

stream of soft words which were to me utterly unintelligible.

I must not weary the reader with a detailed account of the succeeding

negotiations, which were conducted with extreme diplomatic caution

on both sides, as if a cession of territory or the payment of a war

indemnity had been the subject of discussion. Three times he drove away

and three times returned. Each time he abated his pretensions, and each

time I slightly increased my offer. At last, when I began to fear that

he had finally taken his departure and had left me to my own devices, he

re-entered the room and took up my baggage, indicating thereby that he

agreed to my last offer.

The sum agreed upon would have been, under ordinary circumstances,

more than sufficient, but before proceeding far I discovered that the

circumstances were by no means ordinary, and I began to understand the

pantomimic gesticulation which had puzzled me during the negotiations.

Heavy rain had fallen without interruption for several days, and now the

track on which we were travelling could not, without poetical license,

be described as a road. In some parts it resembled a water-course, in

others a quagmire, and at least during the first half of the journey I

was constantly reminded of that stage in the work of creation when the

water was not yet separated from the dry land. During the few moments

when the work of keeping my balance and preventing my baggage from being

lost did not engross all my attention, I speculated on the possibility

of inventing a boat-carriage, to be drawn by some amphibious quadruped.

Fortunately our two lean, wiry little horses did not object to being

used as aquatic animals. They took the water bravely, and plunged

through the mud in gallant style. The telega in which we were seated--a

four-wheeled skeleton cart--did not submit to the ill-treatment so

silently. It creaked out its remonstrances and entreaties, and at

the more difficult spots threatened to go to pieces; but its owner

understood its character and capabilities, and paid no attention to its

ominous threats. Once, indeed, a wheel came off, but it was soon fished

out of the mud and replaced, and no further casualty occurred.

The horses did their work so well that when about midday we arrived at

a village, I could not refuse to let them have some rest and

refreshment--all the more as my own thoughts had begun to turn in that

direction.

The village, like villages in that part of the country generally,

consisted of two long parallel rows of wooden houses. The road--if a

stratum of deep mud can be called by that name--formed the intervening

space. All the houses turned their gables to the passerby, and some of

them had pretensions to architectural decoration in the form of rude

perforated woodwork. Between the houses, and in a line with them, were

great wooden gates and high wooden fences, separating the courtyards

from the road. Into one of these yards, near the farther end of the

village, our horses turned of their own accord.

"An inn?" I said, in an interrogative tone.

The driver shook his head and said something, in which I detected the

word "friend." Evidently there was no hostelry for man and beast in the

village, and the driver was using a friend's house for the purpose.

The yard was flanked on the one side by an open shed, containing rude

agricultural implements which might throw some light on the agriculture

of the primitive Aryans, and on the other side by the dwelling-house and

stable. Both the house and stable were built of logs, nearly cylindrical

in form, and placed in horizontal tiers.

Two of the strongest of human motives, hunger and curiosity, impelled me

to enter the house at once. Without waiting for an invitation, I went

up to the door--half protected against the winter snows by a small open

portico--and unceremoniously walked in. The first apartment was empty,

but I noticed a low door in the wall to the left, and passing through

this, entered the principal room. As the scene was new to me, I noted

the principal objects. In the wall before me were two small square

windows looking out upon the road, and in the corner to the right,

nearer to the ceiling than to the floor, was a little triangular shelf,

on which stood a religious picture. Before the picture hung a curious

oil lamp. In the corner to the left of the door was a gigantic stove,

built of brick, and whitewashed. From the top of the stove to the wall

on the right stretched what might be called an enormous shelf, six or

eight feet in breadth. This is the so-called palati, as I afterwards

discovered, and serves as a bed for part of the family. The furniture

consisted of a long wooden bench attached to the wall on the right, a

big, heavy, deal table, and a few wooden stools.

Whilst I was leisurely surveying these objects, I heard a noise on the

top of the stove, and, looking up, perceived a human face, with long

hair parted in the middle, and a full yellow beard. I was considerably

astonished by this apparition, for the air in the room was stifling,

and I had some difficulty in believing that any created being--except

perhaps a salamander or a negro--could exist in such a position. I

looked hard to convince myself that I was not the victim of a delusion.

As I stared, the head nodded slowly and pronounced the customary form of

greeting.

I returned the greeting slowly, wondering what was to come next.

"Ill, very ill!" sighed the head.

"I'm not astonished at that," I remarked, in an "aside." "If I were

lying on the stove as you are I should be very ill too."

"Hot, very hot?" I remarked, interrogatively.

"Nitchevo"--that is to say, "not particularly." This remark astonished

me all the more as I noticed that the body to which the head belonged

was enveloped in a sheep-skin!

After living some time in Russia I was no longer surprised by such

incidents, for I soon discovered that the Russian peasant has a

marvellous power of bearing extreme heat as well as extreme cold. When

a coachman takes his master or mistress to the theatre or to a party,

he never thinks of going home and returning at an appointed time. Hour

after hour he sits placidly on the box, and though the cold be of an

intensity such as is never experienced in our temperate climate, he

can sleep as tranquilly as the lazzaroni at midday in Naples. In that

respect the Russian peasant seems to be first-cousin to the polar

bear, but, unlike the animals of the Arctic regions, he is not at all

incommoded by excessive heat. On the contrary, he likes it when he can

get it, and never omits an opportunity of laying in a reserve supply of

caloric. He even delights in rapid transitions from one extreme to

the other, as is amply proved by a curious custom which deserves to be

recorded.

The reader must know that in the life of the Russian peasantry the

weekly vapour-bath plays a most important part. It has even a certain

religious signification, for no good orthodox peasant would dare to

enter a church after being soiled by certain kinds of pollution without

cleansing himself physically and morally by means of the bath. In the

weekly arrangements it forms the occupation for Saturday afternoon, and

care is taken to avoid thereafter all pollution until after the morning

service on Sunday. Many villages possess a public or communal bath of

the most primitive construction, but in some parts of the country--I

am not sure how far the practice extends--the peasants take their

vapour-bath in the household oven in which the bread is baked! In

all cases the operation is pushed to the extreme limit of human

endurance--far beyond the utmost limit that can be endured by those who

have not been accustomed to it from childhood. For my own part, I only

made the experiment once; and when I informed my attendant that my life

was in danger from congestion of the brain, he laughed outright, and

told me that the operation had only begun. Most astounding of all--and

this brings me to the fact which led me into this digression--the

peasants in winter often rush out of the bath and roll themselves in the

snow! This aptly illustrates a common Russian proverb, which says that

what is health to the Russian is death to the German.

Cold water, as well as hot vapour, is sometimes used as a means of

purification. In the villages the old pagan habit of masquerading in

absurd costumes at certain seasons--as is done during the carnival in

Roman Catholic countries with the approval, or at least connivance,

of the Church--still survives; but it is regarded as not altogether

sinless. He who uses such disguises places himself to a certain extent

under the influence of the Evil One, thereby putting his soul in

jeopardy; and to free himself from this danger he has to purify himself

in the following way: When the annual mid-winter ceremony of blessing

the waters is performed, by breaking a hole in the ice and immersing a

cross with certain religious rites, he should plunge into the hole as

soon as possible after the ceremony. I remember once at Yaroslavl,

on the Volga, two young peasants successfully accomplished this

feat--though the police have orders to prevent it--and escaped,

apparently without evil consequences, though the Fahrenheit thermometer

was below zero. How far the custom has really a purifying influence,

is a question which must be left to theologians; but even an ordinary

mortal can understand that, if it be regarded as a penance, it must

have a certain deterrent effect. The man who foresees the necessity

of undergoing this severe penance will think twice before putting on a

disguise. So at least it must have been in the good old times; but in

these degenerate days--among the Russian peasantry as elsewhere--the

fear of the Devil, which was formerly, if not the beginning, at least

one of the essential elements, of wisdom, has greatly decreased. Many

a young peasant will now thoughtlessly disguise himself, and when the

consecration of the water is performed, will stand and look on passively

like an ordinary spectator! It would seem that the Devil, like his enemy

the Pope, is destined to lose gradually his temporal power.

But all this time I am neglecting my new acquaintance on the top of the

stove. In reality I did not neglect him, but listened most attentively

to every word of the long tale that he recited. What it was all about

I could only vaguely guess, for I did not understand more than ten per

cent of the words used, but I assumed from the tone and gestures that he

was relating to me all the incidents and symptoms of his illness. And

a very severe illness it must have been, for it requires a very

considerable amount of physical suffering to make the patient Russian

peasant groan. Before he had finished his tale a woman entered,

apparently his wife.

To her I explained that I had a strong desire to eat and drink, and that

I wished to know what she would give me. By a good deal of laborious

explanation I was made to understand that I could have eggs, black

bread, and milk, and we agreed that there should be a division of

labour: my hostess should prepare the samovar for boiling water, whilst

I should fry the eggs to my own satisfaction.

In a few minutes the repast was ready, and, though not very delicate,

was highly acceptable. The tea and sugar I had of course brought with

me; the eggs were not very highly flavoured; and the black rye-bread,

strongly intermixed with sand, could be eaten by a peculiar and

easily-acquired method of mastication, in which the upper molars are

never allowed to touch those of the lower jaw. In this way the grating

of the sand between the teeth is avoided.

Eggs, black bread, milk, and tea--these formed my ordinary articles of

food during all my wanderings in Northern Russia. Occasionally potatoes

could be got, and afforded the possibility of varying the bill of fare.

The favourite materials employed in the native cookery are sour cabbage,

cucumbers, and kvass--a kind of very small beer made from black bread.

None of these can be recommended to the traveller who is not already

accustomed to them.

The remainder of the journey was accomplished at a rather more rapid

pace than the preceding part, for the road was decidedly better, though

it was traversed by numerous half-buried roots, which produced violent

jolts. From the conversation of the driver I gathered that wolves,

bears, and elks were found in the forest through which we were passing.

The sun had long since set when we reached our destination, and I found

to my dismay that the priest's house was closed for the night. To rouse

the reverend personage from his slumbers, and endeavour to explain to

him with my limited vocabulary the object of my visit, was not to be

thought of. On the other hand, there was no inn of any kind in the

vicinity. When I consulted the driver as to what was to be done, he

meditated for a little, and then pointed to a large house at some

distance where there were still lights. It turned out to be the

country-house of the gentleman who had advised me to undertake the

journey, and here, after a short explanation, though the owner was not

at home, I was hospitably received.

It had been my intention to live in the priest's house, but a short

interview with him on the following day convinced me that that part

of my plan could not be carried out. The preliminary objections that I

should find but poor fare in his humble household, and much more of

the same kind, were at once put aside by my assurance, made partly by

pantomime, that, as an old traveller, I was well accustomed to simple

fare, and could always accommodate myself to the habits of people

among whom my lot happened to be cast. But there was a more serious

difficulty. The priest's family had, as is generally the case with

priests' families, been rapidly increasing during the last few years,

and his house had not been growing with equal rapidity. The natural

consequence of this was that he had not a room or a bed to spare. The

little room which he had formerly kept for occasional visitors was now

occupied by his eldest daughter, who had returned from a "school for

the daughters of the clergy," where she had been for the last two years.

Under these circumstances, I was constrained to accept the kind proposal

made to me by the representative of my absent friend, that I should

take up my quarters in one of the numerous unoccupied rooms in the

manor-house. This arrangement, I was reminded, would not at all

interfere with my proposed studies, for the priest lived close at hand,

and I might spend with him as much time as I liked.

And now let me introduce the reader to my reverend teacher and one

or two other personages whose acquaintance I made during my voluntary

exile.

CHAPTER III

VOLUNTARY EXILE

Ivanofka--History of the Place--The Steward of the Estate--Slav and

Teutonic Natures--A German's View of the Emancipation--Justices of the

Peace--New School of Morals--The Russian Language--Linguistic Talent of

the Russians--My Teacher--A Big Dose of Current History.

This village, Ivanofka by name, in which I proposed to spend some

months, was rather more picturesque than villages in these northern

forests commonly are. The peasants' huts, built on both sides of a

straight road, were colourless enough, and the big church, with its five

pear-shaped cupolas rising out of the bright green roof and its ugly

belfry in the Renaissance style, was not by any means beautiful in

itself; but when seen from a little distance, especially in the soft

evening twilight, the whole might have been made the subject of a

very pleasing picture. From the point that a landscape-painter would

naturally have chosen, the foreground was formed by a meadow, through

which flowed sluggishly a meandering stream. On a bit of rising ground

to the right, and half concealed by an intervening cluster of old

rich-coloured pines, stood the manor-house--a big, box-shaped,

whitewashed building, with a verandah in front, overlooking a small plot

that might some day become a flower-garden. To the left of this stood

the village, the houses grouping prettily with the big church, and a

little farther in this direction was an avenue of graceful birches. On

the extreme left were fields, bounded by a dark border of fir-trees.

Could the spectator have raised himself a few hundred feet from the

ground, he would have seen that there were fields beyond the village,

and that the whole of this agricultural oasis was imbedded in a forest

stretching in all directions as far as the eye could reach.

The history of the place may be told in a few words. In former times the

estate, including the village and all its inhabitants, had belonged to

a monastery, but when, in 1764, the Church lands were secularised by

Catherine, it became the property of the State. Some years afterwards

the Empress granted it, with the serfs and everything else which it

contained, to an old general who had distinguished himself in the

Turkish wars. From that time it had remained in the K---- family.

Some time between the years 1820 and 1840 the big church and the

mansion-house had been built by the actual possessor's father, who loved

country life, and devoted a large part of his time and energies to

the management of his estate. His son, on the contrary, preferred St.

Petersburg to the country, served in one of the public offices, loved

passionately French plays and other products of urban civilisation,

and left the entire management of the property to a German steward,

popularly known as Karl Karl'itch, whom I shall introduce to the reader

presently.

The village annals contained no important events, except bad harvests,

cattle-plagues, and destructive fires, with which the inhabitants seem

to have been periodically visited from time immemorial. If good

harvests were ever experienced, they must have faded from the popular

recollection. Then there were certain ancient traditions which might

have been lessened in bulk and improved in quality by being subjected to

searching historical criticism. More than once, for instance, a leshie,

or wood-sprite, had been seen in the neighbourhood; and in several

households the domovoi, or brownie, had been known to play strange

pranks until he was properly propitiated. And as a set-off against these

manifestations of evil powers, there were well-authenticated stories

about a miracle-working image that had mysteriously appeared on the

branch of a tree, and about numerous miraculous cures that had been

effected by means of pilgrimages to holy shrines.

But it is time to introduce the principal personages of this little

community. Of these, by far the most important was Karl Karl'itch, the

steward.

First of all I ought, perhaps, to explain how Karl Schmidt, the son of

a well-to-do Bauer in the Prussian village of Schonhausen, became Karl

Karl'itch, the principal personage in the Russian village of Ivanofka.

About the time of the Crimean War many of the Russian landed proprietors

had become alive to the necessity of improving the primitive,

traditional methods of agriculture, and sought for this purpose German

stewards for their estates. Among these proprietors was the owner of

Ivanofka. Through the medium of a friend in Berlin he succeeded in

engaging for a moderate salary a young man who had just finished his

studies in one of the German schools of agriculture--the institution at

Hohenheim, if my memory does not deceive me. This young man had arrived

in Russia as plain Karl Schmidt, but his name was soon transformed into

Karl Karl'itch, not from any desire of his own, but in accordance with

a curious Russian custom. In Russia one usually calls a man not by his

family name, but by his Christian name and patronymic--the latter being

formed from the name of his father. Thus, if a man's name is Nicholas,

and his father's Christian name is--or was--Ivan, you address him as

Nikolai Ivanovitch (pronounced Ivan'itch); and if this man should happen

to have a sister called Mary, you will address her--even though she

should be married--as Marya Ivanovna (pronounced Ivanna).

Immediately on his arrival young Schmidt had set himself vigorously

to reorganise the estate and improve the method of agriculture. Some

ploughs, harrows, and other implements which had been imported at a

former period were dragged out of the obscurity in which they had

lain for several years, and an attempt was made to farm on scientific

principles. The attempt was far from being completely successful, for

the serfs--this was before the Emancipation--could not be made to work

like regularly trained German labourers. In spite of all admonitions,

threats, and punishments, they persisted in working slowly, listlessly,

inaccurately, and occasionally they broke the new instruments from

carelessness or some more culpable motive. Karl Karl'itch was not

naturally a hard-hearted man, but he was very rigid in his notions of

duty, and could be cruelly severe when his orders were not executed with

an accuracy and punctuality that seemed to the Russian rustic mind mere

useless pedantry. The serfs did not offer him any open opposition, and

were always obsequiously respectful in their demeanour towards him, but

they invariably frustrated his plans by their carelessness and stolid,

passive resistance.

Thus arose that silent conflict and that smouldering mutual enmity which

almost always result from the contact of the Teuton with the Slav. The

serfs instinctively regretted the good old times, when they lived under

the rough-and-ready patriarchal rule of their masters, assisted by

a native "burmister," or overseer, who was one of themselves. The

burmister had not always been honest in his dealings with them, and

the master had often, when in anger, ordered severe punishments to be

inflicted; but the burmister had not attempted to make them change their

old habits, and had shut his eyes to many little sins of omission

and commission, whilst the master was always ready to assist them in

difficulties, and commonly treated them in a kindly, familiar way. As

the old Russian proverb has it, "Where danger is, there too is kindly

forgiveness." Karl Karl'itch, on the contrary, was the personification

of uncompassionate, inflexible law. Blind rage and compassionate

kindliness were alike foreign to his system of government. If he had

any feeling towards the serfs, it was one of chronic contempt. The word

durak (blockhead) was constantly on his lips, and when any bit of work

was well done, he took it as a matter of course, and never thought of

giving a word of approval or encouragement.

When it became evident, in 1859, that the emancipation of the serfs was

at hand, Karl Karl'itch confidently predicted that the country would

inevitably go to ruin. He knew by experience that the peasants were lazy

and improvident, even when they lived under the tutelage of a master,

and with the fear of the rod before their eyes. What would they become

when this guidance and salutary restraint should be removed? The

prospect raised terrible forebodings in the mind of the worthy steward,

who had his employer's interests really at heart; and these forebodings

were considerably increased and intensified when he learned that

the peasants were to receive by law the land which they occupied on

sufferance, and which comprised about a half of the whole arable land

of the estate. This arrangement he declared to be a dangerous and

unjustifiable infraction of the sacred rights of property, which

savoured strongly of communism, and could have but one practical result:

the emancipated peasants would live by the cultivation of their own

land, and would not consent on any terms to work for their former

master.

In the few months which immediately followed the publication of the

Emancipation Edict in 1861, Karl Karl'itch found much to confirm his

most gloomy apprehensions. The peasants showed themselves dissatisfied

with the privileges conferred upon them, and sought to evade the

corresponding duties imposed on them by the new law. In vain he

endeavoured, by exhortations, promises, and threats, to get the most

necessary part of the field-work done, and showed the peasants the

provision of the law enjoining them to obey and work as of old until

some new arrangement should be made. To all his appeals they replied

that, having been freed by the Tsar, they were no longer obliged to

work for their former master; and he was at last forced to appeal to

the authorities. This step had a certain effect, but the field-work was

executed that year even worse than usual, and the harvest suffered in

consequence.

Since that time things had gradually improved. The peasants had

discovered that they could not support themselves and pay their taxes

from the land ceded to them, and had accordingly consented to till the

proprietor's fields for a moderate recompense. "These last two years,"

said Karl Karl'itch to me, with an air of honest self-satisfaction, "I

have been able, after paying all expenses, to transmit little sums to

the young master in St. Petersburg. It was certainly not much, but it

shows that things are better than they were. Still, it is hard, uphill

work. The peasants have not been improved by liberty. They now work less

and drink more than they did in the times of serfage, and if you say a

word to them they'll go away, and not work for you at all." Here

Karl Karl'itch indemnified himself for his recent self-control in the

presence of his workers by using a series of the strongest epithets

which the combined languages of his native and of his adopted country

could supply. "But laziness and drunkenness are not their only faults.

They let their cattle wander into our fields, and never lose an

opportunity of stealing firewood from the forest."

"But you have now for such matters the rural justices of the peace," I

ventured to suggest.

"The justices of the peace!" . . . Here Karl Karl'itch used an inelegant

expression, which showed plainly that he was no unqualified admirer

of the new judicial institutions. "What is the use of applying to the

justices? The nearest one lives six miles off, and when I go to him he

evidently tries to make me lose as much time as possible. I am sure to

lose nearly a whole day, and at the end of it I may find that I have got

nothing for my pains. These justices always try to find some excuse for

the peasant, and when they do condemn, by way of exception, the

affair does not end there. There is pretty sure to be a pettifogging

practitioner prowling about--some rascally scribe who has been dismissed

from the public offices for pilfering and extorting too openly--and he

is always ready to whisper to the peasant that he should appeal. The

peasant knows that the decision is just, but he is easily persuaded

that by appealing to the Monthly Sessions he gets another chance in

the lottery, and may perhaps draw a prize. He lets the rascally scribe,

therefore, prepare an appeal for him, and I receive an invitation to

attend the Session of Justices in the district town on a certain day.

"It is a good five-and-thirty miles to the district town, as you know,

but I get up early, and arrive at eleven o'clock, the hour stated in the

official notice. A crowd of peasants are hanging about the door of the

court, but the only official present is the porter. I enquire of him

when my case is likely to come on, and receive the laconic answer, 'How

should I know?' After half an hour the secretary arrives. I repeat my

question, and receive the same answer. Another half hour passes, and one

of the justices drives up in his tarantass. Perhaps he is a glib-tongued

gentleman, and assures me that the proceedings will commence at once:

'Sei tchas! sei tchas!' Don't believe what the priest or the dictionary

tells you about the meaning of that expression. The dictionary will tell

you that it means 'immediately,' but that's all nonsense. In the mouth

of a Russian it means 'in an hour,' 'next week,' 'in a year or two,'

'never'--most commonly 'never.' Like many other words in Russian, 'sei

tchas' can be understood only after long experience. A second justice

drives up, and then a third. No more are required by law, but these

gentlemen must first smoke several cigarettes and discuss all the local

news before they begin work.

"At last they take their seats on the bench--a slightly elevated

platform at one end of the room, behind a table covered with green

baize--and the proceedings commence. My case is sure to be pretty far

down on the list--the secretary takes, I believe, a malicious pleasure

in watching my impatience--and before it is called the justices have to

retire at least once for refreshments and cigarettes. I have to amuse

myself by listening to the other cases, and some of them, I can assure

you, are amusing enough. The walls of that room must be by this time

pretty well saturated with perjury, and many of the witnesses catch at

once the infection. Perhaps I may tell you some other time a few of the

amusing incidents that I have seen there. At last my case is called. It

is as clear as daylight, but the rascally pettifogger is there with

a long-prepared speech, he holds in his hand a small volume of the

codified law, and quotes paragraphs which no amount of human ingenuity

can make to bear upon the subject. Perhaps the previous decision is

confirmed; perhaps it is reversed; in either case, I have lost a second

day and exhausted more patience than I can conveniently spare. And

something even worse may happen, as I know by experience. Once during

a case of mine there was some little informality--someone inadvertently

opened the door of the consulting-room when the decision was being

written, or some other little incident of the sort occurred, and the

rascally pettifogger complained to the Supreme Court of Revision, which

is a part of the Senate. The case was all about a few roubles, but it

was discussed in St. Petersburg, and afterwards tried over again by

another court of justices. Now I have paid my Lehrgeld, and go no more

to law."

"Then you must expose yourself to all kinds of extortion?"

"Not so much as you might imagine. I have my own way of dispensing

justice. When I catch a peasant's horse or cow in our fields, I lock it

up and make the owner pay a ransom."

"Is it not rather dangerous," I inquired, "to take the law thus into

your own hands? I have heard that the Russian justices are extremely

severe against any one who has recourse to what our German jurists call

Selbsthulfe."

"That they are! So long as you are in Russia, you had much better let

yourself be quietly robbed than use any violence against the robber. It

is less trouble, and it is cheaper in the long run. If you do not, you

may unexpectedly find yourself some fine morning in prison! You must

know that many of the young justices belong to the new school of

morals."

"What is that? I have not heard of any new discoveries lately in the

sphere of speculative ethics."

"Well, to tell you the truth, I am not one of the initiated, and I can

only tell you what I hear. So far as I have noticed, the representatives

of the new doctrine talk chiefly about Gumannost' and Tchelovetcheskoe

dostoinstvo. You know what these words mean?"

"Humanity, or rather humanitarianism and human dignity," I replied, not

sorry to give a proof that I was advancing in my studies.

"There, again, you allow your dictionary and your priest to mislead you.

These terms, when used by a Russian, cover much more than we understand

by them, and those who use them most frequently have generally a special

tenderness for all kinds of malefactors. In the old times, malefactors

were popularly believed to be bad, dangerous people; but it has been

lately discovered that this is a delusion. A young proprietor who lives

not far off assures me that they are the true Protestants, and the

most powerful social reformers! They protest practically against those

imperfections of social organisation of which they are the involuntary

victims. The feeble, characterless man quietly submits to his chains;

the bold, generous, strong man breaks his fetters, and helps others to

do the same. A very ingenious defence of all kinds of rascality, isn't

it?"

"Well, it is a theory that might certainly be carried too far, and might

easily lead to very inconvenient conclusions; but I am not sure that,

theoretically speaking, it does not contain a certain element of truth.

It ought at least to foster that charity which we are enjoined to

practise towards all men. But perhaps 'all men' does not include

publicans and sinners?"

On hearing these words Karl Karl'itch turned to me, and every feature of

his honest German face expressed the most undisguised astonishment.

"Are you, too, a Nihilist?" he inquired, as soon as he had partially

recovered his breath.

"I really don't know what a Nihilist is, but I may assure you that I am

not an 'ist' of any kind. What is a Nihilist?"

"If you live long in Russia you'll learn that without my telling you.

As I was saying, I am not at all afraid of the peasants citing me before

the justice. They know better now. If they gave me too much trouble I

could starve their cattle."

"Yes, when you catch them in your fields," I remarked, taking no notice

of the abrupt turn which he had given to the conversation.

"I can do it without that. You must know that, by the Emancipation

Law, the peasants received arable land, but they received little or no

pasturage. I have the whip hand of them there!"

The remarks of Karl Karl'itch on men and things were to me always

interesting, for he was a shrewd observer, and displayed occasionally a

pleasant, dry humour. But I very soon discovered that his opinions were

not to be accepted without reserve. His strong, inflexible Teutonic

nature often prevented him from judging impartially. He had no sympathy

with the men and the institutions around him, and consequently he was

unable to see things from the inside. The specks and blemishes on the

surface he perceived clearly enough, but he had no knowledge of the

secret, deep-rooted causes by which these specks and blemishes were

produced. The simple fact that a man was a Russian satisfactorily

accounted, in his opinion, for any kind of moral deformity; and his

knowledge turned out to be by no means so extensive as I had at first

supposed. Though he had been many years in the country, he knew very

little about the life of the peasants beyond that small part of it which

concerned directly his own interests and those of his employer. Of the

communal organisation, domestic life, religious beliefs, ceremonial

practices, and nomadic habits of his humble neighbours, he knew little,

and the little he happened to know was far from accurate. In order to

gain a knowledge of these matters it would be better, I perceived, to

consult the priest, or, better still, the peasants themselves. But to do

this it would be necessary to understand easily and speak fluently the

colloquial language, and I was still very far from having, acquired the

requisite proficiency.

Even for one who possesses a natural facility for acquiring foreign

tongues, the learning of Russian is by no means an easy task. Though

it is essentially an Aryan language like our own, and contains only a

slight intermixture of Tartar words,--such as bashlyk (a hood), kalpak

(a night-cap), arbuz (a water-melon), etc.--it has certain sounds

unknown to West-European ears, and difficult for West-European tongues,

and its roots, though in great part derived from the same original stock

as those of the Graeco-Latin and Teutonic languages, are generally not

at all easily recognised. As an illustration of this, take the Russian

word otets. Strange as it may at first sight appear, this word is merely

another form of our word father, of the German vater, and of the French

pere. The syllable ets is the ordinary Russian termination denoting the

agent, corresponding to the English and German ending er, as we see in

such words as--kup-ets (a buyer), plov-ets (a swimmer), and many others.

The root ot is a mutilated form of vot, as we see in the word otchina (a

paternal inheritance), which is frequently written votchina. Now vot is

evidently the same root as the German vat in Vater, and the English fath

in father. Quod erat demonstrandum.

All this is simple enough, and goes to prove the fundamental identity,

or rather the community of origin, of the Slav and Teutonic languages;

but it will be readily understood that etymological analogies so

carefully disguised are of little practical use in helping us to acquire

a foreign tongue. Besides this, the grammatical forms and constructions

in Russian are very peculiar, and present a great many strange

irregularities. As an illustration of this we may take the future tense.

The Russian verb has commonly a simple and a frequentative future. The

latter is always regularly formed by means of an auxiliary with the

infinitive, as in English, but the former is constructed in a variety of

ways, for which no rule can be given, so that the simple future of each

individual verb must be learned by a pure effort of memory. In many

verbs it is formed by prefixing a preposition, but it is impossible

to determine by rule which preposition should be used. Thus idu (I go)

becomes poidu; pishu (I write) becomes napishu; pyu (I drink) becomes

vuipyu, and so on.

Closely akin to the difficulties of pronunciation is the difficulty of

accentuating the proper syllable. In this respect Russian is like Greek;

you can rarely tell a priori on what syllable the accent falls. But

it is more puzzling than Greek, for two reasons: firstly, it is not

customary to print Russian with accents; and secondly, no one has yet

been able to lay down precise rules for the transposition of the accent

in the various inflections of the same word, Of this latter peculiarity,

let one illustration suffice. The word ruka (hand) has the accent on the

last syllable, but in the accusative (ruku) the accent goes back to the

first syllable. It must not, however, be assumed that in all words

of this type a similar transposition takes place. The word beda

(misfortune), for instance, as well as very many others, always retains

the accent on the last syllable.

These and many similar difficulties, which need not be here enumerated,

can be mastered only by long practice. Serious as they are, they need

not frighten any one who is in the habit of learning foreign tongues.

The ear and the tongue gradually become familiar with the peculiarities

of inflection and accentuation, and practice fulfils the same function

as abstract rules.

It is commonly supposed that Russians have been endowed by Nature with

a peculiar linguistic talent. Their own language, it is said, is so

difficult that they have no difficulty in acquiring others. This common

belief requires, as it seems to me, some explanation. That highly

educated Russians are better linguists than the educated classes of

Western Europe there can be no possible doubt, for they almost always

speak French, and often English and German also. The question, however,

is whether this is the result of a psychological peculiarity, or of

other causes. Now, without venturing to deny the existence of a natural

faculty, I should say that the other causes have at least exercised a

powerful influence. Any Russian who wishes to be regarded as civilised

must possess at least one foreign language; and, as a consequence of

this, the children of the upper classes are always taught at least

French in their infancy. Many households comprise a German nurse, a

French tutor, and an English governess; and the children thus become

accustomed from their earliest years to the use of these three

languages. Besides this, Russian is phonetically very rich and contains

nearly all the sounds which are to be found in West-European tongues.

Perhaps on the whole it would be well to apply here the Darwinian

theory, and suppose that the Russian Noblesse, having been obliged

for several generations to acquire foreign languages, have gradually

developed a hereditary polyglot talent.

Several circumstances concurred to assist me in my efforts, during my

voluntary exile, to acquire at least such a knowledge of the language

as would enable me to converse freely with the peasantry. In the first

place, my reverend teacher was an agreeable, kindly, talkative man,

who took a great delight in telling interminable stories, quite

independently of any satisfaction which he might derive from the

consciousness of their being understood and appreciated. Even when

walking alone he was always muttering something to an imaginary

listener. A stranger meeting him on such occasions might have supposed

that he was holding converse with unseen spirits, though his broad

muscular form and rubicund face militated strongly against such a

supposition; but no man, woman, or child living within a radius of

ten miles would ever have fallen into this mistake. Every one in the

neighbourhood knew that "Batushka" (papa), as he was familiarly called,

was too prosaical, practical a man to see things ethereal, that he was

an irrepressible talker, and that when he could not conveniently find an

audience he created one by his own imagination. This peculiarity of his

rendered me good service. Though for some time I understood very little

of what he said, and very often misplaced the positive and negative

monosyllables which I hazarded occasionally by way of encouragement,

he talked vigorously all the same. Like all garrulous people, he was

constantly repeating himself; but to this I did not object, for the

custom--however disagreeable in ordinary society--was for me highly

beneficial, and when I had already heard a story once or twice before,

it was much easier for me to assume at the proper moment the requisite

expression of countenance.

Another fortunate circumstance was that at Ivanofka there were no

distractions, so that the whole of the day and a great part of the night

could be devoted to study. My chief amusement was an occasional walk in

the fields with Karl Karl'itch; and even this mild form of dissipation

could not always be obtained, for as soon as rain had fallen it was

difficult to go beyond the verandah--the mud precluding the

possibility of a constitutional. The nearest approach to excitement was

mushroom-gathering; and in this occupation my inability to distinguish

the edible from the poisonous species made my efforts unacceptable. We

lived so "far from the madding crowd" that its din scarcely reached

our ears. A week or ten days might pass without our receiving any

intelligence from the outer world. The nearest post-office was in the

district town, and with that distant point we had no regular system of

communication. Letters and newspapers remained there till called for,

and were brought to us intermittently when some one of our neighbours

happened to pass that way. Current history was thus administered to us

in big doses.

One very big dose I remember well. For a much longer time than usual

no volunteer letter-carrier had appeared, and the delay was more than

usually tantalising, because it was known that war had broken out

between France and Germany. At last a big bundle of a daily paper called

the Golos was brought to me. Impatient to learn whether any great battle

had been fought, I began by examining the latest number, and stumbled

at once on an article headed, "Latest Intelligence: the Emperor at

Wilhelmshohe!!!" The large type in which the heading was printed and

the three marks of exclamation showed plainly that the article was very

important. I began to read with avidity, but was utterly mystified. What

emperor was this? Probably the Tsar or the Emperor of Austria, for

there was no German Emperor in those days. But no! It was evidently the

Emperor of the French. And how did Napoleon get to Wilhelmshohe? The

French must have broken through the Rhine defences, and pushed far

into Germany. But no! As I read further, I found this theory equally

untenable. It turned out that the Emperor was surrounded by Germans,

and--a prisoner! In order to solve the mystery, I had to go back to the

preceding numbers of the paper, and learned, at a sitting, all about the

successive German victories, the defeat and capitulation of Macmahon's

army at Sedan, and the other great events of that momentous time. The

impression produced can scarcely be realised by those who have always

imbibed current history in the homeopathic doses administered by the

morning and evening daily papers.

By the useful loquacity of my teacher and the possibility of devoting

all my time to my linguistic studies, I made such rapid progress in

the acquisition of the language that I was able after a few weeks to

understand much of what was said to me, and to express myself in a

vague, roundabout way. In the latter operation I was much assisted by

a peculiar faculty of divination which the Russians possess in a high

degree. If a foreigner succeeds in expressing about one-fourth of

an idea, the Russian peasant can generally fill up the remaining

three-fourths from his own intuition.

As my powers of comprehension increased, my long conversations with

the priest became more and more instructive. At first his remarks and

stories had for me simply a philological interest, but gradually

I perceived that his talk contained a great deal of solid,

curious information regarding himself and the class to which he

belonged--information of a kind not commonly found in grammatical

exercises. Some of this I now propose to communicate to the reader.

CHAPTER IV

THE VILLAGE PRIEST

Priests' Names--Clerical Marriages--The White and the Black Clergy--Why

the People do not Respect the Parish Priests--History of the White

Clergy--The Parish Priest and the Protestant Pastor--In What Sense

the Russian People are Religious--Icons--The Clergy and Popular

Education--Ecclesiastical Reform--Premonitory Symptoms of Change--Two

Typical Specimens of the Parochial Clergy of the Present Day.

In formal introductions it is customary to pronounce in a more or less

inaudible voice the names of the two persons introduced. Circumstances

compel me in the present case to depart from received custom. The truth

is, I do not know the names of the two people whom I wish to bring

together! The reader who knows his own name will readily pardon one-half

of my ignorance, but he may naturally expect that I should know the name

of a man with whom I profess to be acquainted, and with whom I daily

held long conversations during a period of several months. Strange as

it may seem, I do not. During all the time of my sojourn in Ivanofka I

never heard him addressed or spoken of otherwise than as "Batushka." Now

"Batushka" is not a name at all. It is simply the diminutive form of an

obsolete word meaning "father," and is usually applied to all village

priests. The ushka is a common diminutive termination, and the root Bat

is evidently the same as that which appears in the Latin pater.

Though I do not happen to know what Batushka's family name was, I can

communicate two curious facts concerning it: he had not possessed it in

his childhood, and it was not the same as his father's.

The reader whose intuitive powers have been preternaturally sharpened by

a long course of sensation novels will probably leap to the conclusion

that Batushka was a mysterious individual, very different from what he

seemed--either the illegitimate son of some great personage, or a man of

high birth who had committed some great sin, and who now sought oblivion

and expiation in the humble duties of a parish priest. Let me dispel

at once all delusions of this kind. Batushka was actually as well as

legally the legitimate son of an ordinary parish priest, who was

still living, about twenty miles off, and for many generations all his

paternal and maternal ancestors, male and female, had belonged to the

priestly caste. He was thus a Levite of the purest water, and thoroughly

Levitical in his character. Though he knew by experience something about

the weakness of the flesh, he had never committed any sins of the heroic

kind, and had no reason to conceal his origin. The curious facts above

stated were simply the result of a peculiar custom which exists among

the Russian clergy. According to this custom, when a boy enters the

seminary he receives from the Bishop a new family name. The name may be

Bogoslafski, from a word signifying "Theology," or Bogolubof, "the love

of God," or some similar term; or it may be derived from the name of the

boy's native village, or from any other word which the Bishop thinks fit

to choose. I know of one instance where a Bishop chose two French words

for the purpose. He had intended to call the boy Velikoselski, after his

native place, Velikoe Selo, which means "big village"; but finding

that there was already a Velikoselski in the seminary, and being in a

facetious frame of mind, he called the new comer Grandvillageski--a word

that may perhaps sorely puzzle some philologist of the future.

My reverend teacher was a tall, muscular man of about forty years of

age, with a full dark-brown beard, and long lank hair falling over his

shoulders. The visible parts of his dress consisted of three articles--a

dingy-brown robe of coarse material buttoned closely at the neck and

descending to the ground, a wideawake hat, and a pair of large, heavy

boots. As to the esoteric parts of his attire, I refrained from making

investigations. His life had been an uneventful one. At an early age he

had been sent to the seminary in the chief town of the province, and had

made for himself the reputation of a good average scholar. "The seminary

of that time," he used to say to me, referring to that part of his

life, "was not what it is now. Nowadays the teachers talk about

humanitarianism, and the boys would think that a crime had been

committed against human dignity if one of them happened to be flogged.

But they don't consider that human dignity is at all affected by their

getting drunk, and going to--to--to places that I never went to. I was

flogged often enough, and I don't think that I am a worse man on that

account; and though I never heard then anything about pedagogical

science that they talk so much about now, I'll read a bit of Latin yet

with the best of them.

"When my studies were finished," said Batushka, continuing the simple

story of his life, "the Bishop found a wife for me, and I succeeded

her father, who was then an old man. In that way I became a priest of

Ivanofka, and have remained here ever since. It is a hard life, for the

parish is big, and my bit of land is not very fertile; but, praise be to

God! I am healthy and strong, and get on well enough."

"You said that the Bishop found a wife for you," I remarked. "I suppose,

therefore, that he was a great friend of yours."

"Not at all. The Bishop does the same for all the seminarists who wish

to be ordained: it is an important part of his pastoral duties."

"Indeed!" I exclaimed in astonishment. "Surely that is carrying the

system of paternal government a little too far. Why should his Reverence

meddle with things that don't concern him?"

"But these matters do concern him. He is the natural protector of widows

and orphans, especially among the clergy of his own diocese. When a

parish priest dies, what is to become of his wife and daughters?"

Not perceiving clearly the exact bearing of these last remarks, I

ventured to suggest that priests ought to economise in view of future

contingencies.

"It is easy to speak," replied Batushka: "'A story is soon told,' as

the old proverb has it, 'but a thing is not soon done.' How are we to

economise? Even without saving we have the greatest difficulty to make

the two ends meet."

"Then the widow and daughters might work and gain a livelihood."

"What, pray, could they work at?" asked Batushka, and paused for a

reply. Seeing that I had none to offer him, he continued, "Even the

house and land belong not to them, but to the new priest."

"If that position occurred in a novel," I said, "I could foretell what

would happen. The author would make the new priest fall in love with

and marry one of the daughters, and then the whole family, including the

mother-in-law, would live happily ever afterwards."

"That is exactly how the Bishop arranges the matter. What the novelist

does with the puppets of his imagination, the Bishop does with real

beings of flesh and blood. As a rational being he cannot leave things

to chance. Besides this, he must arrange the matter before the young man

takes orders, because, by the rules of the Church, the marriage cannot

take place after the ceremony of ordination. When the affair is arranged

before the charge becomes vacant, the old priest can die with the

pleasant consciousness that his family is provided for."

"Well, Batushka, you certainly put the matter in a very plausible way,

but there seem to be two flaws in the analogy. The novelist can make two

people fall in love with each other, and make them live happily together

with the mother-in-law, but that--with all due respect to his Reverence,

be it said--is beyond the power of a Bishop."

"I am not sure," said Batushka, avoiding the point of the objection,

"that love-marriages are always the happiest ones; and as to the

mother-in-law, there are--or at least there were until the emancipation

of the serfs--a mother-in-law and several daughters-in-law in almost

every peasant household."

"And does harmony generally reign in peasant households?"

"That depends upon the head of the house. If he is a man of the right

sort, he can keep the women-folks in order." This remark was made in

an energetic tone, with the evident intention of assuring me that the

speaker was himself "a man of the right sort"; but I did not attribute

much importance to it, for I have occasionally heard henpecked husbands

talk in this grandiloquent way when their wives were out of hearing.

Altogether I was by no means convinced that the system of providing for

the widows and orphans of the clergy by means of mariages de convenance

was a good one, but I determined to suspend my judgment until I should

obtain fuller information.

An additional bit of evidence came to me a week or two later. One

morning, on going into the priest's house, I found that he had a friend

with him--the priest of a village some fifteen miles off. Before we had

got through the ordinary conventional remarks about the weather and the

crops, a peasant drove up to the door in his cart with a message that

an old peasant was dying in a neighbouring village, and desired the last

consolations of religion. Batushka was thus obliged to leave us, and his

friend and I agreed to stroll leisurely in the direction of the village

to which he was going, so as to meet him on his way home. The harvest

was already finished, so that our road, after emerging from the village,

lay through stubble-fields. Beyond this we entered the pine forest, and

by the time we had reached this point I had succeeded in leading the

conversation to the subject of clerical marriages.

"I have been thinking a good deal on this subject," I said, "and I

should very much like to know your opinion about the system."

My new acquaintance was a tall, lean, black-haired man, with a sallow

complexion and vinegar aspect--evidently one of those unhappy mortals

who are intended by Nature to take a pessimistic view of all things, and

to point out to their fellows the deep shadows of human life. I was not

at all surprised, therefore, when he replied in a deep, decided tone,

"Bad, very bad--utterly bad!"

The way in which these words were pronounced left no doubt as to the

opinion of the speaker, but I was desirous of knowing on what that

opinion was founded--more especially as I seemed to detect in the tone a

note of personal grievance. My answer was shaped accordingly.

"I suspected that; but in the discussions which I have had I have always

been placed at a disadvantage, not being able to adduce any definite

facts in support of my opinion."

"You may congratulate yourself on being unable to find any in your own

experience. A mother-in-law living in the house does not conduce to

domestic harmony. I don't know how it is in your country, but so it is

with us."

I hastened to assure him that this was not a peculiarity of Russia.

"I know it only too well," he continued. "My mother-in-law lived with

me for some years, and I was obliged at last to insist on her going to

another son-in-law."

"Rather selfish conduct towards your brother-in-law," I said to myself,

and then added audibly, "I hope you have thus solved the difficulty

satisfactorily."

"Not at all. Things are worse now than they were. I agreed to pay her

three roubles a month, and have regularly fulfilled my promise, but

lately she has thought it not enough, and she made a complaint to the

Bishop. Last week I went to him to defend myself, but as I had not money

enough for all the officials in the Consistorium, I could not obtain

justice. My mother-in-law had made all sorts of absurd accusations

against me, and consequently I was laid under an inhibition for six

weeks!"

"And what is the effect of an inhibition?"

"The effect is that I cannot perform the ordinary rites of our religion.

It is really very unjust," he added, assuming an indignant tone, "and

very annoying. Think of all the hardship and inconvenience to which it

gives rise."

As I thought of the hardship and inconvenience to which the parishioners

must be exposed through the inconsiderate conduct of the old

mother-in-law, I could not but sympathise with my new acquaintance's

indignation. My sympathy was, however, somewhat cooled when I perceived

that I was on a wrong tack, and that the priest was looking at the

matter from an entirely different point of view.

"You see," he said, "it is a most unfortunate time of year. The peasants

have gathered in their harvest, and can give of their abundance.

There are merry-makings and marriages, besides the ordinary deaths

and baptisms. Altogether I shall lose by the thing more than a hundred

roubles!"

I confess I was a little shocked on hearing the priest thus speak of his

sacred functions as if they were an ordinary marketable commodity, and

talk of the inhibition as a pushing undertaker might talk of sanitary

improvements. My surprise was caused not by the fact that he regarded

the matter from a pecuniary point of view--for I was old enough to know

that clerical human nature is not altogether insensible to pecuniary

considerations--but by the fact that he should thus undisguisedly

express his opinions to a stranger without in the least suspecting

that there was anything unseemly in his way of speaking. The incident

appeared to me very characteristic, but I refrained from all audible

comments, lest I should inadvertently check his communicativeness. With

the view of encouraging it, I professed to be very much interested, as

I really was, in what he said, and I asked him how in his opinion the

present unsatisfactory state of things might be remedied.

"There is but one cure," he said, with a readiness that showed he had

often spoken on the theme already, "and that is freedom and publicity.

We full-grown men are treated like children, and watched like

conspirators. If I wish to preach a sermon--not that I often wish to

do such a thing, but there are occasions when it is advisable--I am

expected to show it first to the Blagotchinny, and--"

"I beg your pardon, who is the Blagotchinny?"

"The Blagotchinny is a parish priest who is in direct relations with

the Consistory of the Province, and who is supposed to exercise a strict

supervision over all the other parish priests of his district. He acts

as the spy of the Consistory, which is filled with greedy, shameless

officials, deaf to any one who does not come provided with a handful of

roubles. The Bishop may be a good, well-intentioned man, but he always

sees and acts through these worthless subordinates. Besides this, the

Bishops and heads of monasteries, who monopolise the higher places in

the ecclesiastical Administration, all belong to the Black Clergy--that

is to say, they are all monks--and consequently cannot understand our

wants. How can they, on whom celibacy is imposed by the rules of the

Church, understand the position of a parish priest who has to bring up

a family and to struggle with domestic cares of every kind? What they do

is to take all the comfortable places for themselves, and leave us all

the hard work. The monasteries are rich enough, and you see how poor we

are. Perhaps you have heard that the parish priests extort money from

the peasants--refusing to perform the rites of baptism or burial until

a considerable sum has been paid. It is only too true, but who is to

blame? The priest must live and bring up his family, and you cannot

imagine the humiliations to which he has to submit in order to gain a

scanty pittance. I know it by experience. When I make the periodical

visitation I can see that the peasants grudge every handful of rye and

every egg that they give me. I can overbear their sneers as I go away,

and I know they have many sayings such as--'The priest takes from the

living and from the dead.' Many of them fasten their doors, pretending

to be away from home, and do not even take the precaution of keeping

silent till I am out of hearing."

"You surprise me," I said, in reply to the last part of this long

tirade; "I have always heard that the Russians are a very religious

people--at least the lower classes."

"So they are; but the peasantry are poor and heavily taxed. They set

great importance on the sacraments, and observe rigorously the fasts,

which comprise nearly a half of the year; but they show very little

respect for their priests, who are almost as poor as themselves."

"But I do not see clearly how you propose to remedy this state of

things."

"By freedom and publicity, as I said before." The worthy man seemed to

have learned this formula by rote. "First of all, our wants must be made

known. In some provinces there have been attempts to do this by means of

provincial assemblies of the clergy, but these efforts have always been

strenuously opposed by the Consistories, whose members fear publicity

above all things. But in order to have publicity we must have more

freedom."

Here followed a long discourse on freedom and publicity, which seemed to

me very confused. So far as I could understand the argument, there was

a good deal of reasoning in a circle. Freedom was necessary in order to

get publicity, and publicity was necessary in order to get freedom;

and the practical result would be that the clergy would enjoy bigger

salaries and more popular respect. We had only got thus far in the

investigation of the subject when our conversation was interrupted by

the rumbling of a peasant's cart. In a few seconds our friend Batushka

appeared, and the conversation took a different turn.

Since that time I have frequently spoken on this subject with competent

authorities, and nearly all have admitted that the present condition of

the clergy is highly unsatisfactory, and that the parish priest rarely

enjoys the respect of his parishioners. In a semi-official report,

which I once accidentally stumbled upon when searching for material of

a different kind, the facts are stated in the following plain language:

"The people"--I seek to translate as literally as possible--"do not

respect the clergy, but persecute them with derision and reproaches, and

feel them to be a burden. In nearly all the popular comic stories the

priest, his wife, or his labourer is held up to ridicule, and in all the

proverbs and popular sayings where the clergy are mentioned it is always

with derision. The people shun the clergy, and have recourse to them not

from the inner impulse of conscience, but from necessity. . . . And why

do the people not respect the clergy? Because it forms a class apart;

because, having received a false kind of education, it does not

introduce into the life of the people the teaching of the Spirit, but

remains in the mere dead forms of outward ceremonial, at the same time

despising these forms even to blasphemy; because the clergy itself

continually presents examples of want of respect to religion, and

transforms the service of God into a profitable trade. Can the people

respect the clergy when they hear how one priest stole money from below

the pillow of a dying man at the moment of confession, how another was

publicly dragged out of a house of ill-fame, how a third christened a

dog, how a fourth whilst officiating at the Easter service was dragged

by the hair from the altar by the deacon? Is it possible for the

people to respect priests who spend their time in the gin-shop, write

fraudulent petitions, fight with the cross in their hands, and abuse

each other in bad language at the altar?

"One might fill several pages with examples of this kind--in each

instance naming the time and place--without overstepping the boundaries

of the province of Nizhni-Novgorod. Is it possible for the people

to respect the clergy when they see everywhere amongst them simony,

carelessness in performing the religious rites, and disorder in

administering the sacraments? Is it possible for the people to respect

the clergy when they see that truth has disappeared from it, and

that the Consistories, guided in their decisions not by rules, but

by personal friendship and bribery, destroy in it the last remains of

truthfulness? If we add to all this the false certificates which the

clergy give to those who do not wish to partake of the Eucharist, the

dues illegally extracted from the Old Ritualists, the conversion of

the altar into a source of revenue, the giving of churches to priests'

daughters as a dowry, and similar phenomena, the question as to whether

the people can respect the clergy requires no answer."

As these words were written by an orthodox Russian,* celebrated for his

extensive and intimate knowledge of Russian provincial life, and were

addressed in all seriousness to a member of the Imperial family, we

may safely assume that they contain a considerable amount of truth. The

reader must not, however, imagine that all Russian priests are of

the kind above referred to. Many of them are honest, respectable,

well-intentioned men, who conscientiously fulfil their humble duties,

and strive hard to procure a good education for their children. If they

have less learning, culture, and refinement than the Roman Catholic

priesthood, they have at the same time infinitely less fanaticism, less

spiritual pride, and less intolerance towards the adherents of other

faiths.

* Mr. Melnikof, in a "secret" Report to the Grand Duke

Constantine Nikolaievitch.

Both the good and the bad qualities of the Russian priesthood at the

present time can be easily explained by its past history, and by certain

peculiarities of the national character.

The Russian White Clergy--that is to say, the parish priests, as

distinguished from the monks, who are called the Black Clergy--have had

a curious history. In primitive times they were drawn from all classes

of the population, and freely elected by the parishioners. When a man

was elected by the popular vote, he was presented to the Bishop, and

if he was found to be a fit and proper person for the office, he was

at once ordained. But this custom early fell into disuse. The Bishops,

finding that many of the candidates presented were illiterate peasants,

gradually assumed the right of appointing the priests, with or without

the consent of the parishioners; and their choice generally fell on the

sons of the clergy as the men best fitted to take orders. The creation

of Bishops' schools, afterwards called seminaries, in which the sons of

the clergy were educated, naturally led, in the course of time, to the

total exclusion of the other classes. The policy of the civil Government

led to the same end. Peter the Great laid down the principle that every

subject should in some way serve the State--the nobles as officers in

the army or navy, or as officials in the civil service; the clergy as

ministers of religion; and the lower classes as soldiers, sailors, or

tax-payers. Of these three classes the clergy had by far the lightest

burdens, and consequently many nobles and peasants would willingly have

entered its ranks. But this species of desertion the Government could

not tolerate, and accordingly the priesthood was surrounded by a legal

barrier which prevented all outsiders from entering it. Thus by the

combined efforts of the ecclesiastical and the civil Administration the

clergy became a separate class or caste, legally and actually incapable

of mingling with the other classes of the population.

The simple fact that the clergy became an exclusive caste, with a

peculiar character, peculiar habits, and peculiar ideals, would in

itself have had a prejudicial influence on the priesthood; but this

was not all. The caste increased in numbers by the process of natural

reproduction much more rapidly than the offices to be filled, so that

the supply of priests and deacons soon far exceeded the demand; and the

disproportion between supply and demand became every year greater and

greater. In this way was formed an ever-increasing clerical Proletariat,

which--as is always the case with a Proletariat of any kind--gravitated

towards the towns. In vain the Government issued ukazes prohibiting the

priests from quitting their places of domicile, and treated as vagrants

and runaways those who disregarded the prohibition; in vain successive

sovereigns endeavoured to diminish the number of these supernumeraries

by drafting them wholesale into the army. In Moscow, St. Petersburg, and

all the larger towns the cry was, "Still they come!" Every morning, in

the Kremlin of Moscow, a large crowd of them assembled for the purpose

of being hired to officiate in the private chapels of the rich nobles,

and a great deal of hard bargaining took place between the priests and

the lackeys sent to hire them--conducted in the same spirit, and in

nearly the same forms, as that which simultaneously took place in the

bazaar close by between extortionate traders and thrifty housewives.

"Listen to me," a priest would say, as an ultimatum, to a lackey who was

trying to beat down the price: "if you don't give me seventy-five kopeks

without further ado, I'll take a bite of this roll, and that will be

an end to it!" And that would have been an end to the bargaining, for,

according to the rules of the Church, a priest cannot officiate after

breaking his fast. The ultimatum, however, could be used with effect

only to country servants who had recently come to town. A sharp lackey,

experienced in this kind of diplomacy, would have laughed at the threat,

and replied coolly, "Bite away, Batushka; I can find plenty more of your

sort!" Amusing scenes of this kind I have heard described by old people

who professed to have been eye-witnesses.

The condition of the priests who remained in the villages was not much

better. Those of them who were fortunate enough to find places were

raised at least above the fear of absolute destitution, but their

position was by no means enviable. They received little consideration

or respect from the peasantry, and still less from the nobles. When the

church was situated not on the State Domains, but on a private estate,

they were practically under the power of the proprietor--almost as

completely as his serfs; and sometimes that power was exercised in a

most humiliating and shameful way. I have heard, for instance, of one

priest who was ducked in a pond on a cold winter day for the amusement

of the proprietor and his guests--choice spirits, of rough, jovial

temperament; and of another who, having neglected to take off his hat as

he passed the proprietor's house, was put into a barrel and rolled down

a hill into the river at the bottom!

In citing these incidents, I do not at all mean to imply that they

represent the relations which usually existed between proprietors and

village priests, for I am quite aware that wanton cruelty was not among

the ordinary vices of Russian serf-owners. My object in mentioning the

incidents is to show how a brutal proprietor--and it must be admitted

that they were not a few brutal individuals in the class--could maltreat

a priest without much danger of being called to account for his conduct.

Of course such conduct was an offence in the eyes of the criminal law;

but the criminal law of that time was very shortsighted, and strongly

disposed to close its eyes completely when the offender was an

influential proprietor. Had the incidents reached the ears of the

Emperor Nicholas he would probably have ordered the culprit to be

summarily and severely punished but, as the Russian proverb has it,

"Heaven is high, and the Tsar is far off." A village priest treated in

this barbarous way could have little hope of redress, and, if he were

a prudent man, he would make no attempt to obtain it; for any annoyance

which he might give the proprietor by complaining to the ecclesiastical

authorities would be sure to be paid back to him with interest in some

indirect way.

The sons of the clergy who did not succeed in finding regular sacerdotal

employment were in a still worse position. Many of them served as

scribes or subordinate officials in the public offices, where they

commonly eked out their scanty salaries by unblushing extortion and

pilfering. Those who did not succeed in gaining even modest employment

of this kind had to keep off starvation by less lawful means, and not

unfrequently found their way into the prisons or to Siberia.

In judging of the Russian priesthood of the present time, we must call

to mind this severe school through which it has passed, and we must

also take into consideration the spirit which has been for centuries

predominant in the Eastern Church--I mean the strong tendency both in

the clergy and in the laity to attribute an inordinate importance to

the ceremonial element of religion. Primitive mankind is everywhere and

always disposed to regard religion as simply a mass of mysterious rites

which have a secret magical power of averting evil in this world

and securing felicity in the next. To this general rule the Russian

peasantry are no exception, and the Russian Church has not done all it

might have done to eradicate this conception and to bring religion into

closer association with ordinary morality. Hence such incidents as the

following are still possible: A robber kills and rifles a traveller,

but he refrains from eating a piece of cooked meat which he finds in the

cart, because it happens to be a fast-day; a peasant prepares to rob a

young attache of the Austrian Embassy in St. Petersburg, and ultimately

kills his victim, but before going to the house he enters a church

and commends his undertaking to the protection of the saints; a

housebreaker, when in the act of robbing a church, finds it difficult to

extract the jewels from an Icon, and makes a vow that if a certain saint

assists him he will place a rouble's-worth of tapers before the saint's

image! These facts are within the memory of the present generation. I

knew the young attache, and saw him a few days before his death.

All these are of course extreme cases, but they illustrate a tendency

which in its milder forms is only too general amongst the Russian

people--the tendency to regard religion as a mass of ceremonies which

have a magical rather than a spiritual significance. The poor woman who

kneels at a religious procession in order that the Icon may be carried

over her head, and the rich merchant who invites the priests to bring

some famous Icon to his house, illustrates this tendency in a more

harmless form.

According to a popular saying, "As is the priest, so is the parish," and

the converse proposition is equally true--as is the parish, so is the

priest. The great majority of priests, like the great majority of men

in general, content themselves with simply striving to perform what is

expected of them, and their character is consequently determined to a

certain extent by the ideas and conceptions of their parishioners. This

will become more apparent if we contrast the Russian priest with the

Protestant pastor.

According to Protestant conceptions, the village pastor is a man of

grave demeanour and exemplary conduct, and possesses a certain amount

of education and refinement. He ought to expound weekly to his flock, in

simple, impressive words, the great truths of Christianity, and exhort

his hearers to walk in the paths of righteousness. Besides this, he is

expected to comfort the afflicted, to assist the needy, to counsel those

who are harassed with doubts, and to admonish those who openly stray

from the narrow path. Such is the ideal in the popular mind, and

pastors generally seek to realise it, if not in very deed, at least in

appearance. The Russian priest, on the contrary, has no such ideal set

before him by his parishioners. He is expected merely to conform

to certain observances, and to perform punctiliously the rites and

ceremonies prescribed by the Church. If he does this without practising

extortion his parishioners are quite satisfied. He rarely preaches or

exhorts, and neither has nor seeks to have a moral influence over his

flock. I have occasionally heard of Russian priests who approach to what

I have termed the Protestant ideal, and I have even seen one or two of

them, but I fear they are not numerous.

In the above contrast I have accidentally omitted one important feature.

The Protestant clergy have in all countries rendered valuable service to

the cause of popular education. The reason of this is not difficult to

find. In order to be a good Protestant it is necessary to "search the

Scriptures," and to do this, one must be able at least to read. To be a

good member of the Greek Orthodox Church, on the contrary, according to

popular conceptions, the reading of the Scriptures is not necessary, and

therefore primary education has not in the eyes of the Greek Orthodox

priest the same importance which it has in the eyes of the Protestant

pastor.

It must be admitted that the Russian people are in a certain sense

religions. They go regularly to church on Sundays and holy-days, cross

themselves repeatedly when they pass a church or Icon, take the Holy

Communion at stated seasons, rigorously abstain from animal food--not

only on Wednesdays and Fridays, but also during Lent and the other long

fasts--make occasional pilgrimages to holy shrines, and, in a word,

fulfil punctiliously the ceremonial observances which they suppose

necessary for salvation. But here their religiousness ends. They are

generally profoundly ignorant of religious doctrine, and know little or

nothing of Holy Writ. A peasant, it is said, was once asked by a priest

if he could name the three Persons of the Trinity, and replied without a

moment's hesitation, "How can one not know that, Batushka? Of course

it is the Saviour, the Mother of God, and Saint Nicholas the

miracle-worker!"

That answer represents fairly enough the theological attainments of a

very large section of the peasantry. The anecdote is so often repeated

that it is probably an invention, but it is not a calumny of theology

and of what Protestants term the "inner religious life" the orthodox

Russian peasant--of Dissenters, to whom these remarks do not apply, I

shall speak later--has no conception. For him the ceremonial part of

religion suffices, and he has the most unbounded, childlike confidence

in the saving efficacy of the rites which he practises. If he has been

baptised in infancy, has regularly observed the fasts, has annually

partaken of the Holy Communion, and has just confessed and received

extreme unction, he feels death approach with the most perfect

tranquillity. He is tormented with no doubts as to the efficacy of faith

or works, and has no fears that his past life may possibly have rendered

him unfit for eternal felicity. Like a man in a sinking ship who has

buckled on his life-preserver, he feels perfectly secure. With no fear

for the future and little regret for the present or the past, he awaits

calmly the dread summons, and dies with a resignation which a Stoic

philosopher might envy.

In the above paragraph I have used the word Icon, and perhaps the reader

may not clearly understand the word. Let me explain then, briefly,

what an Icon is--a very necessary explanation, for the Icons play an

important part in the religious observances of the Russian people.

Icons are pictorial, usually half-length, representations of the

Saviour, of the Madonna, or of a saint, executed in archaic Byzantine

style, on a yellow or gold ground, and varying in size from a square

inch to several square feet. Very often the whole picture, with the

exception of the face and hands of the figure, is covered with a metal

plaque, embossed so as to represent the form of the figure and the

drapery. When this plaque is not used, the crown and costume are often

adorned with pearls and other precious stones--sometimes of great price.

In respect of religions significance, Icons are of two kinds: simple,

and miraculous or miracle-working (tchudotvorny). The former are

manufactured in enormous quantities--chiefly in the province of

Vladimir, where whole villages are employed in this kind of work--and

are to be found in every Russian house, from the hut of the peasant to

the palace of the Emperor. They are generally placed high up in a corner

facing the door, and good orthodox Christians on entering bow in that

direction, making at the same time the sign of the cross. Before and

after meals the same short ceremony is always performed. On the eve of

fete-days a small lamp is kept burning before at least one of the Icons

in the house.

The wonder-working Icons are comparatively few in number, and are always

carefully preserved in a church or chapel. They are commonly believed

to have been "not made with hands," and to have appeared in a miraculous

way. A monk, or it may be a common mortal, has a vision, in which he

is informed that he may find a miraculous Icon in such a place, and on

going to the spot indicated he finds it, sometimes buried, sometimes

hanging on a tree. The sacred treasure is then removed to a church, and

the news spreads like wildfire through the district. Thousands flock to

prostrate themselves before the heaven-sent picture, and some are healed

of their diseases--a fact that plainly indicates its miracle-working

power. The whole affair is then officially reported to the Most Holy

Synod, the highest ecclesiastical authority in Russia, in order that

the existence of the miracle-working power may be fully and regularly

proved. The official recognition of the fact is by no means a mere

matter of form, for the Synod is well aware that wonder-working Icons

are always a rich source of revenue to the monasteries where they are

kept, and that zealous Superiors are consequently apt in such cases

to lean to the side of credulity, rather than that of over-severe

criticism. A regular investigation is therefore made, and the formal

recognition is not granted till the testimony of the finder is

thoroughly examined and the alleged miracles duly authenticated. If

the recognition is granted, the Icon is treated with the greatest

veneration, and is sure to be visited by pilgrims from far and near.

Some of the most revered Icons--as, for instance, the Kazan

Madonna--have annual fete-days instituted in their honour; or, more

correctly speaking, the anniversary of their miraculous appearance is

observed as a religions holiday. A few of them have an additional title

to popular respect and veneration: that of being intimately associated

with great events in the national history. The Vladimir Madonna, for

example, once saved Moscow from the Tartars; the Smolensk Madonna

accompanied the army in the glorious campaign against Napoleon in

1812; and when in that year it was known in Moscow that the French were

advancing on the city, the people wished the Metropolitan to take the

Iberian Madonna, which may still be seen near one of the gates of the

Kremlin, and to lead them out armed with hatchets against the enemy.

If the Russian priests have done little to advance popular education,

they have at least never intentionally opposed it. Unlike their Roman

Catholic brethren, they do not hold that "a little learning is a

dangerous thing," and do not fear that faith may be endangered by

knowledge. Indeed, it is a remarkable fact that the Russian Church

regards with profound apathy those various intellectual movements which

cause serious alarm to many thoughtful Christians in Western Europe. It

considers religion as something so entirely apart that its votaries

do not feel the necessity of bringing their theological beliefs into

logical harmony with their scientific conceptions. A man may remain a

good orthodox Christian long after he has adopted scientific opinions

irreconcilable with Eastern Orthodoxy, or, indeed, with dogmatic

Christianity of any kind. In the confessional the priest never seeks to

ferret out heretical opinions; and I can recall no instance in

Russian history of a man being burnt at the stake on the demand of the

ecclesiastical authorities, as so often happened in the Roman Catholic

world, for his scientific views. This tolerance proceeds partly, no

doubt, from the fact that the Eastern Church in general, and the

Russian Church in particular, have remained for centuries in a kind of

intellectual torpor. Even such a fervent orthodox Christian as the late

Ivan Aksakof perceived this absence of healthy vitality, and he did

not hesitate to declare his conviction that, "neither the Russian nor the

Slavonic world will be resuscitated . . . so long as the Church remains

in such lifelessness (mertvennost'), which is not a matter of chance,

but the legitimate fruit of some organic defect."*

* Solovyoff, "Otcherki ig istorii Russkoi Literaturi XIX.

veka." St. Petersburg, 1903, p. 269.

Though the unsatisfactory condition of the parochial clergy is generally

recognised by the educated classes, very few people take the trouble

to consider seriously how it might be improved. During the Reform

enthusiasm which raged for some years after the Crimean War

ecclesiastical affairs were entirely overlooked. Many of the reformers

of those days were so very "advanced" that religion in all its forms

seemed to them an old-world superstition which tended to retard rather

than accelerate social progress, and which consequently should be

allowed to die as tranquilly as possible; whilst the men of more

moderate views found they had enough to do in emancipating the serfs

and reforming the corrupt civil and judicial Administration. During the

subsequent reactionary period, which culminated in the reign of the

late Emperor, Alexander III., much more attention was devoted to Church

matters, and it came to be recognised in official circles that something

ought to be done for the parish clergy in the way of improving their

material condition so as to increase their moral influence. With this

object in view, M. Pobedonostsef, the Procurator of the Holy Synod,

induced the Government in 1893 to make a State-grant of about 6,500,000

roubles, which should be increased every year, but the sum was very

inadequate, and a large portion of it was devoted to purposes of

political propaganda in the form of maintaining Greek Orthodox priests

in districts where the population was Protestant or Roman Catholic.

Consequently, of the 35,865 parishes which Russia contains, only 18,936,

or a little more than one-half, were enabled to benefit by the grant. In

an optimistic, semi-official statement published as late as 1896 it is

admitted that "the means for the support of the parish clergy must even

now be considered insufficient and wanting in stability, making the

priests dependent on the parishioners, and thereby preventing the

establishment of the necessary moral authority of the spiritual father

over his flock."

In some places the needs of the Church are attended to by voluntary

parish-curatorships which annually raise a certain sum of money, and the

way in which they distribute it is very characteristic of the Russian

people, who have a profound veneration for the Church and its rites, but

very little consideration for the human beings who serve at the altar.

In 14,564 parishes possessing such curatorships no less than 2,500,000

roubles were collected, but of this sum 2,000,000 were expended on the

maintenance and embellishment of churches, and only 174,000 were devoted

to the personal wants of the clergy. According to the semi-official

document from which these figures are taken the whole body of the

Russian White Clergy in 1893 numbered 99,391, of whom 42,513 were

priests, 12,953 deacons, and 43,925 clerks.

In more recent observations among the parochial clergy I have noticed

premonitory symptoms of important changes. This may be illustrated by

an entry in my note-book, written in a village of one of the Southern

provinces, under date of 30th September, 1903:

"I have made here the acquaintance of two good specimens of the parish

clergy, both excellent men in their way, but very different from each

other. The elder one, Father Dmitri, is of the old school, a plain,

practical man, who fulfils his duties conscientiously according to his

lights, but without enthusiasm. His intellectual wants are very limited,

and he devotes his attention chiefly to the practical affairs of

everyday life, which he manages very successfully. He does not squeeze

his parishioners unduly, but he considers that the labourer is worthy of

his hire, and insists on his flock providing for his wants according to

their means. At the same time he farms on his own account and attends

personally to all the details of his farming operations. With the

condition and doings of every member of his flock he is intimately

acquainted, and, on the whole, as he never idealised anything or

anybody, he has not a very high opinion of them.

"The younger priest, Father Alexander, is of a different type, and the

difference may be remarked even in his external appearance. There is a

look of delicacy and refinement about him, though his dress and

domestic surroundings are of the plainest, and there is not a tinge of

affectation in his manner. His language is less archaic and picturesque.

He uses fewer Biblical and semi-Slavonic expressions--I mean expressions

which belong to the antiquated language of the Church Service rather

than to modern parlance--and his armoury of terse popular proverbs

which constitute such a characteristic trait of the peasantry, is less

frequently drawn on. When I ask him about the present condition of the

peasantry, his account does not differ substantially from that of his

elder colleague, but he does not condemn their sins in the same forcible

terms. He laments their shortcomings in an evangelical spirit and has

apparently aspirations for their future improvement. Admitting frankly

that there is a great deal of lukewarmness among them, he hopes to

revive their interest in ecclesiastical affairs and he has an idea of

constituting a sort of church committee for attending to the temporal

affairs of the village church and for works of charity, but he looks to

influencing the younger rather than the older generation.

"His interest in his parishioners is not confined to their spiritual

welfare, but extends to their material well-being. Of late an

association for mutual credit has been founded in the village, and

he uses his influence to induce the peasants to take advantage of the

benefits it offers, both to those who are in need of a little ready

money and to those who might invest their savings, instead of keeping

them hidden away in an old stocking or buried in an earthen pot. The

proposal to create a local agricultural society meets also with his

sympathy."

If the number of parish priests of this type increase, the clergy may

come to exercise great moral influence on the common people.

CHAPTER V

A MEDICAL CONSULTATION

Unexpected Illness--A Village Doctor--Siberian Plague--My

Studies--Russian Historians--A Russian Imitator of Dickens--A ci-devant

Domestic Serf--Medicine and Witchcraft--A Remnant of Paganism--Credulity

of the Peasantry--Absurd Rumours--A Mysterious Visit from St.

Barbara--Cholera on Board a Steamer--Hospitals--Lunatic Asylums--Amongst

Maniacs.

In enumerating the requisites for travelling in the less frequented

parts of Russia, I omitted to mention one important condition: the

traveller should be always in good health, and in case of illness be

ready to dispense with regular medical attendance. This I learned by

experience during my stay at Ivanofka.

A man who is accustomed to be always well, and has consequently cause

to believe himself exempt from the ordinary ills that flesh is heir

to, naturally feels aggrieved--as if some one had inflicted upon him

an undeserved injury--when he suddenly finds himself ill. At first he

refuses to believe the fact, and, as far as possible, takes no notice of

the disagreeable symptoms.

Such was my state of mind on being awakened early one morning by

peculiar symptoms which I had never before experienced. Unwilling to

admit to myself the possibility of being ill, I got up, and endeavoured

to dress as usual, but very soon discovered that I was unable to stand.

There was no denying the fact; not only was I ill, but the malady,

whatever it was, surpassed my powers of diagnosis; and when the

symptoms increased steadily all that day and the following night, I

was constrained to take the humiliating decision of asking for medical

advice. To my inquiries whether there was a doctor in the neighbourhood,

the old servant replied, "There is not exactly a doctor, but there is a

Feldsher in the village."

"And what is a Feldsher?"

"A Feldsher is . . . . is a Feldsher."

"I am quite aware of that, but I would like to know what you mean by the

word. What is this Feldsher?"

"He's an old soldier who dresses wounds and gives physic."

The definition did not predispose me in favour of the mysterious

personage, but as there was nothing better to be had I ordered him to be

sent for, notwithstanding the strenuous opposition of the old servant,

who evidently did not believe in feldshers.

In about half an hour a tall, broad-shouldered man entered, and

stood bolt upright in the middle of the room in the attitude which

is designated in military language by the word "Attention." His

clean-shaven chin, long moustache, and closely-cropped hair confirmed

one part of the old servant's definition; he was unmistakably an old

soldier.

"You are a Feldsher," I said, making use of the word which I had

recently added to my vocabulary.

"Exactly so, your Nobility!" These words, the ordinary form of

affirmation used by soldiers to their officers, were pronounced in a

loud, metallic, monotonous tone, as if the speaker had been an automaton

conversing with a brother automaton at a distance of twenty yards.

As soon as the words were pronounced the mouth of the machine closed

spasmodically, and the head, which had been momentarily turned towards

me, reverted to its former position with a jerk as if it had received

the order "Eyes front!"

"Then please to sit down here, and I'll tell you about my ailment."

Upon this the figure took three paces to the front, wheeled to the

right-about, and sat down on the edge of the chair, retaining the

position of "Attention" as nearly as the sitting posture would allow.

When the symptoms had been carefully described, he knitted his brows,

and after some reflection remarked, "I can give you a dose of . . . ."

Here followed a long word which I did not understand.

"I don't wish you to give me a dose of anything till I know what is the

matter with me. Though a bit of a doctor myself, I have no idea what it

is, and, pardon me, I think you are in the same position." Noticing

a look of ruffled professional dignity on his face, I added, as a

sedative, "It is evidently something very peculiar, so that if the first

medical practitioner in the country were present he would probably be as

much puzzled as ourselves."

The sedative had the desired effect. "Well, sir, to tell you the truth,"

he said, in a more human tone of voice, "I do not clearly understand

what it is."

"Exactly; and therefore I think we had better leave the cure to Nature,

and not interfere with her mode of treatment."

"Perhaps it would be better."

"No doubt. And now, since I have to lie here on my back, and feel rather

lonely, I should like to have a talk with you. You are not in a hurry, I

hope?"

"Not at all. My assistant knows where I am, and will send for me if I am

required."

"So you have an assistant, have you?"

"Oh, yes; a very sharp young fellow, who has been two years in the

Feldsher school, and has now come here to help me and learn more by

practice. That is a new way. I never was at a school of the kind myself,

and had to pick up what I could when a servant in the hospital. There

were, I believe, no such schools in my time. The one where my assistant

learned was opened by the Zemstvo."

"The Zemstvo is the new local administration, is it not?"

"Exactly so. And I could not do without the assistant," continued my new

acquaintance, gradually losing his rigidity, and showing himself, what

he really was, a kindly, talkative man. "I have often to go to other

villages, and almost every day a number of peasants come here. At first

I had very little to do, for the people thought I was an official, and

would make them pay dearly for what I should give them; but now they

know that they don't require to pay, and come in great numbers. And

everything I give them--though sometimes I don't clearly understand what

the matter is--seems to do them good. I believe that faith does as much

as physic."

"In my country," I remarked, "there is a sect of doctors who get the

benefit of that principle. They give their patients two or three little

balls no bigger than a pin's head, or a few drops of tasteless liquid,

and they sometimes work wonderful cures."

"That system would not do for us. The Russian muzhik would have no

faith if he swallowed merely things of that kind. What he believes in is

something with a very bad taste, and lots of it. That is his idea of a

medicine; and he thinks that the more he takes of a medicine the better

chance he has of getting well. When I wish to give a peasant several

doses I make him come for each separate dose, for I know that if I did

not he would probably swallow the whole as soon as he was out of sight.

But there is not much serious disease here--not like what I used to see

on the Sheksna. You have been on the Sheksna?"

"Not yet, but I intend going there." The Sheksna is a river which

falls into the Volga, and forms part of the great system of

water-communication connecting the Volga with the Neva.

"When you go there you will see lots of diseases. If there is a hot

summer, and plenty of barges passing, something is sure to break

out--typhus, or black small-pox, or Siberian plague, or something of the

kind. That Siberian plague is a curious thing. Whether it really comes

from Siberia, God only knows. So soon as it breaks out the horses die

by dozens, and sometimes men and women are attacked, though it is not

properly a human disease. They say that flies carry the poison from the

dead horses to the people. The sign of it is a thing like a boil, with

a dark-coloured rim. If this is cut open in time the person may recover,

but if it is not, the person dies. There is cholera, too, sometimes."

"What a delightful country," I said to myself, "for a young doctor who

wishes to make discoveries in the science of disease!"

The catalogue of diseases inhabiting this favoured region was apparently

not yet complete, but it was cut short for the moment by the arrival of

the assistant, with the announcement that his superior was wanted.

This first interview with the feldsher was, on the whole, satisfactory.

He had not rendered me any medical assistance, but he had helped me to

pass an hour pleasantly, and had given me a little information of the

kind I desired. My later interviews with him were equally agreeable. He

was naturally an intelligent, observant man, who had seen a great deal

of the Russian world, and could describe graphically what he had seen.

Unfortunately the horizontal position to which I was condemned prevented

me from noting down at the time the interesting things which he related

to me. His visits, together with those of Karl Karl'itch and of the

priest, who kindly spent a great part of his time with me, helped me to

while away many an hour which would otherwise have been dreary enough.

During the intervals when I was alone I devoted myself to

reading--sometimes Russian history and sometimes works of fiction. The

history was that of Karamzin, who may fairly be called the Russian Livy.

It interested me much by the facts which it contained, but irritated me

not a little by the rhetorical style in which it is written. Afterwards,

when I had waded through some twenty volumes of the gigantic work

of Solovyoff--or Solovief, as the name is sometimes unphonetically

written--which is simply a vast collection of valuable but undigested

material, I was much less severe on the picturesque descriptions and

ornate style of his illustrious predecessor. The first work of fiction

which I read was a collection of tales by Grigorovitch, which had been

given to me by the author on my departure from St. Petersburg. These

tales, descriptive of rural life in Russia, had been written, as the

author afterwards admitted to me, under the influence of Dickens. Many

of the little tricks and affectations which became painfully obtrusive

in Dickens's later works I had no difficulty in recognising under their

Russian garb. In spite of these I found the book very pleasant reading,

and received from it some new notions--to be afterwards verified, of

course--about Russian peasant life.

One of these tales made a deep impression upon me, and I still remember

the chief incidents. The story opens with the description of a village

in late autumn. It has been raining for some time heavily, and the road

has become covered with a deep layer of black mud. An old woman--a small

proprietor--is sitting at home with a friend, drinking tea and trying to

read the future by means of a pack of cards. This occupation is suddenly

interrupted by the entrance of a female servant, who announces that

she has discovered an old man, apparently very ill, lying in one of the

outhouses. The old woman goes out to see her uninvited guest, and, being

of a kindly nature, prepares to have him removed to a more comfortable

place, and properly attended to; but her servant whispers to her that

perhaps he is a vagrant, and the generous impulse is thereby checked.

When it is discovered that the suspicion is only too well founded, and

that the man has no passport, the old woman becomes thoroughly alarmed.

Her imagination pictures to her the terrible consequences that would

ensue if the police should discover that she had harboured a vagrant.

All her little fortune might be extorted from her. And if the old man

should happen to die in her house or farmyard! The consequences in that

case might be very serious. Not only might she lose everything, but she

might even be dragged to prison. At the sight of these dangers the old

woman forgets her tender-heartedness, and becomes inexorable. The old

man, sick unto death though he be, must leave the premises instantly.

Knowing full well that he will nowhere find a refuge, he walks forth

into the cold, dark, stormy night, and next morning a dead body is found

at a short distance from the village.

Why this story, which was not strikingly remarkable for artistic merit,

impressed me so deeply I cannot say. Perhaps it was because I was myself

ill at the time, and imagined how terrible it would be to be turned out

on the muddy road on a cold, wet October night. Besides this, the story

interested me as illustrating the terror which the police inspired

during the reign of Nicholas I. The ingenious devices which they

employed for extorting money formed the subject of another sketch, which

I read shortly afterwards, and which has likewise remained in my memory.

The facts were as follows: An officer of rural police, when driving on

a country road, finds a dead body by the wayside. Congratulating himself

on this bit of good luck, he proceeds to the nearest village, and lets

the inhabitants know that all manner of legal proceedings will be taken

against them, so that the supposed murderer may be discovered. The

peasants are of course frightened, and give him a considerable sum of

money in order that he may hush up the affair. An ordinary officer

of police would have been quite satisfied with this ransom, but this

officer is not an ordinary man, and is very much in need of money; he

conceives, therefore, the brilliant idea of repeating the experiment.

Taking up the dead body, he takes it away in his tarantass, and a few

hours later declares to the inhabitants of a village some miles off

that some of them have been guilty of murder, and that he intends to

investigate the matter thoroughly. The peasants of course pay liberally

in order to escape the investigation, and the rascally officer,

emboldened by success, repeats the trick in different villages until he

has gathered a large sum.

Tales and sketches of this kind were very much in fashion during the

years which followed the death of the great autocrat, Nicholas I., when

the long-pent-up indignation against his severe, repressive regime was

suddenly allowed free expression, and they were still much read during

the first years of my stay in the country. Now the public taste

has changed. The reform enthusiast has evaporated, and the existing

administrative abuses, more refined and less comical than their

predecessors, receive comparatively little attention from the satirists.

When I did not feel disposed to read, and had none of my regular

visitors with me, I sometimes spent an hour or two in talking with the

old man-servant who attended me. Anton was decidedly an old man, but

what his age precisely was I never could discover; either he did not

know himself, or he did not wish to tell me. In appearance he seemed

about sixty, but from certain remarks which he made I concluded that he

must be nearer seventy, though he had scarcely a grey hair on his head.

As to who his father was he seemed, like the famous Topsy, to have no

very clear ideas, but he had an advantage over Topsy with regard to his

maternal ancestry. His mother had been a serf who had fulfilled for some

time the functions of a lady's maid, and after the death of her

mistress had been promoted to a not very clearly defined position of

responsibility in the household. Anton, too, had been promoted in

his time. His first function in the household had been that of

assistant-keeper of the tobacco-pipes, from which humble office he had

gradually risen to a position which may be roughly designated as that of

butler. All this time he had been, of course, a serf, as his mother had

been before him; but being naturally a man of sluggish intellect, he had

never thoroughly realised the fact, and had certainly never conceived

the possibility of being anything different from what he was. His master

was master, and he himself was Anton, obliged to obey his master, or

at least conceal disobedience--these were long the main facts in his

conception of the universe, and, as philosophers generally do with

regard to fundamental facts or axioms, he had accepted them without

examination. By means of these simple postulates he had led a tranquil

life, untroubled by doubts, until the year 1861, when the so-called

freedom was brought to Ivanofka. He himself had not gone to the church

to hear Batushka read the Tsar's manifesto, but his master, on returning

from the ceremony, had called him and said, "Anton, you are free now,

but the Tsar says you are to serve as you have done for two years

longer."

To this startling announcement Anton had replied coolly, "Slushayus,"

or, as we would say, "Yes, sir," and without further comment had gone to

fetch his master's breakfast; but what he saw and heard during the next

few weeks greatly troubled his old conceptions of human society and

the fitness of things. From that time must be dated, I suppose, the

expression of mental confusion which his face habitually wore.

The first thing that roused his indignation was the conduct of his

fellow-servants. Nearly all the unmarried ones seemed to be suddenly

attacked by a peculiar matrimonial mania. The reason of this was that

the new law expressly gave permission to the emancipated serfs to marry

as they chose without the consent of their masters, and nearly all the

unmarried adults hastened to take advantage of their newly-acquired

privilege, though many of them had great difficulty in raising the

capital necessary to pay the priest's fees. Then came disorders among

the peasantry, the death of the old master, and the removal of the

family first to St. Petersburg, and afterwards to Germany. Anton's mind

had never been of a very powerful order, and these great events had

exercised a deleterious influence upon it. When Karl Karl'itch, at the

expiry of the two years, informed him that he might now go where he

chose, he replied, with a look of blank, unfeigned astonishment, "Where

can I go to?" He had never conceived the possibility of being forced

to earn his bread in some new way, and begged Karl Karl'itch to let him

remain where he was. This request was readily granted, for Anton was an

honest, faithful servant, and sincerely attached to the family, and it

was accordingly arranged that he should receive a small monthly salary,

and occupy an intermediate position between those of major-domo and head

watch-dog.

Had Anton been transformed into a real watch-dog he could scarcely have

slept more than he did. His power of sleeping, and his somnolence when

he imagined he was awake, were his two most prominent characteristics.

Out of consideration for his years and his love of repose, I troubled

him as little as possible; but even the small amount of service which

I demanded he contrived to curtail in an ingenious way. The time and

exertion required for traversing the intervening space between his

own room and mine might, he thought, be more profitably employed; and

accordingly he extemporised a bed in a small ante-chamber, close to

my door, and took up there his permanent abode. If sonorous snoring be

sufficient proof that the performer is asleep, then I must conclude that

Anton devoted about three-fourths of his time to sleeping and a

large part of the remaining fourth to yawning and elongated guttural

ejaculations. At first this little arrangement considerably annoyed me,

but I bore it patiently, and afterwards received my reward, for during

my illness I found it very convenient to have an attendant within call.

And I must do Anton the justice to say that he served me well in his own

somnolent fashion. He seemed to have the faculty of hearing when asleep,

and generally appeared in my room before he had succeeded in getting his

eyes completely open.

Anton had never found time, during his long life, to form many opinions,

but he had somehow imbibed or inhaled a few convictions, all of a

decidedly conservative kind, and one of these was that feldshers were

useless and dangerous members of society. Again and again he had advised

me to have nothing to do with the one who visited me, and more than once

he recommended to me an old woman of the name of Masha, who lived in

a village a few miles off. Masha was what is known in Russia as a

znakharka--that is to say, a woman who is half witch, half medical

practitioner--the whole permeated with a strong leaven of knavery.

According to Anton, she could effect by means of herbs and charms every

possible cure short of raising from the dead, and even with regard to

this last operation he cautiously refrained from expressing an opinion.

The idea of being subjected to a course of herbs and charms by an old

woman who probably knew very little about the hidden properties of

either, did not seem to me inviting, and more than once I flatly

refused to have recourse to such unhallowed means. On due consideration,

however, I thought that a professional interview with the old witch

would be rather amusing, and then a brilliant idea occurred to me! I

would bring together the feldsher and the znakharka, who no doubt hated

each other with a Kilkenny-cat hatred, and let them fight out their

differences before me for the benefit of science and my own delectation.

The more I thought of my project, the more I congratulated myself on

having conceived such a scheme; but, alas! in this very imperfectly

organised world of ours brilliant ideas are seldom realised, and in this

case I was destined to be disappointed. Did the old woman's black art

warn her of approaching danger, or was she simply actuated by a feeling

of professional jealousy and considerations of professional etiquette?

To this question I can give no positive answer, but certain it is that

she could not be induced to pay me a visit, and I was thus balked of

my expected amusement. I succeeded, however, in learning indirectly

something about the old witch. She enjoyed among her neighbours that

solid, durable kind of respect which is founded on vague, undefinable

fear, and was believed to have effected many remarkable cures. In the

treatment of syphilitic diseases, which are fearfully common among the

Russian peasantry, she was supposed to be specially successful, and I

have no doubt, from the vague descriptions which I received, that the

charm which she employed in these cases was of a mercurial kind. Some

time afterward I saw one of her victims. Whether she had succeeded in

destroying the poison I know not, but she had at least succeeded in

destroying most completely the patient's teeth. How women of this kind

obtain mercury, and how they have discovered its medicinal properties,

I cannot explain. Neither can I explain how they have come to know the

peculiar properties of ergot of rye, which they frequently employ for

illicit purposes familiar to all students of medical jurisprudence.

The znakharka and the feldsher represent two very different periods

in the history of medical science--the magical and the scientific.

The Russian peasantry have still many conceptions which belong to the

former. The great majority of them are already quite willing, under

ordinary circumstances, to use the scientific means of healing; but as

soon as a violent epidemic breaks out, and the scientific means prove

unequal to the occasion, the old faith revives, and recourse is had to

magical rites and incantations. Of these rites many are very curious.

Here, for instance, is one which had been performed in a village near

which I afterwards lived for some time. Cholera had been raging in the

district for several weeks. In the village in question no case had yet

occurred, but the inhabitants feared that the dreaded visitor would soon

arrive, and the following ingenious contrivance was adopted for warding

off the danger. At midnight, when the male population was supposed to

be asleep, all the maidens met in nocturnal costume, according to a

preconcerted plan, and formed a procession. In front marched a girl,

holding an Icon. Behind her came her companions, dragging a sokha--the

primitive plough commonly used by the peasantry--by means of a long

rope. In this order the procession made the circuit of the entire

village, and it was confidently believed that the cholera would not be

able to overstep the magical circle thus described. Many of the males

probably knew, or at least suspected, what was going on; but they

prudently remained within doors, knowing well that if they should

be caught peeping indiscreetly at the mystic ceremony, they would be

unmercifully beaten by those who were taking part in it.

This custom is doubtless a survival of old pagan superstitions. The

introduction of the Icon is a modern innovation, which illustrates that

curious blending of paganism and Christianity which is often to be

met with in Russia, and of which I shall have more to say in another

chapter.

Sometimes, when an epidemic breaks out, the panic produced takes a more

dangerous form. The people suspect that it is the work of the doctors,

or that some ill-disposed persons have poisoned the wells, and no amount

of reasoning will convince them that their own habitual disregard of

the most simple sanitary precautions has something to do with the

phenomenon. I know of one case where an itinerant photographer was

severely maltreated in consequence of such suspicions; and once, in St.

Petersburg, during the reign of Nicholas I., a serious riot took place.

The excited populace had already thrown several doctors out of the

windows of the hospital, when the Emperor arrived, unattended, in an

open carriage, and quelled the disturbance by his simple presence, aided

by his stentorian voice.

Of the ignorant credulity of the Russian peasantry I might relate

many curious illustrations. The most absurd rumours sometimes awaken

consternation throughout a whole district. One of the most common

reports of this kind is that a female conscription is about to take

place. About the time of the Duke of Edinburgh's marriage with the

daughter of Alexander II. this report was specially frequent. A large

number of young girls were to be kidnapped and sent to England in a red

ship. Why the ship was to be red I can easily explain, because in the

peasants' language the conceptions of red and beautiful are expressed

by the same word (krasny), and in the popular legends the epithet is

indiscriminately applied to everything connected with princes and great

personages; but what was to be done with the kidnapped maidens when they

arrived at their destination, I never succeeded in discovering.

The most amusing instance of credulity which I can recall was the

following, related to me by a peasant woman who came from the village

where the incident had occurred. One day in winter, about the time

of sunset, a peasant family was startled by the entrance of a strange

visitor, a female figure, dressed as St. Barbara is commonly represented

in the religious pictures. All present were very much astonished by this

apparition; but the figure told them, in a low, soft voice, to be of

good cheer, for she was St. Barbara, and had come to honour the family

with a visit as a reward for their piety. The peasant thus favoured was

not remarkable for his piety, but he did not consider it necessary to

correct the mistake of his saintly visitor, and requested her to be

seated. With perfect readiness she accepted the invitation, and began at

once to discourse in an edifying way.

Meanwhile the news of this wonderful apparition spread like wildfire,

and all the inhabitants of the village, as well as those of a

neighbouring village about a mile distant, collected in and around the

house. Whether the priest was among those who came my informant did not

know. Many of those who had come could not get within hearing, but those

at the outskirts of the crowd hoped that the saint might come out before

disappearing. Their hopes were gratified. About midnight the mysterious

visitor announced that she would go and bring St. Nicholas, the

miracle-worker, and requested all to remain perfectly still during her

absence. The crowd respectfully made way for her, and she passed out

into the darkness. With breathless expectation all awaited the arrival

of St. Nicholas, who is the favourite saint of the Russian peasantry;

but hours passed, and he did not appear. At last, toward sunrise, some

of the less zealous spectators began to return home, and those of them

who had come from the neighbouring village discovered to their horror

that during their absence their horses had been stolen! At once they

raised the hue-and-cry; and the peasants scoured the country in all

directions in search of the soi-disant St. Barbara and her accomplices,

but they never recovered the stolen property. "And serve them right, the

blockheads!" added my informant, who had herself escaped falling into

the trap by being absent from the village at the time.

It is but fair to add that the ordinary Russian peasant, though in some

respects extremely credulous, and, like all other people, subject to

occasional panics, is by no means easily frightened by real dangers.

Those who have seen them under fire will readily credit this statement.

For my own part, I have had opportunities of observing them merely

in dangers of a non-military kind, and have often admired the perfect

coolness displayed. Even an epidemic alarms them only when it attains a

certain degree of intensity. Once I had a good opportunity of observing

this on board a large steamer on the Volga. It was a very hot day in

the early autumn. As it was well known that there was a great deal of

Asiatic cholera all over the country, prudent people refrained from

eating much raw fruit; but Russian peasants are not generally prudent

men, and I noticed that those on board were consuming enormous

quantities of raw cucumbers and water-melons. This imprudence was soon

followed by its natural punishment. I refrain from describing the scene

that ensued, but I may say that those who were attacked received

from the others every possible assistance. Had no unforeseen accident

happened, we should have arrived at Kazan on the following morning,

and been able to send the patients to the hospital of that town; but

as there was little water in the river, we had to cast anchor for the

night, and next morning we ran aground and stuck fast. Here we had to

remain patiently till a smaller steamer hove in sight. All this time

there was not the slightest symptom of panic, and when the small steamer

came alongside there was no frantic rush to get away from the infected

vessel, though it was quite evident that only a few of the passengers

could be taken off. Those who were nearest the gangway went quietly

on board the small steamer, and those who were less fortunate remained

patiently till another steamer happened to pass.

The old conceptions of disease, as something that may be most

successfully cured by charms and similar means, are rapidly

disappearing. The Zemstvo--that is to say, the new local

self-government--has done much towards this end by enabling the people

to procure better medical attendance. In the towns there are public

hospitals, which generally are--or at least seem to an unprofessional

eye--in a very satisfactory condition. The resident doctors are daily

besieged by a crowd of peasants, who come from far and near to ask

advice and receive medicines. Besides this, in some provinces feldshers

are placed in the principal villages, and the doctor makes frequent

tours of inspection. The doctors are generally well-educated men, and do

a large amount of work for a very small remuneration.

Of the lunatic asylums, which are generally attached to the larger

hospitals, I cannot speak very favourably. Some of the great central

ones are all that could be desired, but others are badly constructed and

fearfully overcrowded. One or two of those I visited appeared to me to

be conducted on very patriarchal principles, as the following incident

may illustrate.

I had been visiting a large hospital, and had remained there so long

that it was already dark before I reached the adjacent lunatic asylum.

Seeing no lights in the windows, I proposed to my companion, who was

one of the inspectors, that we should delay our visit till the following

morning, but he assured me that by the regulations the lights ought not

to be extinguished till considerably later, and consequently there was

no objection to our going in at once. If there was no legal objection,

there was at least a physical obstruction in the form of a large wooden

door, and all our efforts to attract the attention of the porter or some

other inmate were unavailing. At last, after much ringing, knocking, and

shouting, a voice from within asked us who we were and what we wanted. A

brief reply from my companion, not couched in the most polite or amiable

terms, made the bolts rattle and the door open with surprising rapidity,

and we saw before us an old man with long dishevelled hair, who, as

far as appearance went, might have been one of the lunatics, bowing

obsequiously and muttering apologies.

After groping our way along a dark corridor we entered a still darker

room, and the door was closed and locked behind us. As the key turned

in the rusty lock a wild scream rang through the darkness! Then came

a yell, then a howl, and then various sounds which the poverty of the

English language prevents me from designating--the whole blending into

a hideous discord that would have been at home in some of the worst

regions of Dante's Inferno. As to the cause of it I could not even form

a conjecture. Gradually my eyes became accustomed to the darkness, and I

could dimly perceive white figures flitting about the room. At the same

time I felt something standing near me, and close to my shoulder I saw

a pair of eyes and long streaming hair. On my other side, equally close,

was something very like a woman's night-cap. Though by no means of a

nervous temperament, I felt uncomfortable. To be shut up in a dark

room with an indefinite number of excited maniacs is not a comfortable

position. How long the imprisonment lasted I know not--probably not more

than two or three minutes, but it seemed a long time. At last a light

was procured, and the whole affair was explained. The guardians, not

expecting the visit of an inspector at so late an hour, had retired for

the night much earlier than usual, and the old porter had put us into

the nearest ward until he could fetch a light--locking the door behind

us lest any of the lunatics should escape. The noise had awakened one

of the unfortunate inmates of the ward, and her hysterical scream had

terrified the others.

By the influence of asylums, hospitals, and similar institutions, the

old conceptions of disease, as I have said, are gradually dying out, but

the znakharka still finds practice. The fact that the znakharka is to be

found side by side not only with the feldsher, but also with the highly

trained bacteriologist, is very characteristic of Russian civilisation,

which is a strange conglomeration of products belonging to very

different periods. The enquirer who undertakes the study of it will

sometimes be scarcely less surprised than would be the naturalist

who should unexpectedly stumble upon antediluvian megatheria grazing

tranquilly in the same field with prize Southdowns. He will discover

the most primitive institutions side by side with the latest products

of French doctrinairism, and the most childish superstitions in close

proximity with the most advanced free-thinking.

CHAPTER VI

A PEASANT FAMILY OF THE OLD TYPE

Ivan Petroff--His Past Life--Co-operative Associations--Constitution of

a Peasant's Household--Predominance of Economic Conceptions over those

of Blood-relationship--Peasant Marriages--Advantages of Living in Large

Families--Its Defects--Family Disruptions and their Consequences.

My illness had at least one good result. It brought me into contact

with the feldsher, and through him, after my recovery, I made the

acquaintance of several peasants living in the village. Of these by far

the most interesting was an old man called Ivan Petroff.

Ivan must have been about sixty years of age, but was still robust and

strong, and had the reputation of being able to mow more hay in a given

time than any other peasant in the village. His head would have made a

line study for a portrait-painter. Like Russian peasants in general,

he wore his hair parted in the middle--a custom which perhaps owes its

origin to the religious pictures. The reverend appearance given to his

face by his long fair beard, slightly tinged with grey, was in part

counteracted by his eyes, which had a strange twinkle in them--whether

of humour or of roguery, it was difficult to say. Under all

circumstances--whether in his light, nondescript summer costume, or in

his warm sheep-skin, or in the long, glossy, dark-blue, double-breasted

coat which he put on occasionally on Sundays and holidays--he always

looked a well-fed, respectable, prosperous member of society; whilst

his imperturbable composure, and the entire absence of obsequiousness or

truculence in his manner, indicated plainly that he possessed no small

amount of calm, deep-rooted self-respect. A stranger, on seeing him,

might readily have leaped to the conclusion that he must be the Village

Elder, but in reality he was a simple member of the Commune, like his

neighbour, poor Zakhar Leshkof, who never let slip an opportunity of

getting drunk, was always in debt, and, on the whole, possessed a more

than dubious reputation.

Ivan had, it is true, been Village Elder some years before. When elected

by the Village Assembly, against his own wishes, he had said quietly,

"Very well, children; I will serve my three years"; and at the end of

that period, when the Assembly wished to re-elect him, he had answered

firmly, "No, children; I have served my term. It is now the turn of some

one who is younger, and has more time. There's Peter Alekseyef, a good

fellow, and an honest; you may choose him." And the Assembly chose the

peasant indicated; for Ivan, though a simple member of the Commune, had

more influence in Communal affairs than any other half-dozen members put

together. No grave matter was decided without his being consulted,

and there was at least one instance on record of the Village Assembly

postponing deliberations for a week because he happened to be absent in

St. Petersburg.

No stranger casually meeting Ivan would ever for a moment have suspected

that that big man, of calm, commanding aspect, had been during a great

part of his life a serf. And yet a serf he had been from his birth till

he was about thirty years of age--not merely a serf of the State, but

the serf of a proprietor who had lived habitually on his property. For

thirty years of his life he had been dependent on the arbitrary will of

a master who had the legal power to flog him as often and as severely

as he considered desirable. In reality he had never been subjected to

corporal punishment, for the proprietor to whom he had belonged had

been, though in some respects severe, a just and intelligent master.

Ivan's bright, sympathetic face had early attracted the master's

attention, and it was decided that he should learn a trade. For this

purpose he was sent to Moscow, and apprenticed there to a carpenter.

After four years of apprenticeship he was able not only to earn his own

bread, but to help the household in the payment of their taxes, and to

pay annually to his master a fixed yearly sum--first ten, then twenty,

then thirty, and ultimately, for some years immediately before the

Emancipation, seventy roubles. In return for this annual sum he was free

to work and wander about as he pleased, and for some years he had made

ample use of his conditional liberty. I never succeeded in extracting

from him a chronological account of his travels, but I could gather

from his occasional remarks that he had wandered over a great part of

European Russia. Evidently he had been in his youth what is colloquially

termed "a roving blade," and had by no means confined himself to the

trade which he had learned during his four years of apprenticeship. Once

he had helped to navigate a raft from Vetluga to Astrakhan, a distance

of about two thousand miles. At another time he had been at Archangel

and Onega, on the shores of the White Sea. St. Petersburg and Moscow

were both well known to him, and he had visited Odessa.

The precise nature of Ivan's occupations during these wanderings I could

not ascertain; for, with all his openness of manner, he was extremely

reticent regarding his commercial affairs. To all my inquiries on this

topic he was wont to reply vaguely, "Lesnoe dyelo"--that is to say,

"Timber business"; and from this I concluded that his chief occupation

had been that of a timber merchant. Indeed, when I knew him, though he

was no longer a regular trader, he was always ready to buy any bit of

forest that could be bought in the vicinity for a reasonable price.

During all this nomadic period of his life Ivan had never entirely

severed his connection with his native village or with agricultural

life. When about the age of twenty he had spent several months at home,

taking part in the field labour, and had married a wife--a strong,

healthy young woman, who had been selected for him by his mother, and

strongly recommended to him on account of her good character and her

physical strength. In the opinion of Ivan's mother, beauty was a kind of

luxury which only nobles and rich merchants could afford, and ordinary

comeliness was a very secondary consideration--so secondary as to be

left almost entirely out of sight. This was likewise the opinion of

Ivan's wife. She had never been comely herself, she used to say, but she

had been a good wife to her husband. He had never complained about her

want of good looks, and had never gone after those who were considered

good-looking. In expressing this opinion she always first bent forward,

then drew herself up to her full length, and finally gave a little jerky

nod sideways, so as to clench the statement. Then Ivan's bright eye

would twinkle more brightly than usual, and he would ask her how she

knew that--reminding her that he was not always at home. This was Ivan's

stereotyped mode of teasing his wife, and every time he employed it he

was called an "old scarecrow," or something of the kind.

Perhaps, however, Ivan's jocular remark had more significance in it than

his wife cared to admit, for during the first years of their married

life they had seen very little of each other. A few days after the

marriage, when according to our notions the honeymoon should be at its

height, Ivan had gone to Moscow for several months, leaving his young

bride to the care of his father and mother. The young bride did not

consider this an extraordinary hardship, for many of her companions had

been treated in the same way, and according to public opinion in that

part of the country there was nothing abnormal in the proceeding.

Indeed, it may be said in general that there is very little romance

or sentimentality about Russian peasant marriages. In this as in other

respects the Russian peasantry are, as a class, extremely practical and

matter-of-fact in their conceptions and habits, and are not at all prone

to indulge in sublime, ethereal sentiments of any kind. They have little

or nothing of what may be termed the Hermann and Dorothea element

in their composition, and consequently know very little about those

sentimental, romantic ideas which we habitually associate with the

preliminary steps to matrimony. Even those authors who endeavour to

idealise peasant life have rarely ventured to make their story turn on

a sentimental love affair. Certainly in real life the wife is taken as a

helpmate, or in plain language a worker, rather than as a companion, and

the mother-in-law leaves her very little time to indulge in fruitless

dreaming.

As time wore on, and his father became older and frailer, Ivan's visits

to his native place became longer and more frequent, and when the old

man was at last incapable of work, Ivan settled down permanently and

undertook the direction of the household. In the meantime his

own children had been growing up. When I knew the family it

comprised--besides two daughters who had married early and gone to

live with their parents-in-law--Ivan and his wife, two sons, three

daughters-in-law, and an indefinite and frequently varying number of

grandchildren. The fact that there were three daughters-in-law and only

two sons was the result of the Conscription, which had taken away the

youngest son shortly after his marriage. The two who remained spent only

a small part of the year at home. The one was a carpenter and the

other a bricklayer, and both wandered about the country in search of

employment, as their father had done in his younger days. There was,

however, one difference. The father had always shown a leaning towards

commercial transactions, rather than the simple practice of his

handicraft, and consequently he had usually lived and travelled alone.

The sons, on the contrary, confined themselves to their handicrafts, and

were always during the working season members of an artel.

The artel in its various forms is a curious institution. Those to which

Ivan's sons belonged were simply temporary, itinerant associations of

workmen, who during the summer lived together, fed together, worked

together, and periodically divided amongst themselves the profits. This

is the primitive form of the institution, and is now not very often met

with. Here, as elsewhere, capital has made itself felt, and destroyed

that equality which exists among the members of an artel in the above

sense of the word. Instead of forming themselves into a temporary

association, the workmen now generally make an engagement with a

contractor who has a little capital, and receive from him fixed monthly

wages. The only association which exists in this case is for the

purchase and preparation of provisions, and even these duties are very

often left to the contractor.

In some of the larger towns there are artels of a much more complex

kind--permanent associations, possessing a large capital, and

pecuniarily responsible for the acts of the individual members. Of

these, by far the most celebrated is that of the Bank Porters. These men

have unlimited opportunities of stealing, and are often entrusted with

the guarding or transporting of enormous sums; but the banker has no

cause for anxiety, because he knows that if any defalcations occur

they will be made good to him by the artel. Such accidents very rarely

happen, and the fact is by no means so extraordinary as many people

suppose. The artel, being responsible for the individuals of which it

is composed, is very careful in admitting new members, and a man when

admitted is closely watched, not only by the regularly constituted

office-bearers, but also by all his fellow-members who have an

opportunity of observing him. If he begins to spend money too freely or

to neglect his duties, though his employer may know nothing of the

fact, suspicions are at once aroused among his fellow-members, and an

investigation ensues--ending in summary expulsion if the suspicions

prove to have been well founded. Mutual responsibility, in short,

creates a very effective system of mutual supervision.

Of Ivan's sons, the one who was a carpenter visited his family only

occasionally, and at irregular intervals; the bricklayer, on the

contrary, as building is impossible in Russia during the cold weather,

spent the greater part of the winter at home. Both of them paid a large

part of their earnings into the family treasury, over which their father

exercised uncontrolled authority. If he wished to make any considerable

outlay, he consulted his sons on the subject; but as he was a prudent,

intelligent man, and enjoyed the respect and confidence of the family,

he never met with any strong opposition. All the field work was

performed by him with the assistance of his daughters-in-law; only at

harvest time he hired one or two labourers to help him.

Ivan's household was a good specimen of the Russian peasant family

of the old type. Previous to the Emancipation in 1861 there were

many households of this kind, containing the representatives of

three generations. All the members, young and old, lived together in

patriarchal fashion under the direction and authority of the Head of the

House, called usually the Khozain--that is to say, the Administrator;

or, in some districts, the Bolshak, which means literally "the Big

One." Generally speaking, this important position was occupied by the

grandfather, or, if he was dead, by the eldest brother, but the rule

was not very strictly observed. If, for instance, the grandfather became

infirm, or if the eldest brother was incapacitated by disorderly

habits or other cause, the place of authority was taken by some other

member--it might be by a woman--who was a good manager, and possessed

the greatest moral influence.

The relations between the Head of the Household and the other members

depended on custom and personal character, and they consequently varied

greatly in different families. If the Big One was an intelligent man,

of decided, energetic character, like my friend Ivan, there was probably

perfect discipline in the household, except perhaps in the matter of

female tongues, which do not readily submit to the authority even

of their owners; but very often it happened that the Big One was not

thoroughly well fitted for his post, and in that case endless quarrels

and bickerings inevitably took place. Those quarrels were generally

caused and fomented by the female members of the family--a fact which

will not seem strange if we try to realise how difficult it must be

for several sisters-in-law to live together, with their children and a

mother-in-law, within the narrow limits of a peasant's household. The

complaints of the young bride, who finds that her mother-in-law puts all

the hard work on her shoulders, form a favourite motive in the popular

poetry.

The house, with its appurtenances, the cattle, the agricultural

implements, the grain and other products, the money gained from the

sale of these products--in a word, the house and nearly everything it

contained--were the joint property of the family. Hence nothing was

bought or sold by any member--not even by the Big One himself, unless he

possessed an unusual amount of authority--without the express or tacit

consent of the other grown-up males, and all the money that was earned

was put into the common purse. When one of the sons left home to work

elsewhere, he was expected to bring or send home all his earnings,

except what he required for food, lodgings, and other necessary

expenses; and if he understood the word "necessary" in too lax a sense,

he had to listen to very plain-spoken reproaches when he returned.

During his absence, which might last for a whole year or several years,

his wife and children remained in the house as before, and the money

which he earned could be devoted to the payment of the family taxes.

The peasant household of the old type is thus a primitive labour

association, of which the members have all things in common, and it is

not a little remarkable that the peasant conceives it as such rather

than as a family. This is shown by the customary terminology, for

the Head of the Household is not called by any word corresponding

to Paterfamilias, but is termed, as I have said, Khozain, or

Administrator--a word that is applied equally to a farmer, a shopkeeper

or the head of an industrial undertaking, and does not at all convey

the idea of blood-relationship. It is likewise shown by what takes

place when a household is broken up. On such occasions the degree of

blood-relationship is not taken into consideration in the distribution

of the property. All the adult male members share equally. Illegitimate

and adopted sons, if they have contributed their share of labour,

have the same rights as the sons born in lawful wedlock. The married

daughter, on the contrary--being regarded as belonging to her husband's

family--and the son who has previously separated himself from the

household, are excluded from the succession. Strictly speaking, the

succession or inheritance is confined to the wearing apparel and any

little personal effects of a deceased member. The house and all that it

contains belong to the little household community; and, consequently,

when it is broken up, by the death of the Khozain or other cause, the

members do not inherit, but merely appropriate individually what

they had hitherto possessed collectively. Thus there is properly no

inheritance or succession, but simply liquidation and distribution of

the property among the members. The written law of inheritance founded

on the conception of personal property, is quite unknown to the

peasantry, and quite inapplicable to their mode of life. In this way a

large and most important section of the Code remains a dead letter for

about four-fifths of the population.

This predominance of practical economic considerations is exemplified

also by the way in which marriages are arranged in these large families.

In the primitive system of agriculture usually practised in Russia, the

natural labour-unit--if I may use such a term--comprises a man, a

woman, and a horse. As soon, therefore, as a boy becomes an able-bodied

labourer he ought to be provided with the two accessories necessary

for the completion of the labour-unit. To procure a horse, either by

purchase or by rearing a foal, is the duty of the Head of the House;

to procure a wife for the youth is the duty of "the female Big One"

(Bolshukha). And the chief consideration in determining the choice is

in both cases the same. Prudent domestic administrators are not to

be tempted by showy horses or beautiful brides; what they seek is not

beauty, but physical strength and capacity for work. When the youth

reaches the age of eighteen he is informed that he ought to marry at

once, and as soon as he gives his consent negotiations are opened with

the parents of some eligible young person. In the larger villages the

negotiations are sometimes facilitated by certain old women called

svakhi, who occupy themselves specially with this kind of mediation; but

very often the affair is arranged directly by, or through the agency of,

some common friend of the two houses.

Care must of course be taken that there is no legal obstacle, and

these obstacles are not always easily avoided in a small village, the

inhabitants of which have been long in the habit of intermarrying.

According to Russian ecclesiastical law, not only is marriage between

first-cousins illegal, but affinity is considered as equivalent to

consanguinity--that is to say a mother-in-law and a sister-in-law are

regarded as a mother and a sister--and even the fictitious relationship

created by standing together at the baptismal font as godfather and

godmother is legally recognised, and may constitute a bar to matrimony.

If all the preliminary negotiations are successful, the marriage takes

place, and the bridegroom brings his bride home to the house of which

he is a member. She brings nothing with her as a dowry except her

trousseau, but she brings a pair of good strong arms, and thereby

enriches her adopted family. Of course it happens occasionally--for

human nature is everywhere essentially the same--that a young peasant

falls in love with one of his former playmates, and brings his little

romance to a happy conclusion at the altar; but such cases are very

rare, and as a rule it may be said that the marriages of the Russian

peasantry are arranged under the influence of economic rather than

sentimental considerations.

The custom of living in large families has many economic advantages. We

all know the edifying fable of the dying man who showed to his sons by

means of a piece of wicker-work the advantages of living together and

assisting each other. In ordinary times the necessary expenses of a

large household of ten members are considerably less than the combined

expenses of two households comprising five members each, and when a

"black day" comes a large family can bear temporary adversity much

more successfully than a small one. These are principles of world-wide

application, but in the life of the Russian peasantry they have a

peculiar force. Each adult peasant possesses, as I shall hereafter

explain, a share of the Communal land, but this share is not sufficient

to occupy all his time and working power. One married pair can easily

cultivate two shares--at least in all provinces where the peasant

allotments are not very large. Now, if a family is composed of two

married couples, one of the men can go elsewhere and earn money, whilst

the other, with his wife and sister-in-law, can cultivate the two

combined shares of land. If, on the contrary a family consists merely

of one pair with their children, the man must either remain at home--in

which case he may have difficulty in finding work for the whole of his

time--or he must leave home, and entrust the cultivation of his share

of the land to his wife, whose time must be in great part devoted to

domestic affairs.

In the time of serfage the proprietors clearly perceived these and

similar advantages, and compelled their serfs to live together in large

families. No family could be broken up without the proprietor's consent,

and this consent was not easily obtained unless the family had assumed

quite abnormal proportions and was permanently disturbed by domestic

dissension. In the matrimonial affairs of the serfs, too, the majority

of the proprietors systematically exercised a certain supervision,

not necessarily from any paltry meddling spirit, but because their own

material interests were thereby affected. A proprietor would not,

for instance, allow the daughter of one of his serfs to marry a serf

belonging to another proprietor--because he would thereby lose a female

labourer--unless some compensation were offered. The compensation might

be a sum of money, or the affair might be arranged on the principle of

reciprocity by the master of the bridegroom allowing one of his female

serfs to marry a serf belonging to the master of the bride.

However advantageous the custom of living in large families may appear

when regarded from the economic point of view, it has very serious

defects, both theoretical and practical.

That families connected by the ties of blood-relationship and marriage

can easily live together in harmony is one of those social axioms which

are accepted universally and believed by nobody. We all know by our own

experience, or by that of others, that the friendly relations of two

such families are greatly endangered by proximity of habitation. To

live in the same street is not advisable; to occupy adjoining houses is

positively dangerous; and to live under the same roof is certainly fatal

to prolonged amity. There may be the very best intentions on both sides,

and the arrangement may be inaugurated by the most gushing expressions

of undying affection and by the discovery of innumerable secret

affinities, but neither affinities, affection, nor good intentions can

withstand the constant friction and occasional jerks which inevitably

ensue.

Now the reader must endeavour to realise that Russian peasants, even

when clad in sheep-skins, are human beings like ourselves. Though they

are often represented as abstract entities--as figures in a table

of statistics or dots on a diagram--they have in reality "organs,

dimensions, senses, affections, passions." If not exactly "fed with the

same food," they are at least "hurt with the same weapons, subject to

the same diseases, healed by the same means," and liable to be irritated

by the same annoyances as we are. And those of them who live in large

families are subjected to a kind of probation that most of us have never

dreamed of. The families comprising a large household not only live

together, but have nearly all things in common. Each member works, not

for himself, but for the household, and all that he earns is expected to

go into the family treasury. The arrangement almost inevitably leads to

one of two results--either there are continual dissensions, or order is

preserved by a powerful domestic tyranny.

It is quite natural, therefore, that when the authority of the landed

proprietors was abolished in 1861, the large peasant families almost all

crumbled to pieces. The arbitrary rule of the Khozain was based on, and

maintained by, the arbitrary rule of the proprietor, and both naturally

fell together. Households like that of our friend Ivan were preserved

only in exceptional cases, where the Head of the House happened to

possess an unusual amount of moral influence over the other members.

This change has unquestionably had a prejudicial influence on the

material welfare of the peasantry, but it must have added considerably

to their domestic comfort, and may perhaps produce good moral results.

For the present, however, the evil consequences are by far the most

prominent. Every married peasant strives to have a house of his own,

and many of them, in order to defray the necessary expenses, have been

obliged to contract debts. This is a very serious matter. Even if the

peasants could obtain money at five or six per cent., the position of

the debtors would be bad enough, but it is in reality much worse, for

the village usurers consider twenty or twenty-five per cent. a by no

means exorbitant rate of interest. A laudable attempt has been made

to remedy this state of things by village banks, but these have proved

successful only in certain exceptional localities. As a rule the peasant

who contracts debts has a hard struggle to pay the interest in ordinary

times, and when some misfortune overtakes him--when, for instance, the

harvest is bad or his horse is stolen--he probably falls hopelessly into

pecuniary embarrassments. I have seen peasants not specially addicted

to drunkenness or other ruinous habits sink to a helpless state of

insolvency. Fortunately for such insolvent debtors, they are treated by

the law with extreme leniency. Their house, their share of the common

land, their agricultural implements, their horse--in a word, all that

is necessary for their subsistence, is exempt from sequestration. The

Commune, however, may bring strong pressure to bear on those who do

not pay their taxes. When I lived among the peasantry in the seventies,

corporal punishment inflicted by order of the Commune was among the

means usually employed; and though the custom was recently prohibited

by an Imperial decree of Nicholas II, I am not at all sure that it has

entirely disappeared.

CHAPTER VII

THE PEASANTRY OF THE NORTH

Communal Land--System of Agriculture--Parish Fetes--Fasting--Winter

Occupations--Yearly Migrations--Domestic Industries--Influence

of Capital and Wholesale Enterprise--The State

Peasants--Serf-dues--Buckle's "History of Civilisation"--A precocious

Yamstchik--"People Who Play Pranks"--A Midnight Alarm--The Far North.

Ivanofka may be taken as a fair specimen of the villages in the northern

half of the country, and a brief description of its inhabitants will

convey a tolerably correct notion of the northern peasantry in general.

Nearly the whole of the female population, and about one-half of the

male inhabitants, are habitually engaged in cultivating the Communal

land, which comprises about two thousand acres of a light sandy soil.

The arable part of this land is divided into three large fields, each of

which is cut up into long narrow strips. The first field is reserved

for the winter grain--that is to say, rye, which forms, in the shape of

black bread, the principal food of the rural population. In the second

are raised oats for the horses, and buckwheat, which is largely used for

food. The third lies fallow, and is used in the summer as pasturage for

the cattle.

All the villagers in this part of the country divide the arable land

in this way, in order to suit the triennial rotation of crops. This

triennial system is extremely simple. The field which is used this

year for raising winter grain will be used next year for raising summer

grain, and in the following year will lie fallow. Before being sown

with winter grain it ought to receive a certain amount of manure. Every

family possesses in each of the two fields under cultivation one or more

of the long narrow strips or belts into which they are divided.

The annual life of the peasantry is that of simple husbandman,

inhabiting a country where the winter is long and severe. The

agricultural year begins in April with the melting of the snow. Nature

has been lying dormant for some months. Awaking now from her long sleep,

and throwing off her white mantle, she strives to make up for lost time.

No sooner has the snow disappeared than the fresh young grass begins to

shoot up, and very soon afterwards the shrubs and trees begin to bud.

The rapidity of this transition from winter to spring astonishes the

inhabitants of more temperate climes.

On St. George's Day (April 23rd*) the cattle are brought out for the

first time, and sprinkled with holy water by the priest. They are never

very fat, but at this period of the year their appearance is truly

lamentable. During the winter they have been cooped up in small

unventilated cow-houses, and fed almost exclusively on straw; now, when

they are released from their imprisonment, they look like the ghosts of

their former emaciated selves. All are lean and weak, many are lame, and

some cannot rise to their feet without assistance.

* With regard to saints' days, I always give the date

according to the old style. To find the date according to

our calendar, thirteen days must be added.

Meanwhile the peasants are impatient to begin the field labour. An old

proverb which they all know says: "Sow in mud and you will be a prince";

and they always act in accordance with this dictate of traditional

wisdom. As soon as it is possible to plough they begin to prepare the

land for the summer grain, and this labour occupies them probably till

the end of May. Then comes the work of carting out manure and preparing

the fallow field for the winter grain, which will last probably till

about St. Peter's Day (June 29th), when the hay-making generally begins.

After the hay-making comes the harvest, by far the busiest time of the

year. From the middle of July--especially from St. Elijah's Day (July

20th), when the saint is usually heard rumbling along the heavens in his

chariot of fire*--until the end of August, the peasant may work day and

night, and yet he will find that he has barely time to get all his

work done. In little more than a month he has to reap and stack his

grain--rye, oats, and whatever else he may have sown either in spring or

in the preceding autumn--and to sow the winter grain for next year.

To add to his troubles, it sometimes happens that the rye and the

oats ripen almost simultaneously, and his position is then still more

difficult.

* It is thus that the peasants explain the thunder, which is

often heard at that season.

Whether the seasons favour him or not, the peasant has at this time

a hard task, for he can rarely afford to hire the requisite number

of labourers, and has generally the assistance merely of his wife

and family; but he can at this season work for a short time at high

pressure, for he has the prospect of soon obtaining a good rest and

an abundance of food. About the end of September the field labour is

finished, and on the first day of October the harvest festival begins--a

joyous season, during which the parish fetes are commonly celebrated.

To celebrate a parish fete in true orthodox fashion it is necessary

to prepare beforehand a large quantity of braga--a kind of home-brewed

small beer--and to bake a plentiful supply of piroghi or meat pies. Oil,

too, has to be procured, and vodka (rye spirit) in goodly quantity.

At the same time the big room of the izba, as the peasant's house is

called, has to be cleared, the floor washed, and the table and benches

scrubbed. The evening before the fete, while the piroghi are being

baked, a little lamp burns before the Icon in the corner of the room,

and perhaps one or two guests from a distance arrive in order that they

may have on the morrow a full day's enjoyment.

On the morning of the fete the proceedings begin by a long service

in the church, at which all the inhabitants are present in their best

holiday costumes, except those matrons and young women who remain at

home to prepare the dinner. About mid-day dinner is served in each izba

for the family and their friends. In general the Russian peasant's

fare is of the simplest kind, and rarely comprises animal food of any

sort--not from any vegetarian proclivities, but merely because beef,

mutton, and pork are too expensive; but on a holiday, such as a parish

fete, there is always on the dinner table a considerable variety of

dishes. In the house of a well-to-do family there will be not only

greasy cabbage-soup and kasha--a dish made from buckwheat--but also

pork, mutton, and perhaps even beef. Braga will be supplied in unlimited

quantities, and more than once vodka will be handed round. When the

repast is finished, all rise together, and, turning towards the Icon in

the corner, bow and cross themselves repeatedly. The guests then say to

their host, "Spasibo za khelb za sol"--that is to say, "Thanks for your

hospitality," or more literally, "Thanks for bread and salt"; and

the host replies, "Do not be displeased, sit down once more for good

luck"--or perhaps he puts the last part of his request into the form of

a rhyming couplet to the following effect: "Sit down, that the hens

may brood, and that the chickens and bees may multiply!" All obey this

request, and there is another round of vodka.

After dinner some stroll about, chatting with their friends, or go to

sleep in some shady nook, whilst those who wish to make merry go to the

spot where the young people are singing, playing, and amusing themselves

in various ways. As the sun sinks towards the horizon, the more grave,

staid guests wend their way homewards, but many remain for supper;

and as evening advances the effects of the vodka become more and more

apparent. Sounds of revelry are heard more frequently from the houses,

and a large proportion of the inhabitants and guests appear on the road

in various degrees of intoxication. Some of these vow eternal affection

to their friends, or with flaccid gestures and in incoherent tones

harangue invisible audiences; others stagger about aimlessly in

besotted self-contentment, till they drop down in a state of complete

unconsciousness. There they will lie tranquilly till they are picked up

by their less intoxicated friends, or more probably till they awake of

their own accord next morning.

As a whole, a village fete in Russia is a saddening spectacle. It

affords a new proof--where, alas! no new proof was required--that we

northern nations, who know so well how to work, have not yet learned the

art of amusing ourselves.

If the Russian peasant's food were always as good and plentiful as at

this season of the year, he would have little reason to complain; but

this is by no means the case. Gradually, as the harvest-time recedes, it

deteriorates in quality, and sometimes diminishes in quantity. Besides

this, during a great part of the year the peasant is prevented, by the

rules of the Church, from using much that he possesses.

In southern climes, where these rules were elaborated and first

practised, the prescribed fasts are perhaps useful not only in a

religious, but also in a sanitary sense. Having abundance of fruit and

vegetables, the inhabitants do well to abstain occasionally from animal

food. But in countries like Northern and Central Russia the influence

of these rules is very different. The Russian peasant cannot get as

much animal food as he requires, whilst sour cabbage and cucumbers are

probably the only vegetables he can procure, and fruit of any kind is

for him an unattainable luxury. Under these circumstances, abstinence

from eggs and milk in all their forms during several months of the year

seems to the secular mind a superfluous bit of asceticism. If the Church

would direct her maternal solicitude to the peasant's drinking, and

leave him to eat what he pleases, she might exercise a beneficial

influence on his material and moral welfare. Unfortunately she has a

great deal too much inherent immobility to attempt anything of the

kind, so the muzhik, while free to drink copiously whenever he gets the

chance, must fast during the seven weeks of Lent, during two or three

weeks in June, from the beginning of November till Christmas, and on all

Wednesdays and Fridays during the remainder of the year.

From the festival time till the following spring there is no possibility

of doing any agricultural work, for the ground is hard as iron, and

covered with a deep layer of snow. The male peasants, therefore, who

remain in the villages, have very little to do, and may spend the

greater part of their time in lying idly on the stove, unless they

happen to have learned some handicraft that can be practised at home.

Formerly, many of them were employed in transporting the grain to the

market town, which might be several hundred miles distant; but now this

species of occupation has been greatly diminished by the extension of

railways.

Another winter occupation which was formerly practised, and has now

almost fallen into disuse, was that of stealing wood in the forest. This

was, according to peasant morality, no sin, or at most a very venial

offence, for God plants and waters the trees, and therefore forests

belong properly to no one. So thought the peasantry, but the landed

proprietors and the Administration of the Domains held a different

theory of property, and consequently precautions had to be taken to

avoid detection. In order to ensure success it was necessary to choose

a night when there was a violent snowstorm, which would immediately

obliterate all traces of the expedition; and when such a night was

found, the operation was commonly performed with success. During the

hours of darkness a tree would be felled, stripped of its branches,

dragged into the village, and cut up into firewood, and at sunrise the

actors would be tranquilly sleeping on the stove as if they had spent

the night at home. In recent years the judicial authorities have done

much towards putting down this practice and eradicating the loose

conceptions of property with which it was connected.

For the female part of the population the winter used to be a busy

time, for it was during these four or five months that the spinning

and weaving had to be done, but now the big factories, with their cheap

methods of production, are rapidly killing the home industries, and the

young girls are not learning to work at the jenny and the loom as their

mothers and grandmothers did.

In many of the northern villages, where ancient usages happen to

be preserved, the tedium of the long winter evenings is relieved by

so-called Besedy, a word which signifies literally conversazioni. A

Beseda, however, is not exactly a conversazione as we understand the

term, but resembles rather what is by some ladies called a Dorcas

meeting, with this essential difference, that those present work for

themselves and not for any benevolent purposes. In some villages as many

as three Besedy regularly assemble about sunset; one for the children,

the second for the young people, and the third for the matrons. Each of

the three has its peculiar character. In the first, the children work

and amuse themselves under the superintendence of an old woman, who

trims the torch* and endeavours to keep order. The little girls spin

flax in a primitive way without the aid of a jenny, and the boys,

who are, on the whole, much less industrious, make simple bits of

wicker-work. Formerly--I mean within my own recollection--many of them

used to make rude shoes of plaited bark, called lapty, but these are

being rapidly supplanted by leather boots. These occupations do not

prevent an almost incessant hum of talk, frequent discordant attempts

to sing in chorus, and occasional quarrels requiring the energetic

interference of the old woman who controls the proceedings. To amuse her

noisy flock she sometimes relates to them, for the hundredth time, one

of those wonderful old stories that lose nothing by repetition, and all

listen to her attentively, as if they had never heard the story before.

* The torch (lutchina) has now almost entirely disappeared

and been replaced by the petroleum lamp.

The second Beseda is held in another house by the young people of a

riper age. Here the workers are naturally more staid, less given to

quarrelling, sing more in harmony, and require no one to look after

them. Some people, however, might think that a chaperon or inspector

of some kind would be by no means out of place, for a good deal of

flirtation goes on, and if village scandal is to be trusted, strict

propriety in thought, word, and deed is not always observed. How far

these reports are true I cannot pretend to say, for the presence of

a stranger always acts on the company like the presence of a severe

inspector. In the third Beseda there is always at least strict decorum.

Here the married women work together and talk about their domestic

concerns, enlivening the conversation occasionally by the introduction

of little bits of village scandal.

Such is the ordinary life of the peasants who live by agriculture; but

many of the villagers live occasionally or permanently in the towns.

Probably the majority of the peasants in this region have at some period

of their lives gained a living elsewhere. Many of the absentees spend

yearly a few months at home, whilst others visit their families only

occasionally, and, it may be, at long intervals. In no case, however, do

they sever their connection with their native village. Even the peasant

who becomes a rich merchant and settles permanently with his family

in Moscow or St. Petersburg remains probably a member of the Village

Commune, and pays his share of the taxes, though he does not enjoy any

of the corresponding privileges. Once I remember asking a rich man of

this kind, the proprietor of several large houses in St. Petersburg,

why he did not free himself from all connection with his native Commune,

with which he had no longer any interests in common. His answer was, "It

is all very well to be free, and I don't want anything from the Commune

now; but my old father lives there, my mother is buried there, and I

like to go back to the old place sometimes. Besides, I have children,

and our affairs are commercial (nashe dyelo torgovoe). Who knows but my

children may be very glad some day to have a share of the Commune land?"

In respect to these non-agricultural occupations, each district has its

specialty. The province of Yaroslavl, for instance, supplies the large

towns with waiters for the traktirs, or lower class of restaurants,

whilst the best hotels in Petersburg are supplied by the Tartars of

Kasimof, celebrated for their sobriety and honesty. One part of the

province of Kostroma has a special reputation for producing carpenters

and stove-builders, whilst another part, as I once discovered to

my surprise, sends yearly to Siberia--not as convicts, but as free

laborours--a large contingent of tailors and workers in felt! On

questioning some youngsters who were accompanying as apprentices one of

these bands, I was informed by a bright-eyed youth of about sixteen that

he had already made the journey twice, and intended to go every winter.

"And you always bring home a big pile of money with you?" I inquired.

"Nitchevo!" replied the little fellow, gaily, with an air of pride and

self-confidence; "last year I brought home three roubles!" This

answer was, at the moment, not altogether welcome, for I had just been

discussing with a Russian fellow-traveller as to whether the peasantry

can fairly be called industrious, and the boy's reply enabled my

antagonist to score a point against me. "You hear that!" he said,

triumphantly. "A Russian peasant goes all the way to Siberia and back

for three roubles! Could you get an Englishman to work at that rate?"

"Perhaps not," I replied, evasively, thinking at the same time that if a

youth were sent several times from Land's End to John o' Groat's House,

and obliged to make the greater part of the journey in carts or on foot,

he would probably expect, by way of remuneration for the time and labour

expended, rather more than seven and sixpence!

Very often the peasants find industrial occupations without leaving

home, for various industries which do not require complicated machinery

are practised in the villages by the peasants and their families. Wooden

vessels, wrought iron, pottery, leather, rush-matting, and numerous

other articles are thus produced in enormous quantities. Occasionally we

find not only a whole village, but even a whole district occupied almost

exclusively with some one kind of manual industry. In the province of

Vladimir, for example, a large group of villages live by Icon-painting;

in one locality near Nizhni-Novgorod nineteen villages are occupied

with the manufacture of axes; round about Pavlovo, in the same province,

eighty villages produce almost nothing but cutlery; and in a locality

called Ouloma, on the borders of Novgorod and Tver, no less than two

hundred villages live by nail-making.

These domestic industries have long existed, and were formerly an

abundant source of revenue--providing a certain compensation for

the poverty of the soil. But at present they are in a very critical

position. They belong to the primitive period of economic development,

and that period in Russia, as I shall explain in a future chapter, is

now rapidly drawing to a close. Formerly the Head of a Household bought

the raw material, had it worked up at home, and sold with a reasonable

profit the manufactured articles at the bazaars, as the local fairs are

called, or perhaps at the great annual yarmarkt* of Nizhni-Novgorod.

This primitive system is now rapidly becoming obsolete. Capital and

wholesale enterprise have come into the field and are revolutionising

the old methods of production and trade. Already whole groups of

industrial villages have fallen under the power of middle-men, who

advance money to the working households and fix the price of the

products. Attempts are frequently made to break their power by voluntary

co-operative associations, organised by the local authorities or

benevolent landed proprietors of the neighbourhood--like the benevolent

people in England who try to preserve the traditional cottage

industries--and some of the associations work very well; but the

ultimate success of such "efforts to stem the current of capitalism"

is extremely doubtful. At the same time, the periodical bazaars and

yarmarki, at which producers and consumers transacted their affairs

without mediation, are being replaced by permanent stores and by various

classes of tradesmen--wholesale and retail.

* This term is a corruption of the German word Jahrmarkt.

To the political economist of the rigidly orthodox school this important

change may afford great satisfaction. According to his theories it is

a gigantic step in the right direction, and must necessarily redound

to the advantage of all parties concerned. The producer now receives a

regular supply of raw material, and regularly disposes of the articles

manufactured; and the time and trouble which he formerly devoted to

wandering about in search of customers he can now employ more profitably

in productive work. The creation of a class between the producers

and the consumers is an important step towards that division and

specialisation of labour which is a necessary condition of industrial

and commercial prosperity. The consumer no longer requires to go on a

fixed day to some distant point, on the chance of finding there what he

requires, but can always buy what he pleases in the permanent stores.

Above all, the production is greatly increased in amount, and the price

of manufactured goods is proportionally lessened.

All this seems clear enough in theory, and any one who values

intellectual tranquillity will feel disposed to accept this view of the

case without questioning its accuracy; but the unfortunate traveller

who is obliged to use his eyes as well as his logical faculties may

find some little difficulty in making the facts fit into the a

priori formula. Far be it from me to question the wisdom of political

economists, but I cannot refrain from remarking that of the three

classes concerned--small producers, middle-men, and consumers--two fail

to perceive and appreciate the benefits which have been conferred upon

them. The small producers complain that on the new system they work

more and gain less; and the consumers complain that the manufactured

articles, if cheaper and more showy in appearance, are far inferior in

quality. The middlemen, who are accused, rightly or wrongly, of taking

for themselves the lion's share of the profits, alone seem satisfied

with the new arrangement.

Interesting as this question undoubtedly is, it is not of permanent

importance, because the present state of things is merely transitory.

Though the peasants may continue for a time to work at home for the

wholesale dealers, they cannot in the long run compete with the

big factories and workshops, organised on the European model with

steam-power and complicated machinery, which already exist in many

provinces. Once a country has begun to move forward on the great highway

of economic progress, there is no possibility of stopping halfway.

Here again the orthodox economists find reason for congratulation,

because big factories and workshops are the cheapest and most productive

form of manufacturing industry; and again, the observant traveller

cannot shut his eyes to ugly facts which force themselves on his

attention. He notices that this cheapest and most productive form of

manufacturing industry does not seem to advance the material and moral

welfare of the population. Nowhere is there more disease, drunkenness,

demoralisation and misery than in the manufacturing districts.

The reader must not imagine that in making these statements I wish to

calumniate the spirit of modern enterprise, or to advocate a return to

primitive barbarism. All great changes produce a mixture of good and

evil, and at first the evil is pretty sure to come prominently forward.

Russia is at this moment in a state of transition, and the new condition

of things is not yet properly organised. With improved organisation many

of the existing evils will disappear. Already in recent years I have

noticed sporadic signs of improvement. When factories were first

established no proper arrangements were made for housing and feeding

the workmen, and the consequent hardships were specially felt when the

factories were founded, as is often the case, in rural districts. Now,

the richer and more enterprising manufacturers build large barracks for

the workmen and their families, and provide them with common kitchens,

wash-houses, steam-baths, schools, and similar requisites of civilised

life. At the same time the Government appoints inspectors to superintend

the sanitary arrangements and see that the health and comfort of the

workers are properly attended to.

On the whole we must assume that the activity of these inspectors tends

to improve the condition of the working-classes. Certainly in some

instances it has that effect. I remember, for example, some thirty years

ago, visiting a lucifer-match factory in which the hands employed worked

habitually in an atmosphere impregnated with the fumes of phosphorus,

which produce insidious and very painful diseases. Such a thing is

hardly possible nowadays. On the other hand, official inspection, like

Factory Acts, everywhere gives rise to a good deal of dissatisfaction

and does not always improve the relations between employers and

employed. Some of the Russian inspectors, if I may credit the testimony

of employers, are young gentlemen imbued with socialist notions, who

intentionally stir up discontent or who make mischief from inexperience.

An amusing illustration of the current complaints came under my notice

when, in 1903, I was visiting a landed proprietor of the southern

provinces, who has a large sugar factory on his estate. The inspector

objected to the traditional custom of the men sleeping in large

dormitories and insisted on sleeping-cots being constructed for them

individually. As soon as the change was made the workmen came to the

proprietor to complain, and put their grievance in an interrogative

form: "Are we cattle that we should be thus couped up in stalls?"

To return to the northern agricultural region, the rural population

have a peculiar type, which is to be accounted for by the fact that

they never experienced to its full extent the demoralising influence of

serfage. A large proportion of them were settled on State domains and

were governed by a special branch of the Imperial administration, whilst

others lived on the estates of rich absentee landlords, who were in the

habit of leaving the management of their properties to a steward acting

under a code of instructions. In either case, though serfs in the eye

of the law, they enjoyed practically a very large amount of liberty. By

paying a small sum for a passport they could leave their villages for

an indefinite period, and as long as they sent home regularly the

money required for taxes and dues, they were in little danger of being

molested. Many of them, though officially inscribed as domiciled in

their native communes, lived permanently in the towns, and not a few

succeeded in amassing large fortunes. The effect of this comparative

freedom is apparent even at the present day. These peasants of the north

are more energetic, more intelligent, more independent, and consequently

less docile and pliable than those of the fertile central provinces.

They have, too, more education. A large proportion of them can read and

write, and occasionally one meets among them men who have a keen desire

for knowledge. Several times I encountered peasants in this region who

had a small collection of books, and twice I found in such collections,

much to my astonishment, a Russian translation of Buckle's "History of

Civilisation."

How, it may be asked, did a work of this sort find its way to such a

place? If the reader will pardon a short digression, I shall explain the

fact.

Immediately after the Crimean War there was a curious intellectual

movement--of which I shall have more to say hereafter--among the Russian

educated classes. The movement assumed various forms, of which two of

the most prominent were a desire for encyclopaedic knowledge, and an

attempt to reduce all knowledge to a scientific form. For men in this

state of mind Buckle's great work had naturally a powerful fascination.

It seemed at first sight to reduce the multifarious conflicting facts

of human history to a few simple principles, and to evolve order out of

chaos. Its success, therefore, was great. In the course of a few years

no less than four independent translations were published and sold.

Every one read, or at least professed to have read, the wonderful book,

and many believed that its author was the greatest genius of his time.

During the first year of my residence in Russia (1870), I rarely had

a serious conversation without hearing Buckle's name mentioned; and

my friends almost always assumed that he had succeeded in creating a

genuine science of history on the inductive method. In vain I pointed

out that Buckle had merely thrown out some hints in his introductory

chapter as to how such a science ought to be constructed, and that

he had himself made no serious attempt to use the method which he

commended. My objections had little or no effect: the belief was

too deep-rooted to be so easily eradicated. In books, periodicals,

newspapers, and professional lectures the name of Buckle was constantly

cited--often violently dragged in without the slightest reason--and the

cheap translations of his work were sold in enormous quantities. It is

not, then, so very wonderful after all that the book should have found

its way to two villages in the province of Yaroslavl.

The enterprising, self-reliant, independent spirit which is often to

be found among those peasants manifests itself occasionally in amusing

forms among the young generation. Often in this part of the country

I have encountered boys who recalled young America rather than young

Russia. One of these young hopefuls I remember well. I was waiting at a

post-station for the horses to be changed, when he appeared before me

in a sheep-skin, fur cap, and gigantic double-soled boots--all of which

articles had been made on a scale adapted to future rather than actual

requirements. He must have stood in his boots about three feet eight

inches, and he could not have been more than twelve years of age; but

he had already learned to look upon life as a serious business, wore a

commanding air, and knitted his innocent little brows as if the cares of

an empire weighed on his diminutive shoulders. Though he was to act

as yamstchik he had to leave the putting in of the horses to larger

specimens of the human species, but he took care that all was done

properly. Putting one of his big boots a little in advance, and drawing

himself up to his full shortness, he watched the operation attentively,

as if the smallness of his stature had nothing to do with his

inactivity. When all was ready, he climbed up to his seat, and at a

signal from the station-keeper, who watched with paternal pride all the

movements of the little prodigy, we dashed off at a pace rarely

attained by post-horses. He had the faculty of emitting a peculiar

sound--something between a whirr and a whistle--that appeared to have

a magical effect on the team and every few minutes he employed this

incentive. The road was rough, and at every jolt he was shot upwards

into the air, but he always fell back into his proper position, and

never lost for a moment his self-possession or his balance. At the end

of the journey I found we had made nearly fourteen miles within the

hour.

Unfortunately this energetic, enterprising spirit sometimes takes

an illegitimate direction. Not only whole villages, but even whole

districts, have in this way acquired a bad reputation for robbery, the

manufacture of paper-money, and similar offences against the criminal

law. In popular parlance, these localities are said to contain "people

who play pranks" (narod shalit). I must, however, remark that, if I may

judge by my own experience, these so-called "playful" tendencies are

greatly exaggerated. Though I have travelled hundreds of miles at

night on lonely roads, I was never robbed or in any way molested. Once,

indeed, when travelling at night in a tarantass, I discovered on awaking

that my driver was bending over me, and had introduced his hand into one

of my pockets; but the incident ended without serious consequences.

When I caught the delinquent hand, and demanded an explanation from the

owner, he replied, in an apologetic, caressing tone, that the night was

cold, and he wished to warm his fingers; and when I advised him to use

for that purpose his own pockets rather than mine, he promised to act

in future according to my advice. More than once, it is true, I believed

that I was in danger of being attacked, but on every occasion my fears

turned out to be unfounded, and sometimes the catastrophe was ludicrous

rather than tragical. Let the following serve as an illustration.

I had occasion to traverse, in company with a Russian friend, the

country lying to the east of the river Vetluga--a land of forest and

morass, with here and there a patch of cultivation. The majority of the

population are Tcheremiss, a Finnish tribe; but near the banks of the

river there are villages of Russian peasants, and these latter have the

reputation of "playing pranks." When we were on the point of starting

from Kozmodemiansk a town on the bank of the Volga, we received a visit

from an officer of rural police, who painted in very sombre colours the

habits and moral character--or, more properly, immoral character--of

the people whose acquaintance we were about to make. He related with

melodramatic gesticulation his encounters with malefactors belonging to

the villages through which we had to pass, and ended the interview with

a strong recommendation to us not to travel at night, and to keep at all

times our eyes open and our revolver ready. The effect of his narrative

was considerably diminished by the prominence of the moral, which was to

the effect that there never had been a police-officer who had shown

so much zeal, energy, and courage in the discharge of his duty as the

worthy man before us. We considered it, however, advisable to remember

his hint about keeping our eyes open.

In spite of our intention of being very cautious, it was already dark

when we arrived at the village which was to be our halting-place for the

night, and it seemed at first as if we should be obliged to spend the

night in the open air. The inhabitants had already retired to rest,

and refused to open their doors to unknown travellers. At length an old

woman, more hospitable than her neighbours, or more anxious to earn an

honest penny, consented to let us pass the night in an outer apartment

(seni), and this permission we gladly accepted. Mindful of the warnings

of the police officer, we barricaded the two doors and the window, and

the precaution was evidently not superfluous, for almost as soon as

the light was extinguished we could hear that an attempt was being made

stealthily to effect an entrance. Notwithstanding my efforts to remain

awake, and on the watch, I at last fell asleep, and was suddenly aroused

by some one grasping me tightly by the arm. Instantly I sprang to my

feet and endeavoured to close with my invisible assailant. In vain! He

dexterously eluded my grasp, and I stumbled over my portmanteau, which

was lying on the floor; but my prompt action revealed who the intruder

was, by producing a wild flutter and a frantic cackling! Before

my companion could strike a light the mysterious attack was fully

explained. The supposed midnight robber and possible assassin was simply

a peaceable hen that had gone to roost on my arm, and, on finding

her position unsteady, had dug her claws into what she mistook for a

roosting-pole!

When speaking of the peasantry of the north I have hitherto had in

view the inhabitants of the provinces of Old-Novgorod, Tver, Yaroslavl,

Nizhni-Novgorod, Kostroma, Kazan, and Viatka, and I have founded my

remarks chiefly on information collected on the spot. Beyond this lies

what may be called the Far North. Though I cannot profess to have the

same personal acquaintance with the peasantry of that region, I may

perhaps be allowed to insert here some information regarding them which

I collected from various trustworthy sources.

If we draw a wavy line eastward from a point a little to the north of

St. Petersburg, as is shown in the map facing page 1 of this volume, we

shall have between that line and the Polar Ocean what may be regarded as

a distinct, peculiar region, differing in many respects from the rest of

Russia. Throughout the whole of it the climate is very severe. For about

half of the year the ground is covered by deep snow, and the rivers are

frozen. By far the greater part of the land is occupied by forests of

pine, fir, larch, and birch, or by vast, unfathomable morasses. The

arable land and pasturage taken together form only about one and a half

per cent, of the area. The population is scarce--little more than one

to the English square mile--and settled chiefly along the banks of the

rivers. The peasantry support themselves by fishing, hunting, felling

and floating timber, preparing tar and charcoal, cattle-breeding, and,

in the extreme north, breeding reindeer.

These are their chief occupations, but the people do not entirely

neglect agriculture. They make the most of their short summer by

means of a peculiar and ingenious mode of farming, well adapted to the

peculiar local conditions. The peasant knows of course nothing about

agronomical chemistry, but he, as well as his forefathers, have observed

that if wood be burnt on a field, and the ashes be mixed with the soil,

a good harvest may be confidently expected. On this simple principle his

system of farming is based. When spring comes round and the leaves begin

to appear on the trees, a band of peasants, armed with their hatchets,

proceed to some spot in the woods previously fixed upon. Here they begin

to make a clearing. This is no easy matter, for tree-felling is hard

and tedious work; but the process does not take so much time as might be

expected, for the workmen have been brought up to the trade, and wield

their axes with marvellous dexterity. When they have felled all the

trees, great and small, they return to their homes, and think no more

about their clearing till the autumn, when they return, in order to

strip the fallen trees of the branches, to pick out what they require

for building purposes or firewood, and to pile up the remainder in

heaps. The logs for building or firewood are dragged away by horses as

soon as the first fall of snow has made a good slippery road, but the

piles are allowed to remain till the following spring, when they are

stirred up with long poles and ignited. The flames rapidly spread in all

directions till they join together and form a gigantic bonfire, such as

is never seen in more densely-populated countries. If the fire does its

work properly, the whole of the space is covered with a layer of ashes;

and when these have been slightly mixed with soil by means of a light

plough, the seed is sown.

On the field prepared in this original fashion is sown barley, rye,

or flax, and the harvests, nearly always good, sometimes border on the

miraculous. Barley or rye may be expected to produce about sixfold

in ordinary years, and they may produce as much as thirty-fold under

peculiarly favourable circumstances. The fertility is, however,

short-lived. If the soil is poor and stony, not more than two crops can

be raised; if it is of a better quality, it may give tolerable harvests

for six or seven successive years. In most countries this would be an

absurdly expensive way of manuring, for wood is much too valuable a

commodity to be used for such a purpose; but in this northern region the

forests are boundless, and in the districts where there is no river or

stream by which timber may be floated, the trees not used in this way

rot from old age. Under these circumstances the system is reasonable,

but it must be admitted that it does not give a very large return for

the amount of labour expended, and in bad seasons it gives almost no

return at all.

The other sources of revenue are scarcely less precarious. With his

gun and a little parcel of provisions the peasant wanders about in the

trackless forests, and too often returns after many days with a very

light bag; or he starts in autumn for some distant lake, and comes

back after five or six weeks with nothing better than perch and pike.

Sometimes he tries his luck at deep-sea fishing. In this case he starts

in February--probably on foot--for Kem, on the shore of the White Sea,

or perhaps for the more distant Kola, situated on a small river which

falls into the Arctic Ocean. There, in company with three or four

comrades, he starts on a fishing cruise along the Murman coast, or,

it may be, off the coast of Spitzbergen. His gains will depend on the

amount caught, for it is a joint-venture; but in no case can they be

very great, for three-fourths of the fish brought into port belongs to

the owner of the craft and tackle. Of the sum realised, he brings home

perhaps only a small part, for he has a strong temptation to buy

rum, tea, and other luxuries, which are very dear in those northern

latitudes. If the fishing is good and he resists temptation, he may save

as much as 100 roubles--about 10 pounds--and thereby live comfortably

all winter; but if the fishing season is bad, he may find himself at the

end of it not only with empty pockets, but in debt to the owner of the

boat. This debt he may pay off, if he has a horse, by transporting the

dried fish to Kargopol, St. Petersburg, or some other market.

It is here in the Far North that the ancient folk-lore--popular songs,

stories, and fragments of epic poetry--has been best preserved; but this

is a field on which I need not enter, for the reader can easily find all

that he may desire to know on the subject in the brilliant writings of

M. Rambaud and the very interesting, conscientious works of the late Mr.

Ralston,* which enjoy a high reputation in Russia.

* Rambaud, "La Russie Epique," Paris, 1876; Ralston, "The

Songs of the Russian People," London, 1872; and "Russian

Folk-tales," London, 1873.

CHAPTER VIII

THE MIR, OR VILLAGE COMMUNITY

Social and Political Importance of the Mir--The Mir and the Family

Compared--Theory of the Communal System--Practical Deviations from the

Theory--The Mir a Good Specimen of Constitutional Government of the

Extreme Democratic Type--The Village Assembly--Female Members--The

Elections--Distribution of the Communal Land.

When I had gained a clear notion of the family-life and occupations of

the peasantry, I turned my attention to the constitution of the village.

This was a subject which specially interested me, because I was aware

that the Mir is the most peculiar of Russian institutions. Long before

visiting Russia I had looked into Haxthausen's celebrated work, by which

the peculiarities of the Russian village system were first made known

to Western Europe, and during my stay in St. Petersburg I had often

been informed by intelligent, educated Russians that the rural Commune

presented a practical solution of many difficult social problems with

which the philosophers and statesmen of the West had long been vainly

struggling. "The nations of the West"--such was the substance of

innumerable discourses which I had heard--"are at present on the

high-road to political and social anarchy, and England has the

unenviable distinction of being foremost in the race. The natural

increase of population, together with the expropriation of the small

landholders by the great landed proprietors, has created a dangerous and

ever-increasing Proletariat--a great disorganised mass of human beings,

without homes, without permanent domicile, without property of any kind,

without any stake in the existing institutions. Part of these gain a

miserable pittance as agricultural labourers, and live in a condition

infinitely worse than serfage. The others have been forever uprooted

from the soil, and have collected in the large towns, where they earn a

precarious living in the factories and workshops, or swell the ranks of

the criminal classes. In England you have no longer a peasantry in the

proper sense of the term, and unless some radical measures be very soon

adopted, you will never be able to create such a class, for men who

have been long exposed to the unwholesome influences of town life are

physically and morally incapable of becoming agriculturists.

"Hitherto," the disquisition proceeded, "England has enjoyed, in

consequence of her geographical position, her political freedom, and her

vast natural deposits of coal and iron, a wholly exceptional position

in the industrial world. Fearing no competition, she has proclaimed

the principles of Free Trade, and has inundated the world with her

manufactures--using unscrupulously her powerful navy and all the other

forces at her command for breaking down every barrier tending to check

the flood sent forth from Manchester and Birmingham. In that way her

hungry Proletariat has been fed. But the industrial supremacy of England

is drawing to a close. The nations have discovered the perfidious

fallacy of Free-Trade principles, and are now learning to manufacture

for their own wants, instead of paying England enormous sums to

manufacture for them. Very soon English goods will no longer find

foreign markets, and how will the hungry Proletariat then be fed?

Already the grain production of England is far from sufficient for the

wants of the population, so that, even when the harvest is exceptionally

abundant, enormous quantities of wheat are imported from all quarters

of the globe. Hitherto this grain has been paid for by the manufactured

goods annually exported, but how will it be procured when these goods

are no longer wanted by foreign consumers? And what then will the hungry

Proletariat do?"*

* This passage was written, precisely as it stands, long

before the fiscal question was raised by Mr. Chamberlain.

It will be found in the first edition of this work,

published in 1877. (Vol. I., pp. 179-81.)

This sombre picture of England's future had often been presented to me,

and on nearly every occasion I had been assured that Russia had been

saved from these terrible evils by the rural Commune--an institution

which, in spite of its simplicity and incalculable utility, West

Europeans seemed utterly incapable of understanding and appreciating.

The reader will now easily conceive with what interest I took to

studying this wonderful institution, and with what energy I prosecuted

my researches. An institution which professes to solve satisfactorily

the most difficult social problems of the future is not to be met with

every day, even in Russia, which is specially rich in material for the

student of social science.

On my arrival at Ivanofka my knowledge of the institution was of that

vague, superficial kind which is commonly derived from men who are

fonder of sweeping generalisations and rhetorical declamation than of

serious, patient study of phenomena. I knew that the chief personage in

a Russian village is the Selski Starosta, or Village Elder, and that all

important Communal affairs are regulated by the Selski Skhod, or Village

Assembly. Further, I was aware that the land in the vicinity of the

village belongs to the Commune, and is distributed periodically among

the members in such a way that every able-bodied peasant possesses a

share sufficient, or nearly sufficient, for his maintenance. Beyond this

elementary information I knew little or nothing.

My first attempt at extending my knowledge was not very successful.

Hoping that my friend Ivan might be able to assist me, and knowing that

the popular name for the Commune is Mir, which means also "the world," I

put to him the direct, simple question, "What is the Mir?"

Ivan was not easily disconcerted, but for once he looked puzzled, and

stared at me vacantly. When I endeavoured to explain to him my question,

he simply knitted his brows and scratched the back of his head. This

latter movement is the Russian peasant's method of accelerating cerebral

action; but in the present instance it had no practical result. In

spite of his efforts, Ivan could not get much further than the "Kak vam

skazat'?" that is to say, "How am I to tell you?"

It was not difficult to perceive that I had adopted an utterly false

method of investigation, and a moment's reflection sufficed to show

me the absurdity of my question. I had asked from an uneducated man a

philosophical definition, instead of extracting from him material in

the form of concrete facts, and constructing therefrom a definition for

myself. These concrete facts Ivan was both able and willing to supply;

and as soon as I adopted a rational mode of questioning, I obtained from

him all I wanted. The information he gave me, together with the results

of much subsequent conversation and reading, I now propose to present to

the reader in my own words.

The peasant family of the old type is, as we have just seen, a kind of

primitive association in which the members have nearly all things in

common. The village may be roughly described as a primitive association

on a larger scale.

Between these two social units there are many points of analogy. In both

there are common interests and common responsibilities. In both there

is a principal personage, who is in a certain sense ruler within and

representative as regards the outside world: in the one case called

Khozain, or Head of the Household, and in the other Starosta, or Village

Elder. In both the authority of the ruler is limited: in the one case

by the adult members of the family, and in the other by the Heads of

Households. In both there is a certain amount of common property: in the

one case the house and nearly all that it contains, and in the other the

arable land and possibly a little pasturage. In both cases there is a

certain amount of common responsibility: in the one case for all the

debts, and in the other for all the taxes and Communal obligations.

And both are protected to a certain extent against the ordinary legal

consequences of insolvency, for the family cannot be deprived of its

house or necessary agricultural implements, and the Commune cannot be

deprived of its land, by importunate creditors.

On the other hand, there are many important points of contrast. The

Commune is, of course, much larger than the family, and the mutual

relations of its members are by no means so closely interwoven. The

members of a family all farm together, and those of them who earn money

from other sources are expected to put their savings into the common

purse; whilst the households composing a Commune farm independently, and

pay into the common treasury only a certain fixed sum.

From these brief remarks the reader will at once perceive that a Russian

village is something very different from a village in our sense of the

term, and that the villagers are bound together by ties quite unknown to

the English rural population. A family living in an English village has

little reason to take an interest in the affairs of its neighbours. The

isolation of the individual families is never quite perfect, for man,

being a social animal, takes necessarily a certain interest in the

affairs of those around him, and this social duty is sometimes fulfilled

by the weaker sex with more zeal than is absolutely indispensable for

the public welfare; but families may live for many years in the same

village without ever becoming conscious of common interests. So long as

the Jones family do not commit any culpable breach of public order, such

as putting obstructions on the highway or habitually setting their

house on fire, their neighbour Brown takes probably no interest in their

affairs, and has no ground for interfering with their perfect liberty of

action. Amongst the families composing a Russian village, such a state

of isolation is impossible. The Heads of Households must often meet

together and consult in the Village Assembly, and their daily occupation

must be influenced by the Communal decrees. They cannot begin to mow the

hay or plough the fallow field until the Village Assembly has passed

a resolution on the subject. If a peasant becomes a drunkard, or takes

some equally efficient means to become insolvent, every family in the

village has a right to complain, not merely in the interests of public

morality, but from selfish motives, because all the families are

collectively responsible for his taxes.* For the same reason no peasant

can permanently leave the village without the consent of the Commune,

and this consent will not be granted until the applicant gives

satisfactory security for the fulfilment of his actual and future

liabilities. If a peasant wishes to go away for a short time, in order

to work elsewhere, he must obtain a written permission, which serves him

as a passport during his absence; and he may be recalled at any moment

by a Communal decree. In reality he is rarely recalled so long as he

sends home regularly the full amount of his taxes--including the dues

which he has to pay for the temporary passport--but sometimes the

Commune uses the power of recall for purposes of extortion. If it

becomes known, for instance, that an absent member is receiving a good

salary or otherwise making money, he may one day receive a formal order

to return at once to his native village, but he is probably informed at

the same time, unofficially, that his presence will be dispensed with if

he will send to the Commune a certain specified sum. The money thus sent

is generally used by the Commune for convivial purposes. **

* This common responsibility for the taxes was abolished in

1903 by the Emperor, on the advice of M. Witte, and the

other Communal fetters are being gradually relaxed. A

peasant may now, if he wishes, cease to be a member of the

Commune altogether, as soon as he has defrayed all his

outstanding obligations.

** With the recent relaxing of the Communal fetters,

referred to in the foregoing note, this abuse should

disappear.

In all countries the theory of government and administration differs

considerably from the actual practice. Nowhere is this difference

greater than in Russia, and in no Russian institution is it greater than

in the Village Commune. It is necessary, therefore, to know both theory

and practice; and it is well to begin with the former, because it is the

simpler of the two. When we have once thoroughly mastered the theory,

it is easy to understand the deviations that are made to suit peculiar

local conditions.

According, then, to theory, all male peasants in every part of the

Empire are inscribed in census-lists, which form the basis of the direct

taxation. These lists are revised at irregular intervals, and all

males alive at the time of the "revision," from the newborn babe to the

centenarian, are duly inscribed. Each Commune has a list of this kind,

and pays to the Government an annual sum proportionate to the number of

names which the list contains, or, in popular language, according to the

number of "revision souls." During the intervals between the revisions

the financial authorities take no notice of the births and deaths. A

Commune which has a hundred male members at the time of the revision

may have in a few years considerably more or considerably less than that

number, but it has to pay taxes for a hundred members all the same until

a new revision is made for the whole Empire.

Now in Russia, so far at least as the rural population is concerned, the

payment of taxes is inseparably connected with the possession of land.

Every peasant who pays taxes is supposed to have a share of the land

belonging to the Commune. If the Communal revision lists contain a

hundred names, the Communal land ought to be divided into a hundred

shares, and each "revision soul" should enjoy his share in return for

the taxes which he pays.

The reader who has followed my explanations up to this point may

naturally conclude that the taxes paid by the peasants are in reality a

species of rent for the land which they enjoy. Such a conclusion would

not be altogether justified. When a man rents a bit of land he acts

according to his own judgment, and makes a voluntary contract with the

proprietor; but the Russian peasant is obliged to pay his taxes whether

he desires to enjoy land or not. The theory, therefore, that the

taxes are simply the rent of the land will not bear even superficial

examination. Equally untenable is the theory that they are a species of

land-tax. In any reasonable system of land-dues the yearly sum imposed

bears some kind of proportion to the quantity and quality of the land

enjoyed; but in Russia it may be that the members of one Commune possess

six acres of bad land, and the members of the neighbouring Commune seven

acres of good land, and yet the taxes in both cases are the same. The

truth is that the taxes are personal, and are calculated according to

the number of male "souls," and the Government does not take the trouble

to inquire how the Communal land is distributed. The Commune has to pay

into the Imperial Treasury a fixed yearly sum, according to the number

of its "revision souls," and distributes the land among its members as

it thinks fit.

How, then, does the Commune distribute the land? To this question it is

impossible to reply in brief, general terms, because each Commune acts

as it pleases!* Some act strictly according to the theory. These divide

their land at the time of the revision into a number of portions or

shares corresponding to the number of revision souls, and give to each

family a number of shares corresponding to the number of revision souls

which it contains. This is from the administrative point of view by

far the simplest system. The census-list determines how much land each

family will enjoy, and the existing tenures are disturbed only by the

revisions which take place at irregular intervals.** But, on the other

hand, this system has serious defects. The revision-list represents

merely the numerical strength of the families, and the numerical

strength is often not at all in proportion to the working power. Let us

suppose, for example, two families, each containing at the time of

the revision five male members. According to the census-list these two

families are equal, and ought to receive equal shares of the land; but

in reality it may happen that the one contains a father in the prime of

life and four able-bodies sons, whilst the other contains a widow and

five little boys. The wants and working power of these two families are

of course very different; and if the above system of distribution be

applied, the man with four sons and a goodly supply of grandchildren

will probably find that he has too little land, whilst the widow with

her five little boys will find it difficult to cultivate the five shares

alloted to her, and utterly impossible to pay the corresponding amount

of taxation--for in all cases, it must be remembered, the Communal

burdens are distributed in the same proportion as the land.

* A long list of the various systems of allotment to be

found in individual Communes in different parts of the

country is given in the opening chapter of a valuable work

by Karelin, entitled "Obshtchinnoye Vladyenie v Rossii" (St.

Petersburg, 1893). As my object is to convey to the reader

merely a general idea of the institution, I refrain from

confusing him by an enumeration of the endless divergencies

from the original type.

** Since 1719 eleven revisions have been made, the last in

1897. The intervals varied from six to forty-one years.

But why, it may be said, should the widow not accept provisionally the

five shares, and let to others the part which she does not require? The

balance of rent after payment of the taxes might help her to bring up

her young family.

So it seems to one acquainted only with the rural economy of England,

where land is scarce, and always gives a revenue more than sufficient

to defray the taxes. But in Russia the possession of a share of Communal

land is often not a privilege, but a burden. In some Communes the land

is so poor and abundant that it cannot be let at any price. In others

the soil will repay cultivation, but a fair rent will not suffice to pay

the taxes and dues.

To obviate these inconvenient results of the simpler system, many

Communes have adopted the expedient of allotting the land, not according

to the number of revision souls, but according to the working power

of the families. Thus, in the instance above supposed, the widow would

receive perhaps two shares, and the large household, containing five

workers, would receive perhaps seven or eight. Since the breaking-up of

the large families, such inequality as I have supposed is, of course,

rare; but inequality of a less extreme kind does still occur, and

justifies a departure from the system of allotment according to the

revision-lists.

Even if the allotment be fair and equitable at the time of the revision,

it may soon become unfair and burdensome by the natural fluctuations of

the population. Births and deaths may in the course of a very few years

entirely alter the relative working power of the various families.

The sons of the widow may grow up to manhood, whilst two or three

able-bodied members of the other family may be cut off by an epidemic.

Thus, long before a new revision takes place, the distribution of the

land may be no longer in accordance with the wants and capacities of

the various families composing the Commune. To correct this, various

expedients are employed. Some Communes transfer particular lots from one

family to another, as circumstances demand; whilst others make from

time to time, during the intervals between the revisions, a complete

redistribution and reallotment of the land. Of these two systems the

former is now more frequently employed.

The system of allotment adopted depends entirely on the will of the

particular Commune. In this respect the Communes enjoy the most complete

autonomy, and no peasant ever dreams of appealing against a Communal

decree.* The higher authorities not only abstain from all interference

in the allotment of the Communal lands, but remain in profound ignorance

as to which system the Communes habitually adopt. Though the Imperial

Administration has a most voracious appetite for symmetrically

constructed statistical tables--many of them formed chiefly out

of materials supplied by the mysterious inner consciousness of the

subordinate officials--no attempt has yet been made, so far as I know,

to collect statistical data which might throw light on this important

subject. In spite of the systematic and persistent efforts of the

centralised bureaucracy to regulate minutely all departments of the

national life, the rural Communes, which contain about five-sixths of

the population, remain in many respects entirely beyond its influence,

and even beyond its sphere of vision! But let not the reader be

astonished overmuch. He will learn in time that Russia is the land of

paradoxes; and meanwhile he is about to receive a still more startling

bit of information. In "the great stronghold of Caesarian despotism

and centralised bureaucracy," these Village Communes, containing about

five-sixths of the population, are capital specimens of representative

Constitutional government of the extreme democratic type!

* This has been somewhat modified by recent legislation.

According to the Emancipation Law of 1861, redistribution of

the land could take place at any time provided it was voted

by a majority of two-thirds at the Village Assembly. By a

law of 1893 redistribution cannot take place oftener than

once in twelve years, and must receive the sanction of

certain local authorities.

When I say that the rural Commune is a good specimen of Constitutional

government, I use the phrase in the English, and not in the Continental

sense. In the Continental languages a Constitutional regime implies

the existence of a long, formal document, in which the functions of the

various institutions, the powers of the various authorities, and the

methods of procedure are carefully defined. Such a document was never

heard of in Russian Village Communes, except those belonging to the

Imperial Domains, and the special legislation which formerly regulated

their affairs was repealed at the time of the Emancipation. At the

present day the Constitution of all the Village Communes is of the

English type--a body of unwritten, traditional conceptions, which have

grown up and modified themselves under the influence of ever-changing

practical necessity. No doubt certain definitions of the functions and

mutual relations of the Communal authorities might be extracted from

the Emancipation Law and subsequent official documents, but as a rule

neither the Village Elder nor the members of the Village Assembly

ever heard of such definitions; and yet every peasant knows, as if

by instinct, what each of these authorities can do and cannot do. The

Commune is, in fact, a living institution, whose spontaneous vitality

enables it to dispense with the assistance and guidance of the written

law, and its constitution is thoroughly democratic. The Elder represents

merely the executive power. The real authority resides in the Assembly,

of which all Heads of Households are members.*

* An attempt was made by Alexander III. in 1884 to bring the

rural Communes under supervision and control by the

appointment of rural officials called Zemskiye Natchalniki.

Of this so-called reform I shall have occasion to speak

later.

The simple procedure, or rather the absence of all formal procedure,

at the Assemblies, illustrates admirably the essentially practical

character of the institution. The meetings are held in the open air,

because in the village there is no building--except the church, which

can be used only for religious purposes--large enough to contain all the

members; and they almost always take place on Sundays or holidays,

when the peasants have plenty of leisure. Any open space may serve as

a Forum. The discussions are occasionally very animated, but there is

rarely any attempt at speech-making. If any young member should show

an inclination to indulge in oratory, he is sure to be unceremoniously

interrupted by some of the older members, who have never any sympathy

with fine talking. The assemblage has the appearance of a crowd of

people who have accidentally come together and are discussing in little

groups subjects of local interest. Gradually some one group, containing

two or three peasants who have more moral influence than their fellows,

attracts the others, and the discussion becomes general. Two or more

peasants may speak at a time, and interrupt each other freely--using

plain, unvarnished language, not at all parliamentary--and the

discussion may become a confused, unintelligible din; but at the

moment when the spectator imagines that the consultation is about to

be transformed into a free fight, the tumult spontaneously subsides,

or perhaps a general roar of laughter announces that some one has been

successfully hit by a strong argumentum ad hominem, or biting personal

remark. In any case there is no danger of the disputants coming to

blows. No class of men in the world are more good-natured and pacific

than the Russian peasantry. When sober they never fight, and even when

under the influence of alcohol they are more likely to be violently

affectionate than disagreeably quarrelsome. If two of them take to

drinking together, the probability is that in a few minutes, though they

may never have seen each other before, they will be expressing in very

strong terms their mutual regard and affection, confirming their words

with an occasional friendly embrace.

Theoretically speaking, the Village Parliament has a Speaker, in the

person of the Village Elder. The word Speaker is etymologically less

objectionable than the term President, for the personage in question

never sits down, but mingles in the crowd like the ordinary members.

Objection may be taken to the word on the ground that the Elder speaks

much less than many other members, but this may likewise be said of the

Speaker of the House of Commons. Whatever we may call him, the Elder is

officially the principal personage in the crowd, and wears the insignia

of office in the form of a small medal suspended from his neck by a thin

brass chain. His duties, however, are extremely light. To call to order

those who interrupt the discussion is no part of his functions. If he

calls an honourable member "Durak" (blockhead), or interrupts an orator

with a laconic "Moltchi!" (hold your tongue!), he does so in virtue of

no special prerogative, but simply in accordance with a time-honoured

privilege, which is equally enjoyed by all present, and may be employed

with impunity against himself. Indeed, it may be said in general that

the phraseology and the procedure are not subjected to any strict rules.

The Elder comes prominently forward only when it is necessary to take

the sense of the meeting. On such occasions he may stand back a little

from the crowd and say, "Well, orthodox, have you decided so?" and the

crowd will probably shout, "Ladno! ladno!" that is to say, "Agreed!

agreed!"

Communal measures are generally carried in this way by acclamation; but

it sometimes happens that there is such a diversity of opinion that it

is difficult to tell which of the two parties has a majority. In this

case the Elder requests the one party to stand to the right and the

other to the left. The two groups are then counted, and the minority

submits, for no one ever dreams of opposing openly the will of the Mir.

During the reign of Nicholas I. an attempt was made to regulate by the

written law the procedure of Village Assemblies amongst the peasantry

of the State Domains, and among other reforms voting by ballot was

introduced; but the new custom never struck root. The peasants did

not regard with favour the new method, and persisted in calling it,

contemptuously, "playing at marbles." Here, again, we have one of those

wonderful and apparently anomalous facts which frequently meet the

student of Russian affairs: the Emperor Nicholas I., the incarnation of

autocracy and the champion of the Reactionary Party throughout Europe,

forces the ballot-box, the ingenious invention of extreme radicals, on

several millions of his subjects!

In the northern provinces, where a considerable portion of the male

population is always absent, the Village Assembly generally includes a

good many female members. These are women who, on account of the

absence or death of their husbands, happen to be for the moment Heads of

Households. As such they are entitled to be present, and their right to

take part in the deliberations is never called in question. In matters

affecting the general welfare of the Commune they rarely speak, and if

they do venture to enounce an opinion on such occasions they have little

chance of commanding attention, for the Russian peasantry are as yet

little imbued with the modern doctrines of female equality, and express

their opinion of female intelligence by the homely adage: "The hair is

long, but the mind is short." According to one proverb, seven women

have collectively but one soul, and, according to a still more ungallant

popular saying, women have no souls at all, but only a vapour. Woman,

therefore, as woman, is not deserving of much consideration, but a

particular woman, as Head of a Household, is entitled to speak on all

questions directly affecting the household under her care. If, for

instance, it be proposed to increase or diminish her household's share

of the land and the burdens, she will be allowed to speak freely on

the subject, and even to indulge in personal invective against her male

opponents. She thereby exposes herself, it is true, to uncomplimentary

remarks; but any which she happens to receive she is pretty sure to

repay with interest--referring, perhaps, with pertinent virulence to

the domestic affairs of those who attack her. And when argument and

invective fail, she can try the effect of pathetic appeal, supported by

copious tears.

As the Village Assembly is really a representative institution in the

full sense of the term, it reflects faithfully the good and the bad

qualities of the rural population. Its decisions are therefore usually

characterised by plain, practical common sense, but it is subject

to occasional unfortunate aberrations in consequence of pernicious

influences, chiefly of an alcoholic kind. An instance of this fact

occurred during my sojourn at Ivanofka. The question under discussion

was whether a kabak, or gin-shop, should be established in the village.

A trader from the district town desired to establish one, and offered to

pay to the Commune a yearly sum for the necessary permission. The more

industrious, respectable members of the Commune, backed by the whole

female population, were strongly opposed to the project, knowing full

well that a kabak would certainly lead to the ruin of more than one

household; but the enterprising trader had strong arguments wherewith

to seduce a large number of the members, and succeeded in obtaining a

decision in his favour.

The Assembly discusses all matters affecting the Communal welfare,

and, as these matters have never been legally defined, its recognised

competence is very wide. It fixes the time for making the hay, and the

day for commencing the ploughing of the fallow field; it decrees what

measures shall be employed against those who do not punctually pay

their taxes; it decides whether a new member shall be admitted into

the Commune, and whether an old member shall be allowed to change his

domicile; it gives or withholds permission to erect new buildings on

the Communal land; it prepares and signs all contracts which the Commune

makes with one of its own members or with a stranger; it interferes

whenever it thinks necessary in the domestic affairs of its members; it

elects the Elder--as well as the Communal tax-collector and watchman,

where such offices exist--and the Communal herd-boy; above all, it

divides and allots the Communal land among the members as it thinks fit.

Of all these various proceedings the English reader may naturally assume

that the elections are the most noisy and exciting. In reality this is a

mistake. The elections produce little excitement, for the simple reason

that, as a rule, no one desires to be elected. Once, it is said, a

peasant who had been guilty of some misdemeanor was informed by an

Arbiter of the Peace--a species of official of which I shall have

occasion to speak in the sequel--that he would be no longer capable of

filling any Communal office; and instead of regretting this diminution

of his civil rights, he bowed very low, and respectfully expressed his

thanks for the new privilege which he had acquired. This anecdote may

not be true, but it illustrates the undoubted fact that the Russian

peasant regards office as a burden rather than as an honour. There is no

civic ambition in those little rural commonwealths, whilst the privilege

of wearing a bronze medal, which commands no respect, and the reception

of a few roubles as salary afford no adequate compensation for the

trouble, annoyance, and responsibility which a Village Elder has to

bear. The elections are therefore generally very tame and uninteresting.

The following description may serve as an illustration:

It is a Sunday afternoon. The peasants, male and female, have turned out

in Sunday attire, and the bright costumes of the women help the sunshine

to put a little rich colour into the scene, which is at ordinary times

monotonously grey. Slowly the crowd collects on the open space at the

side of the church. All classes of the population are represented. On

the extreme outskirts are a band of fair-haired, merry children--some

of them standing or lying on the grass and gazing attentively at the

proceedings, and others running about and amusing themselves. Close

to these stand a group of young girls, convulsed with half-suppressed

laughter. The cause of their merriment is a youth of some seventeen

summers, evidently the wag of the village, who stands beside them with

an accordion in his hand, and relates to them in a half-whisper how he

is about to be elected Elder, and what mad pranks he will play in that

capacity. When one of the girls happens to laugh outright, the matrons

who are standing near turn round and scowl; and one of them, stepping

forward, orders the offender, in a tone of authority, to go home at once

if she cannot behave herself. Crestfallen, the culprit retires, and the

youth who is the cause of the merriment makes the incident the subject

of a new joke. Meanwhile the deliberations have begun. The majority of

the members are chatting together, or looking at a little group composed

of three peasants and a woman, who are standing a little apart from the

others. Here alone the matter in hand is being really discussed. The

woman is explaining, with tears in her eyes, and with a vast amount of

useless repetition, that her "old man," who is Elder for the time being,

is very ill, and cannot fulfil his duties.

"But he has not yet served a year, and he'll get better," remarks one

peasant, evidently the youngest of the little group.

"Who knows?" replies the woman, sobbing. "It is the will of God, but

I don't believe that he'll ever put his foot to the ground again. The

Feldsher has been four times to see him, and the doctor himself came

once, and said that he must be brought to the hospital."

"And why has he not been taken there?"

"How could he be taken? Who is to carry him? Do you think he's a baby?

The hospital is forty versts off. If you put him in a cart he would die

before he had gone a verst. And then, who knows what they do with people

in the hospital?" This last question contained probably the true reason

why the doctor's orders had been disobeyed.

"Very well, that's enough; hold your tongue," says the grey-beard of

the little group to the woman; and then, turning to the other peasants,

remarks, "There is nothing to be done. The Stanovoi [officer of rural

police] will be here one of these days, and will make a row again if we

don't elect a new Elder. Whom shall we choose?"

As soon as this question is asked several peasants look down to the

ground, or try in some other way to avoid attracting attention, lest

their names should be suggested. When the silence has continued a minute

or two, the greybeard says, "There is Alexei Ivanof; he has not served

yet!"

"Yes, yes, Alexei Ivanof!" shout half-a-dozen voices, belonging probably

to peasants who fear they may be elected.

Alexei protests in the strongest terms. He cannot say that he is ill,

because his big ruddy face would give him the lie direct, but he finds

half-a-dozen other reasons why he should not be chosen, and accordingly

requests to be excused. But his protestations are not listened to, and

the proceedings terminate. A new Village Elder has been duly elected.

Far more important than the elections is the redistribution of the

Communal land. It can matter but little to the Head of a Household how

the elections go, provided he himself is not chosen. He can accept

with perfect equanimity Alexei, or Ivan, or Nikolai, because the

office-bearers have very little influence in Communal affairs. But he

cannot remain a passive, indifferent spectator when the division and

allotment of the land come to be discussed, for the material welfare of

every household depends to a great extent on the amount of land and of

burdens which it receives.

In the southern provinces, where the soil is fertile, and the taxes do

not exceed the normal rent, the process of division and allotment is

comparatively simple. Here each peasant desires to get as much land as

possible, and consequently each household demands all the land to which

it is entitled--that is to say, a number of shares equal to the number

of its members inscribed in the last revision list. The Assembly has

therefore no difficult questions to decide. The Communal revision list

determines the number of shares into which the land must be divided, and

the number of shares to be allotted to each family. The only difficulty

likely to arise is as to which particular shares a particular family

shall receive, and this difficulty is commonly obviated by the custom of

drawing lots. There may be, it is true, some difference of opinion as

to when a redistribution should be made, but this question is easily

decided by a vote of the Assembly.

Very different is the process of division and allotment in many Communes

of the northern provinces. Here the soil is often very unfertile and the

taxes exceed the normal rent, and consequently it may happen that the

peasants strive to have as little land as possible. In these cases such

scenes as the following may occur:

Ivan is being asked how many shares of the Communal land he will take,

and replies in a slow, contemplative way, "I have two sons, and there

is myself, so I'll take three shares, or somewhat less, if it is your

pleasure."

"Less!" exclaims a middle-aged peasant, who is not the Village Elder,

but merely an influential member, and takes the leading part in the

proceedings. "You talk nonsense. Your two sons are already old enough to

help you, and soon they may get married, and so bring you two new female

labourers."

"My eldest son," explains Ivan, "always works in Moscow, and the other

often leaves me in summer."

"But they both send or bring home money, and when they get married, the

wives will remain with you."

"God knows what will be," replies Ivan, passing over in silence the

first part of his opponent's remark. "Who knows if they will marry?"

"You can easily arrange that!"

"That I cannot do. The times are changed now. The young people do as

they wish, and when they do get married they all wish to have houses of

their own. Three shares will be heavy enough for me!"

"No, no. If they wish to separate from you, they will take some land

from you. You must take at least four. The old wives there who have

little children cannot take shares according to the number of souls."

"He is a rich muzhik!" says a voice in the crowd. "Lay on him five

souls!" (that is to say, give him five shares of the land and of the

burdens).

"Five souls I cannot! By God, I cannot!"

"Very well, you shall have four," says the leading spirit to Ivan; and

then, turning to the crowd, inquires, "Shall it be so?"

"Four! four!" murmurs the crowd; and the question is settled.

Next comes one of the old wives just referred to. Her husband is a

permanent invalid, and she has three little boys, only one of whom is

old enough for field labour. If the number of souls were taken as the

basis of distribution, she would receive four shares; but she would

never be able to pay four shares of the Communal burdens. She must

therefore receive less than that amount. When asked how many she will

take, she replies with downcast eyes, "As the Mir decides, so be it!"

"Then you must take three."

"What do you say, little father?" cries the woman, throwing off suddenly

her air of submissive obedience. "Do you hear that, ye orthodox? They

want to lay upon me three souls! Was such a thing ever heard of? Since

St. Peter's Day my husband has been bedridden--bewitched, it seems, for

nothing does him good. He cannot put a foot to the ground--all the same

as if he were dead; only he eats bread!"

"You talk nonsense," says a neighbour; "he was in the kabak [gin-shop]

last week."

"And you!" retorts the woman, wandering from the subject in hand; "what

did YOU do last parish fete? Was it not you who got drunk and beat

your wife till she roused the whole village with her shrieking? And no

further gone than last Sunday--pfu!"

"Listen!" says the old man, sternly cutting short the torrent of

invective. "You must take at least two shares and a half. If you cannot

manage it yourself, you can get some one to help you."

"How can that be? Where am I to get the money to pay a labourer?"

asks the woman, with much wailing and a flood of tears. "Have pity, ye

orthodox, on the poor orphans! God will reward you!" and so on, and so

on.

I need not worry the reader with a further description of these scenes,

which are always very long and sometimes violent. All present are deeply

interested, for the allotment of the land is by far the most important

event in Russian peasant life, and the arrangement cannot be made

without endless talking and discussion. After the number of shares for

each family has been decided, the distribution of the lots gives rise to

new difficulties. The families who have plentifully manured their land

strive to get back their old lots, and the Commune respects their claims

so far as these are consistent with the new arrangement; but often it

happens that it is impossible to conciliate private rights and Communal

interests, and in such cases the former are sacrificed in a way that

would not be tolerated by men of Anglo-Saxon race. This leads, however,

to no serious consequences. The peasants are accustomed to work together

in this way, to make concessions for the Communal welfare, and to bow

unreservedly to the will of the Mir. I know of many instances where

the peasants have set at defiance the authority of the police, of the

provincial governor, and of the central Government itself, but I have

never heard of any instance where the will of the Mir was openly opposed

by one of its members.

In the preceding pages I have repeatedly spoken about "shares of the

Communal land." To prevent misconception I must explain carefully what

this expression means. A share does not mean simply a plot or parcel of

land; on the contrary, it always contains at least four, and may contain

a large number of distinct plots. We have here a new point of difference

between the Russian village and the villages of Western Europe.

Communal land in Russia is of three kinds: the land on which the village

is built, the arable land, and the meadow or hay-field, if the village

is fortunate enough to possess one. On the first of these each family

possesses a house and garden, which are the hereditary property of the

family, and are never affected by the periodical redistributions. The

other two kinds are both subject to redistribution, but on somewhat

different principles.

The whole of the Communal arable land is first of all divided into three

fields, to suit the triennial rotation of crops already described, and

each field is divided into a number of long narrow strips--corresponding

to the number of male members in the Commune--as nearly as possible

equal to each other in area and quality. Sometimes it is necessary to

divide the field into several portions, according to the quality of the

soil, and then to subdivide each of these portions into the requisite

number of strips. Thus in all cases every household possesses at

least one strip in each field; and in those cases where subdivision is

necessary, every household possesses a strip in each of the portions

into which the field is subdivided. It often happens, therefore, that

the strips are very narrow, and the portions belonging to each family

very numerous. Strips six feet wide are by no means rare. In 124

villages of the province of Moscow, regarding which I have special

information, they varied in width from 3 to 45 yards, with an average

of 11 yards. Of these narrow strips a household may possess as many

as thirty in a single field! The complicated process of division and

subdivision is accomplished by the peasants themselves, with the aid

of simple measuring-rods, and the accuracy of the result is truly

marvellous.

The meadow, which is reserved for the production of hay, is divided

into the same number of shares as the arable land. There, however, the

division and distribution take place, not at irregular intervals, but

annually. Every year, on a day fixed by the Assembly, the villagers

proceed in a body to this part of their property, and divide it into

the requisite number of portions. Lots are then cast, and each family

at once mows the portion allotted to it. In some Communes the meadow is

mown by all the peasants in common, and the hay afterwards distributed

by lot among the families; but this system is by no means so frequently

used.

As the whole of the Communal land thus resembles to some extent a big

farm, it is necessary to make certain rules concerning cultivation.

A family may sow what it likes in the land allotted to it, but all

families must at least conform to the accepted system of rotation.

In like manner, a family cannot begin the autumn ploughing before the

appointed time, because it would thereby interfere with the rights of

the other families, who use the fallow field as pasturage.

It is not a little strange that this primitive system of land tenure

should have succeeded in living into the twentieth century, and still

more remarkable that the institution of which it forms an essential

part should be regarded by many intelligent people as one of the great

institutions of the future, and almost as a panacea for social and

political evils. The explanation of these facts will form the subject of

the next chapter.

CHAPTER IX

HOW THE COMMUNE HAS BEEN PRESERVED, AND WHAT IT IS TO EFFECT IN THE

FUTURE

Sweeping Reforms after the Crimean War--Protest Against the Laissez

Faire Principle--Fear of the Proletariat--English and Russian Methods of

Legislation Contrasted--Sanguine Expectations--Evil Consequences of

the Communal System--The Commune of the Future--Proletariat of the

Towns--The Present State of Things Merely Temporary.

The reader is probably aware that immediately after the Crimean War

Russia was subjected to a series of sweeping reforms, including the

emancipation of the serfs and the creation of a new system of local

self-government, and he may naturally wonder how it came to pass that

a curious, primitive institution like the rural Commune succeeded in

weathering the bureaucratic hurricane. This strange phenomena I now

proceed to explain, partly because the subject is in itself interesting,

and partly because I hope thereby to throw some light on the peculiar

intellectual condition of the Russian educated classes.

When it became evident, in 1857, that the serfs were about to be

emancipated, it was at first pretty generally supposed that the rural

Commune would be entirely abolished, or at least radically modified. At

that time many Russians were enthusiastic, indiscriminate admirers of

English institutions, and believed, in common with the orthodox school

of political economists, that England had acquired her commercial and

industrial superiority by adopting the principle of individual liberty

and unrestricted competition, or, as French writers term it, the

"laissez faire" principle. This principle is plainly inconsistent with

the rural Commune, which compels the peasantry to possess land, prevents

an enterprising peasant from acquiring the land of his less enterprising

neighbours, and places very considerable restrictions on the freedom of

action of the individual members. Accordingly it was assumed that the

rural Commune, being inconsistent with the modern spirit of progress,

would find no place in the new regime of liberty which was about to be

inaugurated.

No sooner had these ideas been announced in the Press than they

called forth strenuous protests. In the crowd of protesters were

two well-defined groups. On the one hand there were the so-called

Slavophils, a small band of patriotic, highly educated Moscovites, who

were strongly disposed to admire everything specifically Russian, and

who habitually refused to bow the knee to the wisdom of Western Europe.

These gentlemen, in a special organ which they had recently founded,

pointed out to their countrymen that the Commune was a venerable and

peculiarly Russian institution, which had mitigated in the past the

baneful influence of serfage, and would certainly in the future confer

inestimable benefits on the emancipated peasantry. The other group was

animated by a very different spirit. They had no sympathy with national

peculiarities, and no reverence for hoary antiquity. That the Commune

was specifically Russian or Slavonic, and a remnant of primitive

times, was in their eyes anything but a recommendation in its favour.

Cosmopolitan in their tendencies, and absolutely free from all

archaeological sentimentality, they regarded the institution from

the purely utilitarian point of view. They agreed, however, with the

Slavophils in thinking that its preservation would have a beneficial

influence on the material and moral welfare of the peasantry.

For the sake of convenience it is necessary to designate this latter

group by some definite name, but I confess I have some difficulty in

making a choice. I do not wish to call these gentlemen Socialists,

because many people habitually and involuntarily attach a stigma to

the word, and believe that all to whom the term is applied must be

first-cousins to the petroleuses. To avoid misconceptions of this kind,

it will be well to designate them simply by the organ which most

ably represented their views, and to call them the adherents of The

Contemporary.

The Slavophils and the adherents of The Contemporary, though differing

widely from each other in many respects, had the same immediate object

in view, and accordingly worked together. With great ingenuity they

contended that the Communal system of land tenure had much greater

advantages, and was attended with much fewer inconveniences, than

people generally supposed. But they did not confine themselves to these

immediate practical advantages, which had very little interest for

the general reader. The writers in The Contemporary explained that the

importance of the rural Commune lies, not in its actual condition, but

in its capabilities of development, and they drew, with prophetic eye,

most attractive pictures of the happy rural Commune of the future. Let

me give here, as an illustration, one of these prophetic descriptions:

"Thanks to the spread of primary and technical education the peasants

have become well acquainted with the science of agriculture, and are

always ready to undertake in common the necessary improvements. They no

longer exhaust the soil by exporting the grain, but sell merely certain

technical products containing no mineral ingredients. For this purpose

the Communes possess distilleries, starch-works, and the like, and the

soil thereby retains its original fertility. The scarcity induced by the

natural increase of the population is counteracted by improved methods

of cultivation. If the Chinese, who know nothing of natural science,

have succeeded by purely empirical methods in perfecting agriculture to

such an extent that a whole family can support itself on a few square

yards of land, what may not the European do with the help of chemistry,

botanical physiology, and the other natural sciences?"

Coming back from the possibilities of the future to the actualities of

the present, these ingenious and eloquent writers pointed out that

in the rural Commune, Russia possessed a sure preventive against the

greatest evil of West-European social organisation, the Proletariat.

Here the Slavophils could strike in with their favourite refrain about

the rotten social condition of Western Europe; and their temporary

allies, though they habitually scoffed at the Slavophil jeremiads, had

no reason for the moment to contradict them. Very soon the Proletariat

became, for the educated classes, a species of bugbear, and the reading

public were converted to the doctrine that the Communal institutions

should be preserved as a means of excluding the monster from Russia.

This fear of what is vaguely termed the Proletariat is still frequently

to be met with in Russia, and I have often taken pains to discover

precisely what is meant by the term. I cannot, however, say that my

efforts have been completely successful. The monster seems to be as

vague and shadowy as the awful forms which Milton placed at the gate of

the infernal regions. At one moment he seems to be simply our old enemy

Pauperism, but when we approach a little nearer we find that he

expands to colossal dimensions, so as to include all who do not

possess inalienable landed property. In short, he turns out to be, on

examination, as vague and undefinable as a good bugbear ought to be; and

this vagueness contributed probably not a little to his success.

The influence which the idea of the Proletariat exercised on the public

mind and on the legislation at the time of the Emancipation is a

very notable fact, and well worthy of attention, because it helps to

illustrate a point of difference between Russians and Englishmen.

Englishmen are, as a rule, too much occupied with the multifarious

concerns of the present to look much ahead into the distant future. We

profess, indeed, to regard with horror the maxim, Apres nous le deluge!

and we should probably annihilate with our virtuous indignation any one

who should boldly profess the principle. And yet we often act almost as

if we were really partisans of that heartless creed. When called upon

to consider the interests of the future generations, we declared

that "sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof," and stigmatise as

visionaries and dreamers all who seek to withdraw our attention from the

present. A modern Cassandra who confidently predicts the near exhaustion

of our coal-fields, or graphically describes a crushing national

disaster that must some day overtake us, may attract some public

attention; but when we learn that the misfortune is not to take place in

our time, we placidly remark that future generations must take care

of themselves, and that we cannot reasonably be expected to bear their

burdens. When we are obliged to legislate, we proceed in a cautious,

tentative way, and are quite satisfied with any homely, simple remedies

that common sense and experience may suggest, without taking the trouble

to inquire whether the remedy adopted is in accordance with scientific

theories. In short, there is a certain truth in those "famous prophetick

pictures" spoken of by Stillingfleet, which "represent the fate of

England by a mole, a creature blind and busy, continually working under

ground."

In Russia we find the opposite extreme. There reformers have been

trained, not in the arena of practical politics, but in the school of

political speculation. As soon, therefore, as they begin to examine

any simple matter with a view to legislation, it at once becomes

a "question," and flies up into the region of political and social

science. Whilst we have been groping along an unexplored path, the

Russians have--at least in recent times--been constantly mapping out,

with the help of foreign experience, the country that lay before them,

and advancing with gigantic strides according to the newest political

theories. Men trained in this way cannot rest satisfied with homely

remedies which merely alleviate the evils of the moment. They wish to

"tear up evil by the roots," and to legislate for future generations as

well as for themselves.

This tendency was peculiarly strong at the time of the Emancipation. The

educated classes were profoundly convinced that the system of Nicholas

I. had been a mistake, and that a new and brighter era was about to dawn

upon the country. Everything had to be reformed. The whole social and

political edifice had to be reconstructed on entirely new principles.

Let us imagine the position of a man who, having no practical

acquaintance with building, suddenly finds himself called upon to

construct a large house, containing all the newest appliances for

convenience and comfort. What will his first step be? Probably he will

proceed at once to study the latest authorities on architecture and

construction, and when he has mastered the general principles he will

come down gradually to the details. This is precisely what the Russians

did when they found themselves called upon to reconstruct the political

and social edifice. They eagerly consulted the most recent English,

French, and German writers on social and political science, and here it

was that they made the acquaintance of the Proletariat.

People who read books of travel without ever leaving their own country

are very apt to acquire exaggerated notions regarding the hardships

and dangers of uncivilised life. They read about savage tribes, daring

robbers, ferocious wild beasts, poisonous snakes, deadly fevers, and the

like; and they cannot but wonder how a human being can exist for a week

among such dangers. But if they happen thereafter to visit the countries

described, they discover to their surprise that, though the descriptions

may not have been exaggerated, life under such conditions is much easier

than they supposed. Now the Russians who read about the Proletariat were

very much like the people who remain at home and devour books of travel.

They gained exaggerated notions, and learned to fear the Proletariat

much more than we do, who habitually live in the midst of it. Of course

it is quite possible that their view of the subject is truer than ours,

and that we may some day, like the people who live tranquilly on the

slopes of a volcano, be rudely awakened from our fancied security. But

this is an entirely different question. I am at present not endeavouring

to justify our habitual callousness with regard to social dangers,

but simply seeking to explain why the Russians, who have little or no

practical acquaintance with pauperism, should have taken such elaborate

precautions against it.

But how can the preservation of the Communal institutions lead to this

"consummation devoutly to be wished," and how far are the precautions

likely to be successful?

Those who have studied the mysteries of social science have generally

come to the conclusion that the Proletariat has been formed chiefly by

the expropriation of the peasantry or small land-holders, and that its

formation might be prevented, or at least retarded, by any system of

legislation which would secure the possession of land for the peasants

and prevent them from being uprooted from the soil. Now it must be

admitted that the Russian Communal system is admirably adapted for this

purpose. About one-half of the arable land has been reserved for the

peasantry, and cannot be encroached on by the great landowners or the

capitalists, and every adult peasant, roughly speaking, has a right to

a share of this land. When I have said that the peasantry compose about

five-sixths of the population, and that it is extremely difficult for

a peasant to sever his connection with the rural Commune, it will be at

once evident that, if the theories of social philosophers are correct,

and if the sanguine expectations entertained in many quarters regarding

the permanence of the present Communal institutions are destined to be

realised, there is little or no danger of a numerous Proletariat being

formed, and the Russians are justified in maintaining, as they often do,

that they have successfully solved one of the most important and most

difficult of social problems.

But is there any reasonable chance of these sanguine expectations being

realised?

This is, doubtless, a most complicated and difficult question, but it

cannot be shirked. However sceptical we may be with regard to social

panaceas of all sorts, we cannot dismiss with a few hackneyed phrases a

gigantic experiment in social science involving the material and moral

welfare of many millions of human beings. On the other hand, I do not

wish to exhaust the reader's patience by a long series of multifarious

details and conflicting arguments. What I propose to do, therefore, is

to state in a few words the conclusions at which I have arrived, after a

careful study of the question in all its bearings, and to indicate in a

general way how I have arrived at these conclusions.

If Russia were content to remain a purely agricultural country of

the Sleepy Hollow type, and if her Government were to devote all its

energies to maintaining economic and social stagnation, the rural

Commune might perhaps prevent the formation of a large Proletariat in

the future, as it has tended to prevent it for centuries in the past.

The periodical redistributions of the Communal land would secure to

every family a portion of the soil, and when the population became too

dense, the evils arising from inordinate subdivision of the land

might be obviated by a carefully regulated system of emigration to

the outlying, thinly populated provinces. All this sounds very well

in theory, but experience is proving that it cannot be carried out in

practice. In Russia, as in Western Europe, the struggle for life, even

among the conservative agricultural classes, is becoming yearly more

and more intense, and is producing both the desire and the necessity for

greater freedom of individual character and effort, so that each man may

make his way in the world according to the amount of his intelligence,

energy, spirit of enterprise, and tenacity of purpose. Whatever

institutions tend to fetter the individual and maintain a dead level

of mediocrity have little chance of subsisting for any great length of

time, and it must be admitted that among such institutions the rural

Commune in its present form occupies a prominent place. All its members

must possess, in principle if not always in practice, an equal share of

the soil and must practice the same methods of agriculture, and when a

certain inequality has been created by individual effort it is in great

measure wiped out by a redistribution of the Communal land.

Now, I am well aware that in practice the injustice and inconveniences

of the system, being always tempered and corrected by ingenious

compromises suggested by long experience, are not nearly so great as the

mere theorist might naturally suppose; but they are, I believe, quite

great enough to prevent the permanent maintenance of the institution,

and already there are ominous indications of the coming change, as I

shall explain more fully when I come to deal with the consequences of

serf-emancipation. On the other hand there is no danger of a sudden,

general abolition of the old system. Though the law now permits the

transition from Communal to personal hereditary tenure, even the

progressive enterprising peasants are slow to avail themselves of the

permission; and the reason I once heard given for this conservative

tendency is worth recording. A well-to-do peasant who had been in the

habit of manuring his land better than his neighbours, and who was,

consequently, a loser by the existing system, said to me: "Of course I

want to keep the allotment I have got. But if the land is never again

to be divided my grandchildren may be beggars. We must not sin against

those who are to come after us." This unexpected reply gave me food

for reflection. Surely those muzhiks who are so often accused of being

brutally indifferent to moral obligations must have peculiar deep-rooted

moral conceptions of their own which exercise a great influence on their

daily life. A man who hesitates to sin against his grandchildren still

unborn, though his conceptions of the meum and the tuum in the present

may be occasionally a little confused, must possess somewhere deep down

in his nature a secret fund of moral feeling of a very respectable kind.

Even among the educated classes in Russia the way of looking at these

matters is very different from ours. We should naturally feel inclined

to applaud, encourage, and assist the peasants who show energy and

initiative, and who try to rise above their fellows. To the Russian

this seems at once inexpedient and immoral. The success of the few, he

explains, is always obtained at the expense of the many, and generally

by means which the severe moralist cannot approve of. The rich peasants,

for example, have gained their fortune and influence by demoralising

and exploiting their weaker brethren, by committing all manner of

illegalities, and by bribing the local authorities. Hence they are

styled Miroyedy (Commune-devourers) or Kulaki (fists), or something

equally uncomplimentary. Once this view is adopted, it follows logically

that the Communal institutions, in so far as they form a barrier to the

activity of such persons, ought to be carefully preserved. This idea

underlies nearly all the arguments in favour of the Commune, and

explains why they are so popular. Russians of all classes have, in fact,

a leaning towards socialistic notions, and very little sympathy with our

belief in individual initiative and unrestricted competition.

Even if it be admitted that the Commune may effectually prevent the

formation of an agricultural Proletariat, the question is thereby

only half answered. Russia aspires to become a great industrial and

commercial country, and accordingly her town population is rapidly

augmenting. We have still to consider, then, how the Commune affects

the Proletariat of the towns. In Western Europe the great centres of

industry have uprooted from the soil and collected in the towns a great

part of the rural population. Those who yielded to this attractive

influence severed all connection with their native villages, became

unfit for field labour, and were transformed into artisans or

factory-workers. In Russia this transformation could not easily take

place. The peasant might work during the greater part of his life in

the towns, but he did not thereby sever his connection with his native

village. He remained, whether he desired it or not, a member of the

Commune, possessing a share of the Communal land, and liable for a share

of the Communal burdens. During his residence in the town his wife

and family remained at home, and thither he himself sooner or

later returned. In this way a class of hybrids--half-peasants,

half-artisans--has been created, and the formation of a town Proletariat

has been greatly retarded.

The existence of this hybrid class is commonly cited as a beneficent

result of the Communal institutions. The artisans and factory labourers,

it is said, have thus always a home to which they can retire when thrown

out of work or overtaken by old age, and their children are brought

up in the country, instead of being reared among the debilitating

influences of overcrowded cities. Every common labourer has, in

short, by this ingenious contrivance, some small capital and a country

residence.

In the present transitional state of Russian society this peculiar

arrangement is at once natural and convenient, but amidst its advantages

it has many serious defects. The unnatural separation of the artisan

from his wife and family leads to very undesirable results, well known

to all who are familiar with the details of peasant life in the northern

provinces. And whatever its advantages and defects may be, it cannot be

permanently retained. At the present time native industry is still in

its infancy. Protected by the tariff from foreign competition, and too

few in number to produce a strong competition among themselves, the

existing factories can give to their owners a large revenue without any

strenuous exertion. Manufacturers can therefore allow themselves many

little liberties, which would be quite inadmissible if the price of

manufactured goods were lowered by brisk competition. Ask a Lancashire

manufacturer if he could allow a large portion of his workers to go

yearly to Cornwall or Caithness to mow a field of hay or reap a few

acres of wheat or oats! And if Russia is to make great industrial

progress, the manufacturers of Moscow, Lodz, Ivanovo, and Shui will

some day be as hard pressed as are those of Bradford and Manchester. The

invariable tendency of modern industry, and the secret of its progress,

is the ever-increasing division of labour; and how can this principle be

applied if the artisans insist on remaining agriculturists?

The interests of agriculture, too, are opposed to the old system.

Agriculture cannot be expected to make progress, or even to be tolerably

productive, if it is left in great measure to women and children. At

present it is not desirable that the link which binds the factory-worker

or artisan with the village should be at once severed, for in

the neighbourhood of the large factories there is often no proper

accommodation for the families of the workers, and agriculture, as at

present practised, can be carried on successfully though the Head of

the Household happens to be absent. But the system must be regarded as

simply temporary, and the disruption of large families--a phenomenon

of which I have already spoken--renders its application more and more

difficult.

CHAPTER X

FINNISH AND TARTAR VILLAGES

A Finnish Tribe--Finnish Villages--Various Stages of

Russification--Finnish Women--Finnish Religions--Method of "Laying"

Ghosts--Curious Mixture of Christianity and Paganism--Conversion of

the Finns--A Tartar Village--A Russian Peasant's Conception of

Mahometanism--A Mahometan's View of Christianity--Propaganda--The

Russian Colonist--Migrations of Peoples During the Dark Ages.

When talking one day with a landed proprietor who lived near Ivanofka,

I accidentally discovered that in a district at some distance to the

northeast there were certain villages the inhabitants of which did not

understand Russian, and habitually used a peculiar language of their

own. With an illogical hastiness worthy of a genuine ethnologist, I at

once assumed that these must be the remnants of some aboriginal race.

"Des aborigenes!" I exclaimed, unable to recall the Russian equivalent

for the term, and knowing that my friend understood French. "Doubtless

the remains of some ancient race who formerly held the country, and are

now rapidly disappearing. Have you any Aborigines Protection Society in

this part of the world?"

My friend had evidently great difficulty in imagining what an Aborigines

Protection Society could be, and promptly assured me that there was

nothing of the kind in Russia. On being told that such a society might

render valuable services by protecting the weaker against the stronger

race, and collecting important materials for the new science of Social

Embryology, he looked thoroughly mystified. As to the new science,

he had never heard of it, and as to protection, he thought that the

inhabitants of the villages in question were quite capable of protecting

themselves. "I could invent," he added, with a malicious smile, "a

society for the protection of ALL peasants, but I am quite sure that the

authorities would not allow me to carry out my idea."

My ethnological curiosity was thoroughly aroused, and I endeavoured to

awaken a similar feeling in my friend by hinting that we had at hand a

promising field for discoveries which might immortalise the fortunate

explorers; but my efforts were in vain. The old gentleman was a portly,

indolent man, of phlegmatic temperament, who thought more of comfort

than of immortality in the terrestrial sense of the term. To my proposal

that we should start at once on an exploring expedition, he replied

calmly that the distance was considerable, that the roads were muddy,

and that there was nothing to be learned. The villages in question were

very like other villages, and their inhabitants lived, to all intents

and purposes, in the same way as their Russian neighbours. If they had

any secret peculiarities they would certainly not divulge them to

a stranger, for they were notoriously silent, gloomy, morose, and

uncommunicative. Everything that was known about them, my friend assured

me, might be communicated in a few words. They belonged to a Finnish

tribe called Korelli, and had been transported to their present

settlements in comparatively recent times. In answer to my questions as

to how, when, and by whom they had been transported thither my informant

replied that it had been the work of Ivan the Terrible.

Though I knew at that time little of Russian history, I suspected that

the last assertion was invented on the spur of the moment, in order to

satisfy my troublesome curiosity, and accordingly I determined not

to accept it without verification. The result showed how careful

the traveller should be in accepting the testimony of "intelligent,

well-informed natives." On further investigation I discovered, not only

that the story about Ivan the Terrible was a pure invention--whether of

my friend or of the popular imagination, which always uses heroic names

as pegs on which to hang traditions, I know not--but also that my first

theory was correct. These Finnish peasants turned out to be a remnant

of the aborigines, or at least of the oldest known inhabitants of the

district. Men of the same race, but bearing different tribal names,

such as Finns, Korelli, Tcheremiss, Tchuvash, Mordva, Votyaks, Permyaks,

Zyryanye, Voguls, are to be found in considerable numbers all over the

northern provinces, from the Gulf of Bothnia to Western Siberia, as well

as in the provinces bordering the Middle Volga as far south as Penza,

Simbirsk, and Tamboff.* The Russian peasants, who now compose the great

mass of the population, are the intruders.

* The semi-official "Statesman's Handbook for Russia,"

published in 1896, enumerates fourteen different tribes,

with an aggregate of about 4,650,000 souls, but these

numbers must not be regarded as having any pretensions to

accuracy. The best authorities differ widely in their

estimates.

I had long taken a deep interest in what learned Germans call the

Volkerwanderung--that is to say, the migrations of peoples during the

gradual dissolution of the Roman Empire, and it had often occurred to me

that the most approved authorities, who had expended an infinite

amount of learning on the subject, had not always taken the trouble to

investigate the nature of the process. It is not enough to know that

a race or tribe extended its dominions or changed its geographical

position. We ought at the same time to inquire whether it expelled,

exterminated, or absorbed the former inhabitants, and how the expulsion,

extermination, or absorption was effected. Now of these three processes,

absorption may have been more frequent than is commonly supposed, and it

seemed to me that in Northern Russia this process might be conveniently

studied. A thousand years ago the whole of Northern Russia was peopled

by Finnish pagan tribes, and at the present day the greater part of it

is occupied by peasants who speak the language of Moscow, profess the

Orthodox faith, present in their physiognomy no striking peculiarities,

and appear to the superficial observer pure Russians. And we have

no reason to suppose that the former inhabitants were expelled or

exterminated, or that they gradually died out from contact with the

civilisation and vices of a higher race. History records no

wholesale Finnish migrations like that of the Kalmyks, and no war of

extermination; and statistics prove that among the remnants of those

primitive races the population increases as rapidly as among the Russian

peasantry.* From these facts I concluded that the Finnish aborigines had

been simply absorbed, or rather, were being absorbed, by the Slavonic

intruders.

* This latter statement is made on the authority of Popoff

("Zyryanye i zyryanski krai," Moscow, 1874) and

Tcheremshanski ("Opisanie Orenburgskoi Gubernii," Ufa,

1859).

This conclusion has since been confirmed by observation. During my

wanderings in these northern provinces I have found villages in every

stage of Russification. In one, everything seemed thoroughly Finnish:

the inhabitants had a reddish-olive skin, very high cheek-bones,

obliquely set eyes, and a peculiar costume; none of the women, and very

few of the men, could understand Russian, and any Russian who visited

the place was regarded as a foreigner. In a second, there were already

some Russian inhabitants; the others had lost something of their pure

Finnish type, many of the men had discarded the old costume and spoke

Russian fluently, and a Russian visitor was no longer shunned. In a

third, the Finnish type was still further weakened: all the men spoke

Russian, and nearly all the women understood it; the old male costume

had entirely disappeared, and the old female costume was rapidly

following it; while intermarriage with the Russian population was no

longer rare. In a fourth, intermarriage had almost completely done its

work, and the old Finnish element could be detected merely in certain

peculiarities of physiognomy and pronunciation.*

* One of the most common peculiarities of pronunciation is

the substitution of the sound of ts for that of tch, which I

found almost universal over a large area.

The process of Russification may be likewise observed in the manner of

building the houses and in the methods of farming, which show plainly

that the Finnish races did not obtain rudimentary civilisation from the

Slavs. Whence, then, was it derived? Was it obtained from some other

race, or is it indigenous? These are questions which I have no means of

answering.

A Positivist poet--or if that be a contradiction in terms, let us say

a Positivist who wrote verses--once composed an appeal to the fair sex,

beginning with the words:

"Pourquoi, O femmes, restez-vous en arriere?"

The question might have been addressed to the women in these Finnish

villages. Like their sisters in France, they are much more conservative

than the men, and oppose much more stubbornly the Russian influence.

On the other hand, like women in general, when they do begin to change,

they change more rapidly. This is seen especially in the matter of

costume. The men adopt the Russian costume very gradually; the women

adopt it at once. As soon as a single woman gets a gaudy Russian dress,

every other woman in the village feels envious and impatient till she

has done likewise. I remember once visiting a Mordva village when this

critical point had been reached, and a very characteristic incident

occurred. In the preceding villages through which I had passed I had

tried in vain to buy a female costume, and I again made the attempt.

This time the result was very different. A few minutes after I had

expressed my wish to purchase a costume, the house in which I was

sitting was besieged by a great crowd of women, holding in their hands

articles of wearing apparel. In order to make a selection I went out

into the crowd, but the desire to find a purchaser was so general and

so ardent that I was regularly mobbed. The women, shouting "Kupi! kupi!"

("Buy! buy!"), and struggling with each other to get near me, were so

importunate that I had at last to take refuge in the house, to prevent

my own costume from being torn to shreds. But even there I was not

safe, for the women followed at my heels, and a considerable amount of

good-natured violence had to be employed to expel the intruders.

It is especially interesting to observe the transformation of

nationality in the sphere of religious conceptions. The Finns remained

pagans long after the Russians had become Christians, but at the present

time the whole population, from the eastern boundary of Finland proper

to the Ural Mountains, are officially described as members of the

Greek Orthodox Church. The manner in which this change of religion was

effected is well worthy of attention.

The old religion of the Finnish tribes, if we may judge from the

fragments which still remain, had, like the people themselves, a

thoroughly practical, prosaic character. Their theology consisted not of

abstract dogmas, but merely of simple prescriptions for the ensuring

of material welfare. Even at the present day, in the districts not

completely Russified, their prayers are plain, unadorned requests for

a good harvest, plenty of cattle, and the like, and are expressed in a

tone of childlike familiarity that sounds strange in our ears. They

make no attempt to veil their desires with mystic solemnity, but ask, in

simple, straightforward fashion, that God should make the barley ripen

and the cow calve successfully, that He should prevent their horses from

being stolen, and that he should help them to gain money to pay their

taxes.

Their religious ceremonies have, so far as I have been able to discover,

no hidden mystical signification, and are for the most part rather

magical rites for averting the influence of malicious spirits,

or freeing themselves from the unwelcome visits of their departed

relatives. For this latter purpose many even of those who are officially

Christians proceed at stated seasons to the graveyards and place an

abundant supply of cooked food on the graves of their relations who have

recently died, requesting the departed to accept this meal, and not to

return to their old homes, where their presence is no longer desired.

Though more of the food is eaten at night by the village dogs than

by the famished spirits, the custom is believed to have a powerful

influence in preventing the dead from wandering about at night and

frightening the living. If it be true, as I am inclined to believe, that

tombstones were originally used for keeping the dead in their graves,

then it must be admitted that in the matter of "laying" ghosts the

Finns have shown themselves much more humane than other races. It

may, however, be suggested that in the original home of the Finns--"le

berceau de la race," as French ethnologists say--stones could not easily

be procured, and that the custom of feeding the dead was adopted as a

pis aller. The decision of the question must be left to those who know

where the original home of the Finns was.

As the Russian peasantry, knowing little or nothing of theology, and

placing implicit confidence in rites and ceremonies, did not differ very

widely from the pagan Finns in the matter of religious conceptions, the

friendly contact of the two races naturally led to a curious blending of

the two religions. The Russians adopted many customs from the Finns,

and the Finns adopted still more from the Russians. When Yumala and the

other Finnish deities did not do as they were desired, their worshippers

naturally applied for protection or assistance to the Madonna and the

"Russian God." If their own traditional magic rites did not suffice to

ward off evil influences, they naturally tried the effect of crossing

themselves, as the Russians do in moments of danger. All this may seem

strange to us who have been taught from our earliest years that religion

is something quite different from spells, charms, and incantations, and

that of all the various religions in the world one alone is true, all

the others being false. But we must remember that the Finns have had a

very different education. They do not distinguish religion from magic

rites, and they have never been taught that other religions are less

true than their own. For them the best religion is the one which

contains the most potent spells, and they see no reason why less

powerful religions should not be blended therewith. Their deities are

not jealous gods, and do not insist on having a monopoly of devotion;

and in any case they cannot do much injury to those who have placed

themselves under the protection of a more powerful divinity.

This simple-minded eclecticism often produces a singular mixture of

Christianity and paganism. Thus, for instance, at the harvest festivals,

Tchuvash peasants have been known to pray first to their own deities,

and then to St. Nicholas, the miracle-worker, who is the favourite

saint of the Russian peasantry. Such dual worship is sometimes

even recommended by the Yomzi--a class of men who correspond to the

medicine-men among the Red Indians--and the prayers are on these

occasions couched in the most familiar terms. Here is a specimen given

by a Russian who has specially studied the language and customs of this

interesting people:* "Look here, O Nicholas-god! Perhaps my neighbour,

little Michael, has been slandering me to you, or perhaps he will do

so. If he does, don't believe him. I have done him no ill, and wish him

none. He is a worthless boaster and a babbler. He does not really honour

you, and merely plays the hypocrite. But I honour you from my heart;

and, behold, I place a taper before you!" Sometimes incidents occur

which display a still more curious blending of the two religions. Thus

a Tcheremiss, on one occasion, in consequence of a serious illness,

sacrificed a young foal to our Lady of Kazan!

* Mr. Zolotnitski, "Tchuvasko-russki slovar," p. 167.

Though the Finnish beliefs affected to some extent the Russian

peasantry, the Russian faith ultimately prevailed. This can be

explained without taking into consideration the inherent superiority

of Christianity over all forms of paganism. The Finns had no organised

priesthood, and consequently never offered a systematic opposition to

the new faith; the Russians, on the contrary, had a regular hierarchy in

close alliance with the civil administration. In the principal villages

Christian churches were built, and some of the police-officers vied with

the ecclesiastical officials in the work of making converts. At the same

time there were other influences tending in the same direction. If

a Russian practised Finnish superstitions he exposed himself to

disagreeable consequences of a temporal kind; if, on the contrary, a

Finn adopted the Christian religion, the temporal consequences that

could result were all advantageous to him.

Many of the Finns gradually became Christians almost unconsciously. The

ecclesiastical authorities were extremely moderate in their demands.

They insisted on no religious knowledge, and merely demanded that the

converts should be baptised. The converts, failing to understand the

spiritual significance of the ceremony, commonly offered no resistance,

so long as the immersion was performed in summer. So little repugnance,

indeed, did they feel, that on some occasions, when a small reward

was given to those who consented, some of the new converts wished the

ceremony to be repeated several times. The chief objection to receiving

the Christian faith lay in the long and severe fasts imposed by the

Greek Orthodox Church; but this difficulty was overcome by assuming that

they need not be strictly observed. At first, in some districts, it was

popularly believed that the Icons informed the Russian priests against

those who did not fast as the Church prescribed; but experience

gradually exploded this theory. Some of the more prudent converts,

however, to prevent all possible tale-telling, took the precaution of

turning the face of the Icon to the wall when prohibited meats were

about to be eaten!

This gradual conversion of the Finnish tribes, effected without any

intellectual revolution in the minds of the converts, had very important

temporal consequences. Community of faith led to intermarriage, and

intermarriage led rapidly to the blending of the two races.

If we compare a Finnish village in any stage of Russification with a

Tartar village, of which the inhabitants are Mahometans, we cannot fail

to be struck by the contrast. In the latter, though there may be many

Russians, there is no blending of the two races. Between them religion

has raised an impassable barrier. There are many villages in the eastern

and north-eastern provinces of European Russia which have been for

generations half Tartar and half Russian, and the amalgamation of

the two nationalities has not yet begun. Near the one end stands the

Christian church, and near the other stands the little metchet, or

Mahometan house of prayer. The whole village forms one Commune, with one

Village Assembly and one Village Elder; but, socially, it is composed

of two distinct communities, each possessing its peculiar customs and

peculiar mode of life. The Tartar may learn Russian, but he does not on

that account become Russianised.

It must not, however, be supposed that the two races are imbued with

fanatical hatred towards each other. On the contrary, they live in

perfect good-fellowship, elect as Village Elder sometimes a Russian

and sometimes a Tartar, and discuss the Communal affairs in the Village

Assembly without reference to religious matters. I know one village

where the good-fellowship went even a step farther: the Christians

determined to repair their church, and the Mahometans helped them to

transport wood for the purpose! All this tends to show that under a

tolerably good Government, which does not favour one race at the expense

of the other, Mahometan Tartars and Christian Slavs can live peaceably

together.

The absence of fanaticism and of that proselytising zeal which is one of

the most prolific sources of religious hatred, is to be explained by

the peculiar religious conceptions of these peasants. In their

minds religion and nationality are so closely allied as to be almost

identical. The Russian is, as it were, by nature a Christian, and the

Tartar a Mahometan; and it never occurs to any one in these villages

to disturb the appointed order of nature. On this subject I had once an

interesting conversation with a Russian peasant who had been for some

time living among Tartars. In reply to my question as to what kind of

people the Tartars were, he replied laconically, "Nitchevo"--that is to

say, "nothing in particular"; and on being pressed for a more definite

expression of opinion, he admitted that they were very good people

indeed.

"And what kind of faith have they?" I continued.

"A good enough faith," was the prompt reply.

"Is it better than the faith of the Molokanye?" The Molokanye are

Russian sectarians--closely resembling Scotch Presbyterians--of whom I

shall have more to say in the sequel.

"Of course it is better than the Molokan faith."

"Indeed!" I exclaimed, endeavouring to conceal my astonishment at this

strange judgment. "Are the Molokanye, then, very bad people?"

"Not at all. The Molokanye are good and honest."

"Why, then, do you think their faith is so much worse than that of the

Mahometans?"

"How shall I tell you?" The peasant here paused as if to collect his

thoughts, and then proceeded slowly, "The Tartars, you see, received

their faith from God as they received the colour of their skins, but

the Molokanye are Russians who have invented a faith out of their own

heads!"

This singular answer scarcely requires a commentary. As it would be

absurd to try to make Tartars change the colour of their skins, so it

would be absurd to try to make them change their religion. Besides this,

such an attempt would be an unjustifiable interference with the designs

of Providence, for, in the peasant's opinion, God gave Mahometanism to

the Tartars just as he gave the Orthodox faith to the Russians.

The ecclesiastical authorities do not formally adopt this strange

theory, but they generally act in accordance with it. There is little

official propaganda among the Mahometan subjects of the Tsar, and it is

well that it is so, for an energetic propaganda would lead merely to

the stirring up of any latent hostility which may exist deep down in the

nature of the two races, and it would not make any real converts. The

Tartars cannot unconsciously imbibe Christianity as the Finns have done.

Their religion is not a rude, simple paganism without theology in

the scholastic sense of the term, but a monotheism as exclusive as

Christianity itself. Enter into conversation with an intelligent man

who has no higher religious belief than a rude sort of paganism, and you

may, if you know him well and make a judicious use of your knowledge,

easily interest him in the touching story of Christ's life and teaching.

And in these unsophisticated natures there is but one step from interest

and sympathy to conversion.

Try the same method with a Mussulman, and you will soon find that all

your efforts are fruitless. He has already a theology and a prophet of

his own, and sees no reason why he should exchange them for those which

you have to offer. Perhaps he will show you more or less openly that he

pities your ignorance and wonders that you have not been able to ADVANCE

from Christianity to Mahometanism. In his opinion--I am supposing that

he is a man of education--Moses and Christ were great prophets in their

day, and consequently he is accustomed to respect their memory; but he

is profoundly convinced that however appropriate they were for their own

times, they have been entirely superseded by Mahomet, precisely as

we believe that Judaism was superseded by Christianity. Proud of his

superior knowledge, he regards you as a benighted polytheist, and may

perhaps tell you that the Orthodox Christians with whom he comes in

contact have three Gods and a host of lesser deities called saints, that

they pray to idols called Icons, and that they keep their holy days by

getting drunk. In vain you endeavour to explain to him that saints

and Icons are not essential parts of Christianity, and that habits of

intoxication have no religious significance. On these points he may make

concessions to you, but the doctrine of the Trinity remains for him a

fatal stumbling-block. "You Christians," he will say, "once had a great

prophet called Jisous, who is mentioned with respect in the Koran, but

you falsified your sacred writings and took to worshipping him, and

now you declare that he is the equal of Allah. Far from us be such

blasphemy! There is but one God, and Mahomet is His prophet."

A worthy Christian missionary, who had laboured long and zealously among

a Mussulman population, once called me sharply to account for having

expressed the opinion that Mahometans are very rarely converted to

Christianity. When I brought him down from the region of vague general

statements and insisted on knowing how many cases he had met with in his

own personal experience during sixteen years of missionary work, he was

constrained to admit that he had know only one: and when I pressed him

farther as to the disinterested sincerity of the convert in question his

reply was not altogether satisfactory.

The policy of religious non-intervention has not always been practised

by the Government. Soon after the conquest of the Khanate of Kazan in

the sixteenth century, the Tsars of Muscovy attempted to convert their

new subjects from Mahometanism to Christianity. The means employed were

partly spiritual and partly administrative, but the police-officers

seem to have played a more important part than the clergy. In this way

a certain number of Tartars were baptised; but the authorities were

obliged to admit that the new converts "shamelessly retain many horrid

Tartar customs, and neither hold nor know the Christian faith." When

spiritual exhortations failed, the Government ordered its officials to

"pacify, imprison, put in irons, and thereby UNTEACH and frighten from

the Tartar faith those who, though baptised, do not obey the admonitions

of the Metropolitan." These energetic measures proved as ineffectual

as the spiritual exhortations; and Catherine II. adopted a new

method, highly characteristic of her system of administration. The new

converts--who, be it remembered, were unable to read and write--were

ordered by Imperial ukaz to sign a written promise to the effect that

"they would completely forsake their infidel errors, and, avoiding all

intercourse with unbelievers, would hold firmly and unwaveringly the

Christian faith and its dogmas"*--of which latter, we may add, they had

not the slightest knowledge. The childlike faith in the magical efficacy

of stamped paper here displayed was not justified. The so-called

"baptised Tartars" are at the present time as far from being Christians

as they were in the sixteenth century. They cannot openly profess

Mahometanism, because men who have been once formally admitted into

the National Church cannot leave it without exposing themselves to

the severe pains and penalties of the criminal code, but they strongly

object to be Christianised.

* "Ukaz Kazanskoi dukhovnoi Konsistorii." Anno 1778.

On this subject I have found a remarkable admission in a semiofficial

article, published as recently as 1872.* "It is a fact worthy of

attention," says the writer, "that a long series of evident apostasies

coincides with the beginning of measures to confirm the converts in

the Christian faith. There must be, therefore, some collateral cause

producing those cases of apostasy precisely at the moment when the

contrary might be expected." There is a delightful naivete in this

way of stating the fact. The mysterious cause vaguely indicated is not

difficult to find. So long as the Government demanded merely that the

supposed converts should be inscribed as Christians in the official

registers, there was no official apostasy; but as soon as active

measures began to be taken "to confirm the converts," a spirit of

hostility and fanaticism appeared among the Mussulman population, and

made those who were inscribed as Christians resist the propaganda.

* "Zhurnal Ministerstva Narodnago Prosveshtcheniya." June,

1872.

It may safely be said that Christians are impervious to Islam, and

genuine Mussulmans impervious to Christianity; but between the two there

are certain tribes, or fractions of tribes, which present a promising

field for missionary enterprise. In this field the Tartars show much

more zeal than the Russians, and possess certain advantages over their

rivals. The tribes of Northeastern Russia learn Tartar much more easily

than Russian, and their geographical position and modes of life

bring them in contact with Russians much less than with Tartars. The

consequence is that whole villages of Tcheremiss and Votiaks, officially

inscribed as belonging to the Greek Orthodox Church, have openly

declared themselves Mahometans; and some of the more remarkable

conversions have been commemorated by popular songs, which are sung

by young and old. Against this propaganda the Orthodox ecclesiastical

authorities do little or nothing. Though the criminal code contains

severe enactments against those who fall away from the Orthodox Church,

and still more against those who produce apostasy,* the enactments are

rarely put in force. Both clergy and laity in the Russian Church are,

as a rule, very tolerant where no political questions are involved. The

parish priest pays attention to apostasy only when it diminishes his

annual revenues, and this can be easily avoided by the apostate's paying

a small yearly sum. If this precaution be taken, whole villages may be

converted to Islam without the higher ecclesiastical authorities knowing

anything of the matter.

* A person convicted of converting a Christian to Islamism

is sentenced, according to the criminal code (§184), to the

loss of all civil rights, and to imprisonment with hard

labour for a term varying from eight to ten years.

Whether the barrier that separates Christians and Mussulmans in Russia,

as elsewhere, will ever be broken down by education, I do not know; but

I may remark that hitherto the spread of education among the Tartars

has tended rather to imbue them with fanaticism. If we remember that

theological education always produces intolerance, and that Tartar

education is almost exclusively theological, we shall not be surprised

to find that a Tartar's religious fanaticism is generally in direct

proportion to the amount of his intellectual culture. The unlettered

Tartar, unspoiled by learning falsely so called, and knowing merely

enough of his religion to perform the customary ordinances prescribed by

the Prophet, is peaceable, kindly, and hospitable towards all men; but

the learned Tartar, who has been taught that the Christian is a kiafir

(infidel) and a mushrik (polytheist), odious in the sight of Allah, and

already condemned to eternal punishment, is as intolerant and fanatical

as the most bigoted Roman Catholic or Calvinist. Such fanatics are

occasionally to be met with in the eastern provinces, but they are

few in number, and have little influence on the masses. From my own

experience I can testify that during the whole course of my wanderings

I have nowhere received more kindness and hospitality than among the

uneducated Mussulman Bashkirs. Even here, however, Islam opposes a

strong barrier to Russification.

Though no such barrier existed among the pagan Finnish tribes, the work

of Russification among them is still, as I have already indicated, far

from complete. Not only whole villages, but even many entire districts,

are still very little affected by Russian influence. This is to be

explained partly by geographical conditions. In regions which have a

poor soil, and are intersected by no navigable river, there are few or

no Russian settlers, and consequently the Finns have there preserved

intact their language and customs; whilst in those districts which

present more inducements to colonisation, the Russian population is more

numerous, and the Finns less conservative. It must, however, be admitted

that geographical conditions do not completely explain the facts. The

various tribes, even when placed in the same conditions, are not

equally susceptible to foreign influence. The Mordva, for instance,

are infinitely less conservative than the Tchuvash. This I have often

noticed, and my impression has been confirmed by men who have had more

opportunities of observation. For the present we must attribute this to

some occult ethnological peculiarity, but future investigations may some

day supply a more satisfactory explanation. Already I have obtained

some facts which appear to throw light on the subject. The Tchuvash have

certain customs which seem to indicate that they were formerly, if not

avowed Mahometans, at least under the influence of Islam, whilst we have

no reason to suppose that the Mordva ever passed through that school.

The absence of religious fanaticism greatly facilitated Russian

colonisation in these northern regions, and the essentially peaceful

disposition of the Russian peasantry tended in the same direction.

The Russian peasant is admirably fitted for the work of peaceful

agricultural colonisation. Among uncivilised tribes he is good-natured,

long-suffering, conciliatory, capable of bearing extreme hardships, and

endowed with a marvellous power of adapting himself to circumstances.

The haughty consciousness of personal and national superiority

habitually displayed by Englishmen of all ranks when they are brought

in contact with races which they look upon as lower in the scale of

humanity than themselves, is entirely foreign to his character. He has

no desire to rule, and no wish to make the natives hewers of wood and

drawers of water. All he desires is a few acres of land which he and his

family can cultivate; and so long as he is allowed to enjoy these he is

not likely to molest his neighbours. Had the colonists of the Finnish

country been men of Anglo-Saxon race, they would in all probability have

taken possession of the land and reduced the natives to the condition of

agricultural labourers. The Russian colonists have contented themselves

with a humbler and less aggressive mode of action; they have settled

peaceably among the native population, and are rapidly becoming blended

with it. In many districts the so-called Russians have perhaps more

Finnish than Slavonic blood in their veins.

But what has all this to do, it may be asked, with the aforementioned

Volkerwanderung, or migration of peoples, during the Dark Ages? More

than may at first sight appear. Some of the so-called migrations were,

I suspect, not at all migrations in the ordinary sense of the term, but

rather gradual changes, such as those which have taken place, and are

still taking place, in Northern Russia. A thousand years ago what is now

known as the province of Yaroslavl was inhabited by Finns, and now it is

occupied by men who are commonly regarded as pure Slavs. But it would be

an utter mistake to suppose that the Finns of this district migrated to

those more distant regions where they are now to be found. In reality

they formerly occupied, as I have said, the whole of Northern Russia,

and in the province of Yaroslavl they have been transformed by Slav

infiltration. In Central Europe the Slavs may be said in a certain

sense to have retreated, for in former times they occupied the whole of

Northern Germany as far as the Elbe. But what does the word "retreat"

mean in this case? It means probably that the Slays were gradually

Teutonised, and then absorbed by the Teutonic race. Some tribes, it

is true, swept over a part of Europe in genuine nomadic fashion, and

endeavoured perhaps to expel or exterminate the actual possessors of the

soil. This kind of migration may likewise be studied in Russia. But I

must leave the subject till I come to speak of the southern provinces.

CHAPTER XI

LORD NOVGOROD THE GREAT

Departure from Ivanofka and Arrival at Novgorod--The Eastern Half of

the Town--The Kremlin--An Old Legend--The Armed Men of Rus--The

Northmen--Popular Liberty in Novgorod--The Prince and the Popular

Assembly--Civil Dissensions and Faction-fights--The Commercial Republic

Conquered by the Muscovite Tsars--Ivan the Terrible--Present Condition

of the Town--Provincial Society--Card-playing--Periodicals--"Eternal

Stillness."

Country life in Russia is pleasant enough in summer or in winter, but

between summer and winter there is an intermediate period of several

weeks when the rain and mud transform a country-house into something

very like a prison. To escape this durance vile I determined in the

month of October to leave Ivanofka, and chose as my headquarters for the

next few months the town of Novgorod--the old town of that name, not

to be confounded with Nizhni Novgorod--i.e., Lower Novgorod, on the

Volga--where the great annual fair is held.

For this choice there were several reasons. I did not wish to go to St.

Petersburg or Moscow, because I foresaw that in either of those cities

my studies would certainly be interrupted. In a quiet, sleepy provincial

town I should have much more chance of coming in contact with people who

could not speak fluently any West-European languages, and much better

opportunities for studying native life and local administration. Of the

provincial capitals, Novgorod was the nearest, and more interesting than

most of its rivals; for it has had a curious history, much older than

that of St. Petersburg or even of Moscow, and some traces of its

former greatness are still visible. Though now a town of third-rate

importance--a mere shadow of its former self--it still contains about

21,000 inhabitants, and is the administrative centre of the large

province in which it is situated.

About eighty miles before reaching St. Petersburg the Moscow railway

crosses the Volkhof, a rapid, muddy river which connects Lake Ilmen with

Lake Ladoga. At the point of intersection I got on board a small steamer

and sailed up stream towards Lake Ilmen for about fifty miles.* The

journey was tedious, for the country was flat and monotonous, and the

steamer, though it puffed and snorted inordinately, did not make more

than nine knots. Towards sunset Novgorod appeared on the horizon.

Seen thus at a distance in the soft twilight, it seemed decidedly

picturesque. On the east bank lay the greater part of the town, the sky

line of which was agreeably broken by the green roofs and pear-shaped

cupolas of many churches. On the opposite bank rose the Kremlin.

Spanning the river was a long, venerable stone bridge, half hidden by a

temporary wooden one, which was doing duty for the older structure while

the latter was being repaired. A cynical fellow-passenger assured me

that the temporary structure was destined to become permanent, because

it yielded a comfortable revenue to certain officials, but this sinister

prediction has not been verified.

* The journey would now be made by rail, but the branch line

which runs near the bank of the river had not been

constructed at that time.

That part of Novgorod which lies on the eastern bank of the river, and

in which I took up my abode for several months, contains nothing that

is worthy of special mention. As is the case in most Russian towns, the

streets are straight, wide, and ill-paved, and all run parallel or

at right angles to each other. At the end of the bridge is a spacious

market-place, flanked on one side by the Town-house. Near the other side

stand the houses of the Governor and of the chief military authority

of the district. The only other buildings of note are the numerous

churches, which are mostly small, and offer nothing that is likely to

interest the student of architecture. Altogether this part of the town

is unquestionably commonplace. The learned archaeologist may detect in

it some traces of the distant past, but the ordinary traveller will find

little to arrest his attention.

If now we cross over to the other side of the river, we are at once

confronted by something which very few Russian towns possess--a kremlin,

or citadel. This is a large and slightly-elevated enclosure, surrounded

by high brick walls, and in part by the remains of a moat. Before the

days of heavy artillery these walls must have presented a formidable

barrier to any besieging force, but they have long ceased to have any

military significance, and are now nothing more than an historical

monument. Passing through the gateway which faces the bridge, we find

ourselves in a large open space. To the right stands the cathedral--a

small, much-venerated church, which can make no pretensions to

architectural beauty--and an irregular group of buildings containing the

consistory and the residence of the Archbishop. To the left is a long

symmetrical range of buildings containing the Government offices and the

law courts. Midway between this and the cathedral, in the centre of

the great open space, stands a colossal monument, composed of a massive

circular stone pedestal and an enormous globe, on and around which

cluster a number of emblematic and historical figures. This curious

monument, which has at least the merit of being original in design, was

erected in 1862, in commemoration of Russia's thousandth birthday,

and is supposed to represent the history of Russia in general and of

Novgorod in particular during the last thousand years. It was placed

here because Novgorod is the oldest of Russian towns, and because

somewhere in the surrounding country occurred the incident which

is commonly recognised as the foundation of the Russian Empire. The

incident in question is thus described in the oldest chronicle:

"At that time, as the southern Slavonians paid tribute to the Kozars, so

the Novgorodian Slavonians suffered from the attacks of the Variags. For

some time the Variags exacted tribute from the Novgorodian Slavonians

and the neighbouring Finns; then the conquered tribes, by uniting their

forces, drove out the foreigners. But among the Slavonians arose strong

internal dissensions; the clans rose against each other. Then, for the

creation of order and safety, they resolved to call in princes from a

foreign land. In the year 862 Slavonic legates went away beyond the

sea to the Variag tribe called Rus, and said, 'Our land is great and

fruitful, but there is no order in it; come and reign and rule over us.'

Three brothers accepted the invitation, and appeared with their armed

followers. The eldest of these, Rurik, settled in Novgorod; the second,

Sineus, at Byelo-ozero; and the third, Truvor, in Isborsk. From them our

land is called Rus. After two years the brothers of Rurik died. He alone

began to rule over the Novgorod district, and confided to his men the

administration of the principal towns."

This simple legend has given rise to a vast amount of learned

controversy, and historical investigators have fought valiantly with

each other over the important question, Who were those armed men of Rus?

For a long time the commonly received opinion was that they were Normans

from Scandinavia. The Slavophils accepted the legend literally in this

sense, and constructed upon it an ingenious theory of Russian history.

The nations of the West, they said, were conquered by invaders, who

seized the country and created the feudal system for their own benefit;

hence the history of Western Europe is a long tale of bloody struggles

between conquerors and conquered, and at the present day the old enmity

still lives in the political rivalry of the different social classes.

The Russo-Slavonians, on the contrary, were not conquered, but

voluntarily invited a foreign prince to come and rule over them!

Hence the whole social and political development of Russia has been

essentially peaceful, and the Russian people know nothing of social

castes or feudalism. Though this theory afforded some nourishment for

patriotic self-satisfaction, it displeased extreme patriots, who did not

like the idea that order was first established in their country by men

of Teutonic race. These preferred to adopt the theory that Rurik and his

companions were Slavonians from the shores of the Baltic.

Though I devoted to the study of this question more time and labour than

perhaps the subject deserved, I have no intention of inviting the reader

to follow me through the tedious controversy. Suffice it to say that,

after careful consideration, and with all due deference to recent

historians, I am inclined to adopt the old theory, and to regard the

Normans of Scandinavia as in a certain sense the founders of the Russian

Empire. We know from other sources that during the ninth century there

was a great exodus from Scandinavia. Greedy of booty, and fired with

the spirit of adventure, the Northmen, in their light, open boats, swept

along the coasts of Germany, France, Spain, Greece, and Asia Minor,

pillaging the towns and villages near the sea, and entering into the

heart of the country by means of the rivers. At first they were mere

marauders, and showed everywhere such ferocity and cruelty that they

came to be regarded as something akin to plagues and famines, and the

faithful added a new petition to the Litany, "From the wrath and malice

of the Normans, O Lord, deliver us!" But towards the middle of the

century the movement changed its character. The raids became military

invasions, and the invaders sought to conquer the lands which they had

formerly plundered, "ut acquirant sibi spoliando regna quibus possent

vivere pace perpetua." The chiefs embraced Christianity, married the

daughters or sisters of the reigning princes, and obtained the conquered

territories as feudal grants. Thus arose Norman principalities in the

Low Countries, in France, in Italy, and in Sicily; and the Northmen,

rapidly blending with the native population, soon showed as much

political talent as they had formerly shown reckless and destructive

valour.

It would have been strange indeed if these adventurers, who succeeded

in reaching Asia Minor and the coasts of North America, should have

overlooked Russia, which lay, as it were, at their very doors. The

Volkhof, flowing through Novgorod, formed part of a great waterway which

afforded almost uninterrupted water-communication between the Baltic and

the Black Sea; and we know that some time afterwards the Scandinavians

used this route in their journeys to Constantinople. The change which

the Scandinavian movement underwent elsewhere is clearly indicated

by the Russian chronicles: first, the Variags came as collectors of

tribute, and raised so much popular opposition that they were expelled,

and then they came as rulers, and settled in the country. Whether they

really came on invitation may be doubted, but that they adopted the

language, religion, and customs of the native population does not

militate against the assertion that they were Normans. On the contrary,

we have here rather an additional confirmation, for elsewhere the

Normans did likewise. In the North of France they adopted almost at

once the French language and religion, and the son and successor of

the famous Rollo was sometimes reproached with being more French than

Norman.*

*Strinnholm, "Die Vikingerzuge" (Hamburg, 1839), I., p. 135.

Though it is difficult to decide how far the legend is literally true,

there can be no possible doubt that the event which it more or less

accurately describes had an important influence on Russian history. From

that time dates the rapid expansion of the Russo-Slavonians--a movement

that is still going on at the present day. To the north, the east, and

the south new principalities were formed and governed by men who all

claimed to be descendants of Rurik, and down to the end of the sixteenth

century no Russian outside of this great family ever attempted to

establish independent sovereignty.

For six centuries after the so-called invitation of Rurik the city on

the Volkhof had a strange, checkered history. Rapidly it conquered the

neighbouring Finnish tribes, and grew into a powerful independent state,

with a territory extending to the Gulf of Finland, and northwards to the

White Sea. At the same time its commercial importance increased, and it

became an outpost of the Hanseatic League. In this work the descendants

of Rurik played an important part, but they were always kept in strict

subordination to the popular will. Political freedom kept pace with

commercial prosperity. What means Rurik employed for establishing

and preserving order we know not, but the chronicles show that his

successors in Novgorod possessed merely such authority as was freely

granted them by the people. The supreme power resided, not in the

prince, but in the assembly of the citizens called together in the

market-place by the sound of the great bell. This assembly made laws

for the prince as well as for the people, entered into alliances with

foreign powers, declared war, and concluded peace, imposed taxes,

raised troops, and not only elected the magistrates, but also judged and

deposed them when it thought fit. The prince was little more than

the hired commander of the troops and the president of the judicial

administration. When entering on his functions he had to take a solemn

oath that he would faithfully observe the ancient laws and usages, and

if he failed to fulfil his promise he was sure to be summarily deposed

and expelled. The people had an old rhymed proverb, "Koli khud knyaz,

tak v gryaz!" "If the prince is bad, into the mud with him!", and they

habitually acted according to it. So unpleasant, indeed, was the task of

ruling those sturdy, stiff-necked burghers, that some princes refused to

undertake it, and others, having tried it for a time, voluntarily laid

down their authority and departed. But these frequent depositions and

abdications--as many as thirty took place in the course of a single

century--did not permanently disturb the existing order of things. The

descendants of Rurik were numerous, and there were always plenty of

candidates for the vacant post. The municipal republic continued to

grow in strength and in riches, and during the thirteenth and fourteenth

centuries it proudly styled itself "Lord Novgorod the Great" (Gospodin

Velilki Novgorod).

"Then came a change, as all things human change." To the east arose

the principality of Moscow--not an old, rich municipal republic, but a

young, vigorous State, ruled by a line of crafty, energetic, ambitious,

and unscrupulous princes of the Rurik stock, who were freeing the

country from the Tartar yoke and gradually annexing by fair means and

foul the neighbouring principalities to their own dominions. At the same

time, and in a similar manner, the Lithuanian Princes to the westward

united various small principalities and formed a large independent

State. Thus Novgorod found itself in a critical position. Under a

strong Government it might have held its own against these rivals and

successfully maintained its independence, but its strength was already

undermined by internal dissensions. Political liberty had led to

anarchy. Again and again on that great open space where the national

monument now stands, and in the market-place on the other side of the

river, scenes of disorder and bloodshed took place, and more than once

on the bridge battles were fought by contending factions. Sometimes it

was a contest between rival families, and sometimes a struggle between

the municipal aristocracy, who sought to monopolise the political

power, and the common people, who wished to have a large share in the

administration. A State thus divided against itself could not long

resist the aggressive tendencies of powerful neighbours. Artful

diplomacy could but postpone the evil day, and it required no great

political foresight to predict that sooner or later Novgorod must become

Lithuanian or Muscovite. The great families inclined to Lithuania, but

the popular party and the clergy, disliking Roman Catholicism, looked to

Moscow for assistance, and the Grand Princes of Muscovy ultimately won

the prize.

The barbarous way in which the Grand Princes effected the annexation

shows how thoroughly they had imbibed the spirit of Tartar

statesmanship. Thousands of families were transported to Moscow, and

Muscovite families put in their places; and when, in spite of this, the

old spirit revived, Ivan the Terrible determined to apply the method of

physical extermination which he had found so effectual in breaking the

power of his own nobles. Advancing with a large army, which met with no

resistance, he devastated the country with fire and sword, and during a

residence of five weeks in the town he put the inhabitants to death

with a ruthless ferocity which has perhaps never been surpassed even by

Oriental despots. If those old walls could speak they would have many

a horrible tale to tell. Enough has been preserved in the chronicles to

give us some idea of this awful time. Monks and priests were subjected

to the Tartar punishment called pravezh, which consisted in tying the

victim to a stake, and flogging him daily until a certain sum of money

was paid for his release. The merchants and officials were tortured with

fire, and then thrown from the bridge with their wives and children

into the river. Lest any of them should escape by swimming, boatfuls

of soldiers despatched those who were not killed by the fall. At the

present day there is a curious bubbling immediately below the bridge,

which prevents the water from freezing in winter, and according to

popular belief this is caused by the spirits of the terrible Tsar's

victims. Of those who were murdered in the villages there is no record,

but in the town alone no less than 60,000 human beings are said to have

been butchered--an awful hecatomb on the altar of national unity and

autocratic power!

This tragic scene, which occurred in 1570, closes the history of

Novgorod as an independent State. Its real independence had long

since ceased to exist, and now the last spark of the old spirit was

extinguished. The Tsars could not suffer even a shadow of political

independence to exist within their dominions.

In the old days, when many Hanseatic merchants annually visited the

city, and when the market-place, the bridge, and the Kremlin were often

the scene of violent political struggles, Novgorod must have been an

interesting place to live in; but now its glory has departed, and in

respect of social resources it is not even a first-rate provincial town.

Kief, Kharkof, and other towns which are situated at a greater distance

from the capital, in districts fertile enough to induce the nobles to

farm their own land, are in their way little semi-independent centres of

civilisation. They contain a theatre, a library, two or three clubs, and

large houses belonging to rich landed proprietors, who spend the

summer on their estates and come into town for the winter months. These

proprietors, together with the resident officials, form a numerous

society, and during the winter, dinner-parties, balls, and other social

gatherings are by no means infrequent. In Novgorod the society is much

more limited. It does not, like Kief, Kharkof, and Kazan, possess a

university, and it contains no houses belonging to wealthy nobles. The

few proprietors of the province who live on their estates, and are rich

enough to spend part of the year in town, prefer St. Petersburg for

their winter residence. The society, therefore, is composed exclusively

of the officials and of the officers who happen to be quartered in the

town or the immediate vicinity.

Of all the people whose acquaintance I made at Novgorod, I can recall

only two men who did not occupy some official position, civil or

military. One of these was a retired doctor, who was attempting to farm

on scientific principles, and who, I believe, soon afterwards gave up

the attempt and migrated elsewhere. The other was a Polish bishop who

had been compromised in the insurrection of 1863, and was condemned to

live here under police supervision. This latter could scarcely be said

to belong to the society of the place; though he sometimes appeared

at the unceremonious weekly receptions given by the Governor, and was

invariably treated by all present with marked respect, he could not but

feel that he was in a false position, and he was rarely or never seen in

other houses.

The official circle of a town like Novgorod is sure to contain a good

many people of average education and agreeable manners, but it is

sure to be neither brilliant nor interesting. Though it is constantly

undergoing a gradual renovation by the received system of frequently

transferring officials from one town to another, it preserves

faithfully, in spite of the new blood which it thus receives, its

essentially languid character. When a new official arrives he exchanges

visits with all the notables, and for a few days he produces quite a

sensation in the little community. If he appears at social gatherings

he is much talked to, and if he does not appear he is much talked about.

His former history is repeatedly narrated, and his various merits and

defects assiduously discussed.

If he is married, and has brought his wife with him, the field of

comment and discussion is very much enlarged. The first time that Madame

appears in society she is the "cynosure of neighbouring eyes." Her

features, her complexion, her hair, her dress, and her jewellery are

carefully noted and criticised. Perhaps she has brought with her, from

the capital or from abroad, some dresses of the newest fashion. As soon

as this is discovered she at once becomes an object of special curiosity

to the ladies, and of envious jealousy to those who regard as a personal

grievance the presence of a toilette finer or more fashionable than

their own. Her demeanour, too, is very carefully observed. If she is

friendly and affable in manner, she is patronised; if she is distant and

reserved, she is condemned as proud and pretentious. In either case

she is pretty sure to form a close intimacy with some one of the older

female residents, and for a few weeks the two ladies are inseparable,

till some incautious word or act disturbs the new-born friendship, and

the devoted friends become bitter enemies. Voluntarily or involuntarily

the husbands get mixed up in the quarrel. Highly undesirable qualities

are discovered in the characters of all parties concerned, and are made

the subject of unfriendly comment. Then the feud subsides, and some new

feud of a similar kind comes to occupy the public attention. Mrs. A.

wonders how her friends Mr. and Mrs. B. can afford to lose considerable

sums every evening at cards, and suspects that they are getting into

debt or starving themselves and their children; in her humble opinion

they would do well to give fewer supper-parties, and to refrain from

poisoning their guests. The bosom friend to whom this is related retails

it directly or indirectly to Mrs. B., and Mrs. B. naturally retaliates.

Here is a new quarrel, which for some time affords material for

conversation.

When there is no quarrel, there is sure to be a bit of scandal afloat.

Though Russian provincial society is not at all prudish, and leans

rather to the side of extreme leniency, it cannot entirely overlook les

convenances. Madame C. has always a large number of male admirers, and

to this there can be no reasonable objection so long as her husband does

not complain, but she really parades her preference for Mr. X. at balls

and parties a little too conspicuously. Then there is Madame D., with

the big dreamy eyes. How can she remain in the place after her husband

was killed in a duel by a brother officer? Ostensibly the cause of the

quarrel was a trifling incident at the card-table, but every one knows

that in reality she was the cause of the deadly encounter. And so on,

and so on. In the absence of graver interests society naturally

bestows inordinate attention on the private affairs of its members; and

quarrelling, backbiting, and scandal-mongery help indolent people to

kill the time that hangs heavily on their hands.

Potent as these instruments are, they are not sufficient to kill all the

leisure hours. In the forenoons the gentlemen are occupied with their

official duties, whilst the ladies go out shopping or pay visits,

and devote any time that remains to their household duties and their

children; but the day's work is over about four o'clock, and the long

evening remains to be filled up. The siesta may dispose of an hour or an

hour and a half, but about seven o'clock some definite occupation has to

be found. As it is impossible to devote the whole evening to discussing

the ordinary news of the day, recourse is almost invariably had

to card-playing, which is indulged in to an extent that we had no

conception of in England until Bridge was imported. Hour after hour

the Russians of both sexes will sit in a hot room, filled with a

constantly-renewed cloud of tobacco-smoke--in the production of

which most of the ladies take part--and silently play "Preference,"

"Yarolash," or Bridge. Those who for some reason are obliged to be alone

can amuse themselves with "Patience," in which no partner is required.

In the other games the stakes are commonly very small, but the sittings

are often continued so long that a player may win or lose two or three

pounds sterling. It is no unusual thing for gentlemen to play for eight

or nine hours at a time. At the weekly club dinners, before coffee had

been served, nearly all present used to rush off impatiently to the

card-room, and sit there placidly from five o'clock in the afternoon

till one or two o'clock in the morning! When I asked my friends why they

devoted so much time to this unprofitable occupation, they always gave

me pretty much the same answer: "What are we to do? We have been reading

or writing official papers all day, and in the evening we like to have

a little relaxation. When we come together we have very little to talk

about, for we have all read the daily papers and nothing more. The best

thing we can do is to sit down at the card-table, where we can spend our

time pleasantly, without the necessity of talking."

In addition to the daily papers, some people read the monthly

periodicals--big, thick volumes, containing several serious articles on

historical and social subjects, sections of one or two novels, satirical

sketches, and a long review of home and foreign politics on the model

of those in the Revue des Deux Mondes. Several of these periodicals

are very ably conducted, and offer to their readers a large amount of

valuable information; but I have noticed that the leaves of the more

serious part often remain uncut. The translation of a sensation novel by

the latest French or English favourite finds many more readers than an

article by an historian or a political economist. As to books, they seem

to be very little read, for during all the time I lived in Novgorod I

never discovered a bookseller's shop, and when I required books I had to

get them sent from St. Petersburg. The local administration, it is true,

conceived the idea of forming a museum and circulating library, but in

my time the project was never realised. Of all the magnificent projects

that are formed in Russia, only a very small percentage come into

existence, and these are too often very short-lived. The Russians

have learned theoretically what are the wants of the most advanced

civilisation, and are ever ready to rush into the grand schemes which

their theoretical knowledge suggests; but very few of them really

and permanently feel these wants, and consequently the institutions

artificially formed to satisfy them very soon languish and die. In the

provincial towns the shops for the sale of gastronomic delicacies spring

up and flourish, whilst shops for the sale of intellectual food are

rarely to be met with.

About the beginning of December the ordinary monotony of Novgorod life

is a little relieved by the annual Provincial Assembly, which sits

daily for two or three weeks and discusses the economic wants of

the province.* During this time a good many landed proprietors, who

habitually live on their estates or in St. Petersburg, collect in

the town, and enliven a little the ordinary society. But as Christmas

approaches the deputies disperse, and again the town becomes enshrouded

in that "eternal stillness" (vetchnaya tishina) which a native poet has

declared to be the essential characteristic of Russian provincial life.

* Of these Assemblies I shall have more to say when I come

to describe the local self-government.

CHAPTER XII

THE TOWNS AND THE MERCANTILE CLASSES

General Character of Russian Towns--Scarcity of Towns in Russia--Why

the Urban Element in the Population is so Small--History of

Russian Municipal Institutions--Unsuccessful Efforts to Create a

Tiers-etat--Merchants, Burghers, and Artisans--Town Council--A Rich

Merchant--His House--His Love of Ostentation--His Conception of

Aristocracy--Official Decorations--Ignorance and Dishonesty of the

Commercial Classes--Symptoms of Change.

Those who wish to enjoy the illusions produced by scene painting and

stage decorations should never go behind the scenes. In like manner he

who wishes to preserve the delusion that Russian provincial towns are

picturesque should never enter them, but content himself with viewing

them from a distance.

However imposing they may look when seen from the outside, they will be

found on closer inspection, with very few exceptions, to be little more

than villages in disguise. If they have not a positively rustic, they

have at least a suburban, appearance. The streets are straight and wide,

and are either miserably paved or not paved at all. Trottoirs are

not considered indispensable. The houses are built of wood or brick,

generally one-storied, and separated from each other by spacious yards.

Many of them do not condescend to turn their facades to the street. The

general impression produced is that the majority of the burghers have

come from the country, and have brought their country-houses with them.

There are few or no shops with merchandise tastefully arranged in the

window to tempt the passer-by. If you wish to make purchases you must

go to the Gostinny Dvor,* or Bazaar, which consists of long, symmetrical

rows of low-roofed, dimly-lighted stores, with a colonnade in front.

This is the place where merchants most do congregate, but it presents

nothing of that bustle and activity which we are accustomed to associate

with commercial life. The shopkeepers stand at their doors or loiter

about in the immediate vicinity waiting for customers. From the scarcity

of these latter I should say that when sales are effected the profits

must be enormous.

* These words mean literally the Guests' Court or Yard. The

Ghosti--a word which is etymologically the same as our

"host" and "guest"--were originally the merchants who traded

with other towns or other countries.

In the other parts of the town the air of solitude and languor is

still more conspicuous. In the great square, or by the side of the

promenade--if the town is fortunate enough to have one--cows or horses

may be seen grazing tranquilly, without being at all conscious of the

incongruity of their position. And, indeed, it would be strange if they

had any such consciousness, for it does not exist in the minds either

of the police or of the inhabitants. At night the streets may be lighted

merely with a few oil-lamps, which do little more than render the

darkness visible, so that cautious citizens returning home late often

provide themselves with lanterns. As late as the sixties the learned

historian, Pogodin, then a town-councillor of Moscow, opposed the

lighting of the city with gas on the ground that those who chose to

go out at night should carry their lamps with them. The objection was

overruled, and Moscow is now fairly well lit, but the provincial towns

are still far from being on the same level. Some retain their old

primitive arrangements, while others enjoy the luxury of electric

lighting.

The scarcity of large towns in Russia is not less remarkable than their

rustic appearance. According to the last census (1897) the number of

towns, officially so-called, is 1,321, but about three-fifths of them

have under 5,000 inhabitants; only 104 have over 25,000, and only 19

over 100,000. These figures indicate plainly that the urban element of

the population is relatively small, and it is declared by the official

statisticians to be only 14 per cent., as against 72 per cent. in Great

Britain, but it is now increasing rapidly. When the first edition of

this work was published, in 1877, European Russia in the narrower sense

of the term--excluding Finland, the Baltic Provinces, Lithuania, Poland,

and the Caucasus--had only 11 towns with a population of over 50,000,

and now there are 34; that is to say, the number of such towns has more

than trebled. In the other portions of the country a similar increase

has taken place. The towns which have become important industrial and

commercial centres have naturally grown most rapidly. For example, in

a period of twelve years (1885-97) the populations of Lodz, of

Ekaterinoslaf, of Baku, of Yaroslavl, and of Libau, have more than

doubled. In the five largest towns of the Empire--St. Petersburg,

Moscow, Warsaw, Odessa and Lodz--the aggregate population rose during

the same twelve years from 2,423,000 to 3,590,000, or nearly 50 per

cent. In ten other towns, with populations varying from 50,000 to

282,000, the aggregate rose from 780,000 to 1,382,000, or about 77 per

cent.

That Russia should have taken so long to assimilate herself in this

respect to Western Europe is to be explained by the geographical and

political conditions. Her population was not hemmed in by natural

or artificial frontiers strong enough to restrain their expansive

tendencies. To the north, the east, and the southeast there was a

boundless expanse of fertile, uncultivated land, offering a tempting

field for emigration; and the peasantry have ever shown themselves ready

to take advantage of their opportunities. Instead of improving their

primitive system of agriculture, which requires an enormous area and

rapidly exhausts the soil, they have always found it easier and more

profitable to emigrate and take possession of the virgin land beyond.

Thus the territory--sometimes with the aid of, and sometimes in spite

of, the Government--has constantly expanded, and has already reached the

Polar Ocean, the Pacific, and the northern offshoots of the Himalayas.

The little district around the sources of the Dnieper has grown into a

mighty empire, comprising one-seventh of the land surface of the globe.

Prolific as the Russian race is, its power of reproduction could not

keep pace with its territorial expansion, and consequently the country

is still very thinly peopled. According to the latest census (1897) in

the whole empire there are under 130 millions of inhabitants, and the

average density of population is only about fifteen to the English

square mile. Even the most densely populated provinces, including Moscow

with its 988,610 inhabitants, cannot show more than 189 to the English

square mile, whereas England has about 400. A people that has such

an abundance of land, and can support itself by agriculture, is not

naturally disposed to devote itself to industry, or to congregate in

large cities.

For many generations there were other powerful influences working in the

same direction. Of these the most important was serfage, which was not

abolished till 1861. That institution, and the administrative system of

which it formed an essential part, tended to prevent the growth of the

towns by hemming the natural movements of the population. Peasants, for

example, who learned trades, and who ought to have drifted naturally

into the burgher class, were mostly retained by the master on his

estate, where artisans of all sorts were daily wanted, and the few who

were sent to seek work in the towns were not allowed to settle there

permanently.

Thus the insignificance of the Russian towns is to be attributed mainly

to two causes. The abundance of land tended to prevent the development

of industry, and the little industry which did exist was prevented by

serfage from collecting in the towns. But this explanation is evidently

incomplete. The same causes existed during the Middle Ages in Central

Europe, and yet, in spite of them, flourishing cities grew up and played

an important part in the social and political history of Germany. In

these cities collected traders and artisans, forming a distinct

social class, distinguished from the nobles on the one hand, and the

surrounding peasantry on the other, by peculiar occupations, peculiar

aims, peculiar intellectual physiognomy, and peculiar moral conceptions.

Why did these important towns and this burgher class not likewise come

into existence in Russia, in spite of the two preventive causes above

mentioned?

To discuss this question fully it would be necessary to enter into

certain debated points of mediaeval history. All I can do here is to

indicate what seems to me the true explanation.

In Central Europe, all through the Middle Ages, a perpetual struggle

went on between the various political factors of which society was

composed, and the important towns were in a certain sense the products

of this struggle. They were preserved and fostered by the mutual rivalry

of the Sovereign, the Feudal Nobility, and the Church; and those who

desired to live by trade or industry settled in them in order to enjoy

the protection and immunities which they afforded. In Russia there was

never any political struggle of this kind. As soon as the Grand Princes

of Moscow, in the sixteenth century, threw off the yoke of the Tartars,

and made themselves Tsars of all Russia, their power was irresistible

and uncontested. Complete masters of the situation, they organised the

country as they thought fit. At first their policy was favourable to the

development of the towns. Perceiving that the mercantile and industrial

classes might be made a rich source of revenue, they separated them from

the peasantry, gave them the exclusive right of trading, prevented

the other classes from competing with them, and freed them from the

authority of the landed proprietors. Had they carried out this policy in

a cautious, rational way, they might have created a rich burgher class;

but they acted with true Oriental short-sightedness, and defeated their

own purpose by imposing inordinately heavy taxes, and treating the urban

population as their serfs. The richer merchants were forced to serve

as custom-house officers--often at a great distance from their

domiciles*--and artisans were yearly summoned to Moscow to do work for

the Tsars without remuneration.

* Merchants from Yaroslavl, for instance, were sent to

Astrakhan to collect the custom-dues.

Besides this, the system of taxation was radically defective, and

the members of the local administration, who received no pay and were

practically free from control, were merciless in their exactions. In a

word, the Tsars used their power so stupidly and so recklessly that the

industrial and trading population, instead of fleeing to the towns to

secure protection, fled from them to escape oppression. At length this

emigration from the towns assumed such dimensions that it was found

necessary to prevent it by administrative and legislative measures;

and the urban population was legally fixed in the towns as the rural

population was fixed to the soil. Those who fled were brought back as

runaways, and those who attempted flight a second time were ordered to

be flogged and transported to Siberia.*

* See the "Ulozhenie" (i.e. the laws of Alexis, father of

Peter the Great), chap. xix. 13.

With the eighteenth century began a new era in the history of the

towns and of the urban population. Peter the Great observed, during his

travels in Western Europe, that national wealth and prosperity reposed

chiefly on the enterprising, educated middle classes, and he attributed

the poverty of his own country to the absence of this burgher element.

Might not such a class be created in Russia? Peter unhesitatingly

assumed that it might, and set himself at once to create it in a simple,

straightforward way. Foreign artisans were imported into his dominions

and foreign merchants were invited to trade with his subjects; young

Russians were sent abroad to learn the useful arts; efforts were made to

disseminate practical knowledge by the translation of foreign books

and the foundation of schools; all kinds of trade were encouraged, and

various industrial enterprises were organised. At the same time the

administration of the towns was thoroughly reorganised after the model

of the ancient free-towns of Germany. In place of the old organisation,

which was a slightly modified form of the rural Commune, they received

German municipal institutions, with burgomasters, town councils, courts

of justice, guilds for the merchants, trade corporations (tsekhi)

for the artisans, and an endless list of instructions regarding the

development of trade and industry, the building of hospitals, sanitary

precautions, the founding of schools, the dispensation of justice, the

organisation of the police, and similar matters.

Catherine II. followed in the same track. If she did less for trade

and industry, she did more in the way of legislating and writing

grandiloquent manifestoes. In the course of her historical studies she

had learned, as she proclaims in one of her manifestoes, that "from

remotest antiquity we everywhere find the memory of town-builders

elevated to the same level as the memory of legislators, and we see

that heroes, famous for their victories, hoped by town-building to give

immortality to their names." As the securing of immortality for her own

name was her chief aim in life, she acted in accordance with historical

precedent, and created 216 towns in the short space of twenty-three

years. This seems a great work, but it did not satisfy her ambition.

She was not only a student of history, but was at the same time a

warm admirer of the fashionable political philosophy of her time.

That philosophy paid much attention to the tiers-etat, which was then

acquiring in France great political importance, and Catherine thought

that as she had created a Noblesse on the French model, she might

also create a bourgeoisie. For this purpose she modified the municipal

organisation created by her great predecessor, and granted to all the

towns an Imperial Charter. This charter remained without essential

modification until the publication of the new Municipality Law in 1870.

The efforts of the Government to create a rich, intelligent tiers-etat

were not attended with much success. Their influence was always more

apparent in official documents than in real life. The great mass of the

population remained serfs, fixed to the soil, whilst the nobles--that

is to say, all who possessed a little education--were required for the

military and civil services. Those who were sent abroad to learn the

useful arts learned little, and made little use of the knowledge which

they acquired. On their return to their native country they very soon

fell victims to the soporific influence of the surrounding social

atmosphere. The "town-building" had as little practical result. It was

an easy matter to create any number of towns in the official sense of

the term. To transform a village into a town, it was necessary merely to

prepare an izba, or log-house, for the district court, another for the

police-office, a third for the prison, and so on. On an appointed day

the Governor of the province arrived in the village, collected the

officials appointed to serve in the newly-constructed or newly-arranged

log-houses, ordered a simple religious ceremony to be performed by the

priest, caused a formal act to be drawn up, and then declared the town

to be "opened." All this required very little creative effort; to create

a spirit of commercial and industrial enterprise among the population

was a more difficult matter and could not be effected by Imperial ukaz.

To animate the newly-imported municipal institutions, which had no

root in the traditions and habits of the people, was a task of equal

difficulty. In the West these institutions had been slowly devised in

the course of centuries to meet real, keenly-felt, practical wants. In

Russia they were adopted for the purpose of creating those wants which

were not yet felt. Let the reader imagine our Board of Trade supplying

the masters of fishing-smacks with accurate charts, learned treatises

on navigation, and detailed instructions for the proper ventilation of

ships' cabins, and he will have some idea of the effect which Peter's

legislation had upon the towns. The office-bearers, elected against

their will, were hopelessly bewildered by the complicated procedure, and

were incapable of understanding the numerous ukazes which prescribed

to them their multifarious duties and threatened the most merciless

punishments for sins of omission and commission. Soon, however, it was

discovered that the threats were not nearly so dreadful as they seemed;

and accordingly those municipal authorities who were to protect and

enlighten the burghers, "forgot the fear of God and the Tsar," and

extorted so unblushingly that it was found necessary to place them under

the control of Government officials.

The chief practical result of the efforts made by Peter and Catherine

to create a bourgeoisie was that the inhabitants of the towns were more

systematically arranged in categories for the purpose of taxation, and

that the taxes were increased. All those parts of the new administration

which had no direct relation to the fiscal interests of the Government

had very little vitality in them. The whole system had been arbitrarily

imposed on the people, and had as motive only the Imperial will. Had

that motive power been withdrawn and the burghers left to regulate their

own municipal affairs, the system would immediately have collapsed.

Rathhaus, burgomasters, guilds, aldermen, and all the other lifeless

shadows which had been called into existence by Imperial ukaz would

instantly have vanished into space. In this fact we have one of the

characteristic traits of Russian historical development compared with

that of Western Europe. In the West monarchy had to struggle with

municipal institutions to prevent them from becoming too powerful; in

Russia, it had to struggle with them to prevent them from committing

suicide or dying of inanition.

According to Catherine's legislation, which remained in force until

1870, and still exists in some of its main features, the towns were

divided into three categories: (1) Government towns (gubernskiye

goroda)--that is to say, the chief towns of provinces, or governments

(gubernii)--in which are concentrated the various organs of provincial

administration; (2) district towns (uyezdniye goroda), in which resides

the administration of the districts (uyezdi) into which the provinces

are divided; and (3) supernumerary towns (zashtatniye goroda), which

have no particular significance in the territorial administration.

In all these the municipal organisation is the same. Leaving out of

consideration those persons who happen to reside in the towns, but

in reality belong to the Noblesse, the clergy, or the lower ranks of

officials, we may say that the town population is composed of three

groups: the merchants (kuptsi), the burghers in the narrower sense of

the term (meshtchanye), and the artisans (tsekhoviye). These categories

are not hereditary castes, like the nobles, the clergy, and the

peasantry. A noble may become a merchant, or a man may be one year a

burgher, the next year an artisan, and the third year a merchant, if he

changes his occupation and pays the necessary dues. But the categories

form, for the time being, distinct corporations, each possessing a

peculiar organisation and peculiar privileges and obligations.

Of these three groups the first in the scale of dignity is that of the

merchants. It is chiefly recruited from the burghers and the peasantry.

Any one who wishes to engage in commerce inscribes himself in one of the

three guilds, according to the amount of his capital and the nature of

the operations in which he wishes to embark, and as soon as he has paid

the required dues he becomes officially a merchant. As soon as he ceases

to pay these dues he ceases to be a merchant in the legal sense of the

term, and returns to the class to which he formerly belonged. There

are some families whose members have belonged to the merchant class for

several generations, and the law speaks about a certain "velvet-book"

(barkhatnaya kniga) in which their names should be inscribed, but in

reality they do not form a distinct category, and they descend at once

from their privileged position as soon as they cease to pay the annual

guild dues.

The artisans form the connecting link between the town population

and the peasantry, for peasants often enrol themselves in the

trades-corporations, or tsekhi, without severing their connection

with the rural Communes to which they belong. Each trade or handicraft

constitutes a tsekh, at the head of which stands an elder and two

assistants, elected by the members; and all the tsekhi together form

a corporation under an elected head (remeslenny golova) assisted by a

council composed of the elders of the various tsekhi. It is the duty of

this council and its president to regulate all matters connected with

the tsekhi, and to see that the multifarious regulations regarding

masters, journeymen, and apprentices are duly observed.

The nondescript class, composed of those who are inscribed as permanent

inhabitants of the towns, but who do not belong to any guild or tsekh,

constitutes what is called the burghers in the narrower sense of the

term. Like the other two categories, they form a separate corporation,

with an elder and an administrative bureau.

Some idea of the relative numerical strength of these three categories

may be obtained from the following figures. Thirty years ago in European

Russia the merchant class (including wives and children) numbered about

466,000, the burghers about 4,033,000, and the artisans about 260,000.

The numbers according to the last census are not yet available.

In 1870 the entire municipal administration was reorganised on modern

West-European principles, and the Town Council (gorodskaya duma),

which formed under the previous system the connecting link between the

old-fashioned corporations, and was composed exclusively of members

of these bodies, became a genuine representative body composed of

householders, irrespective of the social class to which they might

belong. A noble, provided he was a house-proprietor, could become Town

Councillor or Mayor, and in this way a certain amount of vitality and a

progressive spirit were infused into the municipal administration. As a

consequence of this change the schools, hospitals, and other benevolent

institutions were much improved, the streets were kept cleaner and

somewhat better paved, and for a time it seemed as if the towns in

Russia might gradually rise to the level of those of Western Europe. But

the charm of novelty, which so often works wonders in Russia, soon wore

off. After a few years of strenuous effort the best citizens no longer

came forward as candidates, and the office-bearers selected no longer

displayed zeal and intelligence in the discharge of their duties. In

these circumstances the Government felt called upon again to intervene.

By a decree dated June 11, 1892, it introduced a new series of reforms,

by which the municipal self-government was placed more under the

direction and control of the centralised bureaucracy, and the attendance

of the Town Councillors at the periodical meetings was declared to be

obligatory, recalcitrant members being threatened with reprimands and

fines.

This last fact speaks volumes for the low vitality of the institutions

and the prevalent popular apathy with regard to municipal affairs. Nor

was the unsatisfactory state of things much improved by the new reforms;

on the contrary, the increased interference of the regular officials

tended rather to weaken the vitality of the urban self government, and

the so-called reform was pretty generally condemned as a needlessly

reactionary measure. We have here, in fact, a case of what has often

occurred in the administrative history of the Russian Empire since the

time of Peter the Great, and to which I shall again have occasion to

refer. The central authority, finding itself incompetent to do all that

is required of it, and wishing to make a display of liberalism, accords

large concessions in the direction of local autonomy; and when it

discovers that the new institutions do not accomplish all that was

expected of them, and are not quite so subservient and obsequious as

is considered desirable, it returns in a certain measure to the old

principles of centralised bureaucracy.

The great development of trade and industry in recent years has of

course enriched the mercantile classes, and has introduced into them

a more highly educated element, drawn chiefly from the Noblesse, which

formerly eschewed such occupations; but it has not yet affected very

deeply the mode of life of those who have sprung from the old merchant

families and the peasantry. When a merchant, contractor, or manufacturer

of the old type becomes wealthy, he builds for himself a fine house, or

buys and thoroughly repairs the house of some ruined noble, and spends

money freely on parquetry floors, large mirrors, malachite tables, grand

pianos by the best makers, and other articles of furniture made of the

most costly materials. Occasionally--especially on the occasion of a

marriage or a death in the family--he will give magnificent banquets,

and expend enormous sums on gigantic sterlets, choice sturgeons, foreign

fruits, champagne, and all manner of costly delicacies. But this lavish,

ostentatious expenditure does not affect the ordinary current of his

daily life. As you enter those gaudily furnished rooms you can perceive

at a glance that they are not for ordinary use. You notice a rigid

symmetry and an indescribable bareness which inevitably suggest that

the original arrangements of the upholsterer have never been modified or

supplemented. The truth is that by far the greater part of the house is

used only on state occasions. The host and his family live down-stairs

in small, dirty rooms, furnished in a very different, and for them more

comfortable, style. At ordinary times the fine rooms are closed, and the

fine furniture carefully covered.

If you make a visite de politesse after an entertainment, you will

probably have some difficulty in gaining admission by the front door.

When you have knocked or rung several times, some one will come round

from the back regions and ask you what you want. Then follows another

long pause, and at last footsteps are heard approaching from within. The

bolts are drawn, the door is opened, and you are led up to a spacious

drawing-room. At the wall opposite the windows there is sure to be a

sofa, and before it an oval table. At each end of the table, and at

right angles to the sofa, there will be a row of three arm-chairs. The

other chairs will be symmetrically arranged round the room. In a few

minutes the host will appear, in his long double-breasted black coat

and well-polished long boots. His hair is parted in the middle, and his

beard shows no trace of scissors or razor.

After the customary greetings have been exchanged, glasses of tea, with

slices of lemon and preserves, or perhaps a bottle of champagne, are

brought in by way of refreshments. The female members of the family

you must not expect to see, unless you are an intimate friend; for the

merchants still retain something of that female seclusion which was in

vogue among the upper classes before the time of Peter the Great. The

host himself will probably be an intelligent, but totally uneducated and

decidedly taciturn, man.

About the weather and the crops he may talk fluently enough, but he will

not show much inclination to go beyond these topics. You may, perhaps,

desire to converse with him on the subject with which he is best

acquainted--the trade in which he is himself engaged; but if you make

the attempt, you will certainly not gain much information, and you may

possibly meet with such an incident as once happened to my travelling

companion, a Russian gentleman who had been commissioned by two learned

societies to collect information regarding the grain trade. When

he called on a merchant who had promised to assist him in his

investigation, he was hospitably received; but when he began to speak

about the grain trade of the district the merchant suddenly interrupted

him, and proposed to tell him a story. The story was as follows:

Once on a time a rich landed proprietor had a son, who was a thoroughly

spoilt child; and one day the boy said to his father that he wished all

the young serfs to come and sing before the door of the house. After

some attempts at dissuasion the request was granted, and the young

people assembled; but as soon as they began to sing, the boy rushed out

and drove them away.

When the merchant had told this apparently pointless story at great

length, and with much circumstantial detail, he paused a little, poured

some tea into his saucer, drank it off, and then inquired, "Now what do

you think was the reason of this strange conduct?"

My friend replied that the riddle surpassed his powers of divination.

"Well," said the merchant, looking hard at him, with a knowing grin,

"there was no reason; and all the boy could say was, 'Go away, go away!

I've changed my mind; I've changed my mind'" (poshli von; otkhotyel).

There was no possibility of mistaking the point of the story. My friend

took the hint and departed.

The Russian merchant's love of ostentation is of a peculiar

kind--something entirely different from English snobbery. He may delight

in gaudy reception-rooms, magnificent dinners, fast trotters, costly

furs; or he may display his riches by princely donations to churches,

monasteries, or benevolent institutions: but in all this he never

affects to be other than he really is. He habitually wears a costume

which designates plainly his social position; he makes no attempt

to adopt fine manners or elegant tastes; and he never seeks to gain

admission to what is called in Russia la societe. Having no desire to

seem what he is not, he has a plain, unaffected manner, and sometimes

a quiet dignity which contrasts favourably with the affected manner of

those nobles of the lower ranks who make pretensions to being highly

educated and strive to adopt the outward forms of French culture. At his

great dinners, it is true, the merchant likes to see among his guests as

many "generals"--that is to say, official personages--as possible, and

especially those who happen to have a grand cordon; but he never dreams

of thereby establishing an intimacy with these personages, or of being

invited by them in return. It is perfectly understood by both parties

that nothing of the kind is meant. The invitation is given and accepted

from quite different motives. The merchant has the satisfaction of

seeing at his table men of high official rank, and feels that the

consideration which he enjoys among people of his own class is thereby

augmented. If he succeeds in obtaining the presence of three generals,

he obtains a victory over a rival who cannot obtain more than two. The

general, on his side, gets a first-rate dinner, a la russe, and acquires

an undefined right to request subscriptions for public objects or

benevolent institutions.

Of course this undefined right is commonly nothing more than a mere

tacit understanding, but in certain cases the subject is expressly

mentioned. I know of one case in which a regular bargain was made. A

Moscow magnate was invited by a merchant to a dinner, and consented

to go in full uniform, with all his decorations, on condition that the

merchant should subscribe a certain sum to a benevolent institution in

which he was particularly interested. It is whispered that such bargains

are sometimes made, not on behalf of benevolent institutions, but simply

in the interest of the gentleman who accepts the invitation. I cannot

believe that there are many official personages who would consent to let

themselves out as table decorations, but that it may happen is proved by

the following incident, which accidentally came to my knowledge. A

rich merchant of the town of T---- once requested the Governor of the

Province to honour a family festivity with his presence, and added that

he would consider it a special favour if the "Governoress" would

enter an appearance. To this latter request his Excellency made

many objections, and at last let the petitioner understand that her

Excellency could not possibly be present, because she had no velvet

dress that could bear comparison with those of several merchants' wives

in the town. Two days after the interview a piece of the finest velvet

that could be procured in Moscow was received by the Governor from

an unknown donor, and his wife was thus enabled to be present at the

festivity, to the complete satisfaction of all parties concerned.

It is worthy of remark that the merchants recognise no aristocracy but

that of official rank. Many merchants would willingly give twenty pounds

for the presence of an "actual State Councillor" who perhaps never heard

of his grandfather, but who can show a grand cordon; whilst they would

not give twenty pence for the presence of an undecorated Prince without

official rank, though he might be able to trace his pedigree up to the

half-mythical Rurik. Of the latter they would probably say, "Kto ikh

znact?" (Who knows what sort of a fellow he is?) The former, on the

contrary, whoever his father and grandfather may have been, possesses

unmistakable marks of the Tsar's favour, which, in the merchant's

opinion, is infinitely more important than any rights or pretensions

founded on hereditary titles or long pedigrees.

Some marks of Imperial favour the old-fashioned merchants strive to

obtain for themselves. They do not dream of grand cordons--that is far

beyond their most sanguine expectations--but they do all in their power

to obtain those lesser decorations which are granted to the mercantile

class. For this purpose the most common expedient is a liberal

subscription to some benevolent institution, and occasionally a regular

bargain is made. I know of at least one instance where the kind of

decoration was expressly stipulated. The affair illustrates so well the

commercial character of these transactions that I venture to state the

facts as related to me by the official chiefly concerned. A merchant

subscribed to a society which enjoyed the patronage of a Grand Duchess

a considerable sum of money, under the express condition that he

should receive in return a St. Vladimir Cross. Instead of the desired

decoration, which was considered too much for the sum subscribed, a

cross of St. Stanislas was granted; but the donor was dissatisfied with

the latter and demanded that his money should be returned to him. The

demand had to be complied with, and, as an Imperial gift cannot be

retracted, the merchant had his Stanislas Cross for nothing.

This traffic in decorations has had its natural result. Like paper money

issued in too large quantities, the decorations have fallen in value.

The gold medals which were formerly much coveted and worn with pride by

the rich merchants--suspended by a ribbon round the neck--are now

little sought after. In like manner the inordinate respect for official

personages has considerably diminished. Fifty years ago the provincial

merchants vied with each other in their desire to entertain any great

dignitary who honoured their town with a visit, but now they seek rather

to avoid this expensive and barren honour. When they do accept the

honour, they fulfil the duties of hospitality in a most liberal spirit.

I have sometimes, when living as an honoured guest in a rich merchant's

house, found it difficult to obtain anything simpler than sterlet,

sturgeon, and champagne.

The two great blemishes on the character of the Russian merchants as

a class are, according to general opinion, their ignorance and their

dishonesty. As to the former of these there cannot possibly be any

difference of opinion. Many of them can neither read nor write, and are

forced to keep their accounts in their memory, or by means of ingenious

hieroglyphics, intelligible only to the inventor. Others can decipher

the calendar and the lives of the saints, can sign their names with

tolerable facility, and can make the simpler arithmetical calculations

with the help of the stchety, a little calculating instrument, composed

of wooden balls strung on brass wires, which resembles the "abaca"

of the old Romans, and is universally used in Russia. It is only the

minority who understand the mysteries of regular book-keeping, and of

these very few can make any pretensions to being educated men.

All this, however, is rapidly undergoing a radical change. Children are

now much better educated than their parents, and the next generation

will doubtless make further progress, so that the old-fashioned type

above described is destined to disappear. Already there are not a few

of the younger generation--especially among the wealthy manufacturers

of Moscow--who have been educated abroad, who may be described as tout

a fait civilises, and whose mode of life differs little from that of

the richer nobles; but they remain outside fashionable society, and

constitute a "set" of their own.

As to the dishonesty which is said to be so common among the Russian

commercial classes, it is difficult to form an accurate judgment. That

an enormous amount of unfair dealing does exist there can be no possible

doubt, but in this matter a foreigner is likely to be unduly severe. We

are apt to apply unflinchingly our own standard of commercial morality,

and to forget that trade in Russia is only emerging from that primitive

condition in which fixed prices and moderate profits are entirely

unknown. And when we happen to detect positive dishonesty, it seems to

us especially heinous, because the trickery employed is more primitive

and awkward than that to which we are accustomed. Trickery in weighing

and measuring, for instance, which is by no means uncommon in Russia,

is likely to make us more indignant than those ingenious methods of

adulteration which are practised nearer home, and are regarded by many

as almost legitimate. Besides this, foreigners who go to Russia and

embark in speculations without possessing any adequate knowledge of

the character, customs, and language of the people positively invite

spoliation, and ought to blame themselves rather than the people who

profit by their ignorance.

All this, and much more of the same kind, may be fairly urged in

mitigation of the severe judgments which foreign merchants commonly pass

on Russian commercial morality, but these judgments cannot be reversed

by such argumentation. The dishonesty and rascality which exist among

the merchants are fully recognised by the Russians themselves. In all

moral affairs the lower classes in Russia are very lenient in their

judgments, and are strongly disposed, like the Americans, to admire

what is called in Transatlantic phraseology "a smart man," though the

smartness is known to contain a large admixture of dishonesty; and yet

the vox populi in Russia emphatically declares that the merchants as a

class are unscrupulous and dishonest. There is a rude popular play in

which the Devil, as principal dramatis persona, succeeds in cheating all

manner and conditions of men, but is finally overreached by a genuine

Russian merchant. When this play is acted in the Carnival Theatre in St.

Petersburg the audience invariably agrees with the moral of the plot.

If this play were acted in the southern towns near the coast of the

Black Sea it would be necessary to modify it considerably, for here,

in company with Jews, Greeks, and Armenians, the Russian merchants seem

honest by comparison. As to Greeks and Armenians, I know not which of

the two nationalities deserves the palm, but it seems that both are

surpassed by the Children of Israel. "How these Jews do business,"

I have heard a Russian merchant of this region exclaim, "I cannot

understand. They buy up wheat in the villages at eleven roubles per

tchetvert, transport it to the coast at their own expense, and sell it

to the exporters at ten roubles! And yet they contrive to make a profit!

It is said that the Russian trader is cunning, but here 'our brother'

[i.e., the Russian] can do nothing." The truth of this statement I have

had abundant opportunities of confirming by personal investigations on

the spot.

If I might express a general opinion regarding Russian commercial

morality, I should say that trade in Russia is carried on very much on

the same principle as horse-dealing in England. A man who wishes to buy

or sell must trust to his own knowledge and acuteness, and if he gets

the worst of a bargain or lets himself be deceived, he has himself to

blame. Commercial Englishmen on arriving in Russia rarely understand

this, and when they know it theoretically they are too often unable,

from their ignorance of the language, the laws, and the customs of the

people, to turn their theoretical knowledge to account. They indulge,

therefore, at first in endless invectives against the prevailing

dishonesty; but gradually, when they have paid what Germans call

Lehrgeld, they accommodate themselves to circumstances, take large

profits to counterbalance bad debts, and generally succeed--if they have

sufficient energy, mother-wit, and capital--in making a very handsome

income.

The old race of British merchants, however, is rapidly dying out, and I

greatly fear that the rising generation will not be equally successful.

Times have changed. It is no longer possible to amass large fortunes

in the old easy-going fashion. Every year the conditions alter, and

the competition increases. In order to foresee, understand, and take

advantage of the changes, one must have far more knowledge of the

country than the men of the old school possessed, and it seems to me

that the young generation have still less of that knowledge than their

predecessors. Unless some change takes place in this respect, the German

merchants, who have generally a much better commercial education and are

much better acquainted with their adopted country, will ultimately, I

believe, expel their British rivals. Already many branches of commerce

formerly carried on by Englishmen have passed into their hands.

It must not be supposed that the unsatisfactory organisation of the

Russian commercial world is the result of any radical peculiarity of

the Russian character. All new countries have to pass through a similar

state of things, and in Russia there are already premonitory symptoms

of a change for the better. For the present, it is true, the extensive

construction of railways and the rapid development of banks and limited

liability companies have opened up a new and wide field for all kinds

of commercial swindling; but, on the other hand, there are now in every

large town a certain number of merchants who carry on business in the

West-European manner, and have learnt by experience that honesty is

the best policy. The success which many of these have obtained will

doubtless cause their example to be followed. The old spirit of caste

and routine which has long animated the merchant class is rapidly

disappearing, and not a few nobles are now exchanging country life and

the service of the State for industrial and commercial enterprises.

In this way is being formed the nucleus of that wealthy, enlightened

bourgeoisie which Catherine endeavoured to create by legislation; but

many years must elapse before this class acquires sufficient social and

political significance to deserve the title of a tiers-etat.

CHAPTER XIII

THE PASTORAL TRIBES OF THE STEPPE

A Journey to the Steppe Region of the Southeast--The Volga--Town

and Province of Samara--Farther Eastward--Appearance of the

Villages--Characteristic Incident--Peasant Mendacity--Explanation of the

Phenomenon--I Awake in Asia--A Bashkir Aoul--Diner la Tartare--Kumyss--A

Bashkir Troubadour--Honest Mehemet Zian--Actual Economic Condition of

the Bashkirs Throws Light on a Well-known Philosophical Theory--Why

a Pastoral Race Adopts Agriculture--The Genuine Steppe--The

Kirghiz--Letter from Genghis Khan--The Kalmyks--Nogai Tartars--Struggle

between Nomadic Hordes and Agricultural Colonists.

When I had spent a couple of years or more in the Northern and

North-Central provinces--the land of forests and of agriculture

conducted on the three-field system, with here and there a town of

respectable antiquity--I determined to visit for purposes of comparison

and contrast the Southeastern region, which possesses no forests nor

ancient towns, and corresponds to the Far West of the United States of

America. My point of departure was Yaroslavl, a town on the right bank

of the Volga to the northeast of Moscow--and thence I sailed down the

river during three days on a large comfortable steamer to Samara, the

chief town of the province or "government" of the name. Here I left the

steamer and prepared to make a journey into the eastern hinterland.

Samara is a new town, a child of the last century. At the time of

my first visit, now thirty years ago, it recalled by its unfinished

appearance the new towns of America. Many of the houses were of wood.

The streets were still in such a primitive condition that after rain

they were almost impassable from mud, and in dry, gusty weather they

generated thick clouds of blinding, suffocating dust. Before I had been

many days in the place I witnessed a dust-hurricane, during which it was

impossible at certain moments to see from my window the houses on

the other side of the street. Amidst such primitive surroundings the

colossal new church seemed a little out of keeping, and it occurred

to my practical British mind that some of the money expended on its

construction might have been more profitably employed. But the Russians

have their own ideas of the fitness of things. Religious after their

own fashion, they subscribe money liberally for ecclesiastical

purposes--especially for the building and decoration of their churches.

Besides this, the Government considers that every chief town of a

province should possess a cathedral.

In its early days Samara was one of the outposts of Russian

colonisation, and had often to take precautions against the raids of the

nomadic tribes living in the vicinity; but the agricultural frontier has

since been pushed far forward to the east and south, and the province

was until lately, despite occasional droughts, one of the most

productive in the Empire. The town is the chief market of this region,

and therein lies its importance. The grain is brought by the peasants

from great distances, and stored in large granaries by the merchants,

who send it to Moscow or St. Petersburg. In former days this was a very

tedious operation. The boats containing the grain were towed by horses

or stout peasants up the rivers and through the canals for hundreds of

miles. Then came the period of "cabestans"--unwieldly machines propelled

by means of anchors and windlasses. Now these primitive methods of

transport have disappeared. The grain is either despatched by rail

or put into gigantic barges, which are towed up the river by powerful

tug-steamers to some point connected with the great network of railways.

When the traveller has visited the Cathedral and the granaries he has

seen all the lions--not very formidable lions, truly--of the place. He

may then inspect the kumyss establishments, pleasantly situated near

the town. He will find there a considerable number of patients--mostly

consumptive--who drink enormous quantities of fermented mare's-milk,

and who declare that they receive great benefit from this modern

health-restorer.

What interested me more than the lions of the town or the suburban

kumyss establishments were the offices of the local administration,

where I found in the archives much statistical and other information

of the kind I was in search of, regarding the economic condition of

the province generally, and of the emancipated peasantry in particular.

Having filled my note-book with material of this sort, I proceeded to

verify and complete it by visiting some characteristic villages and

questioning the inhabitants. For the student of Russian affairs who

wishes to arrive at real, as distinguished from official, truth, this is

not an altogether superfluous operation.

When I had thus made the acquaintance of the sedentary agricultural

population in several districts I journeyed eastwards with the intention

of visiting the Bashkirs, a Tartar tribe which still preserved--so at

least I was assured--its old nomadic habits. My reasons for undertaking

this journey were twofold. In the first place I was desirous of seeing

with my own eyes some remnants of those terrible nomadic tribes

which had at one time conquered Russia and long threatened to overrun

Europe--those Tartar hordes which gained, by their irresistible force

and relentless cruelty, the reputation of being "the scourge of God."

Besides this, I had long wished to study the conditions of pastoral

life, and congratulated myself on having found a convenient opportunity

of doing so.

As I proceeded eastwards I noticed a change in the appearance of the

villages. The ordinary wooden houses, with their high sloping roofs,

gradually gave place to flat-roofed huts, built of a peculiar kind of

unburnt bricks, composed of mud and straw. I noticed, too, that the

population became less and less dense, and the amount of fallow land

proportionately greater. The peasants were evidently richer than those

near the Volga, but they complained--as the Russian peasant always

does--that they had not land enough. In answer to my inquiries why they

did not use the thousands of acres that were lying fallow around them,

they explained that they had already raised crops on that land for

several successive years, and that consequently they must now allow it

to "rest."

In one of the villages through which I passed I met with a very

characteristic little incident. The village was called Samovolnaya

Ivanofka--that is to say, "Ivanofka the Self-willed" or "the

Non-authorised." Whilst our horses were being changed my travelling

companion, in the course of conversation with a group of peasants,

inquired about the origin of this extraordinary name, and discovered a

curious bit of local history. The founders of the village had settled on

the land without the permission of the absentee owner, and obstinately

resisted all attempts at eviction. Again and again troops had been

sent to drive them away, but as soon as the troops retired these

"self-willed" people returned and resumed possession, till at last the

proprietor, who lived in St. Petersburg or some other distant place,

became weary of the contest and allowed them to remain. The various

incidents were related with much circumstantial detail, so that

the narration lasted perhaps half an hour. All this time I listened

attentively, and when the story was finished I took out my note-book

in order to jot down the facts, and asked in what year the affair had

happened. No answer was given to my question. The peasants merely looked

at each other in a significant way and kept silence. Thinking that my

question had not been understood, I asked it a second time, repeating a

part of what had been related. To my astonishment and utter discomfiture

they all declared that they had never related anything of the sort!

In despair I appealed to my friend, and asked him whether my ears had

deceived me--whether I was labouring under some strange hallucination.

Without giving me any reply he simply smiled and turned away.

When we had left the village and were driving along in our tarantass the

mystery was satisfactorily cleared up. My friend explained to me that I

had not at all misunderstood what had been related, but that my

abrupt question and the sight of my note-book had suddenly aroused the

peasants' suspicions. "They evidently suspected," he continued, "that

you were a tchinovnik, and that you wished to use to their detriment the

knowledge you had acquired. They thought it safer, therefore, at once to

deny it all. You don't yet understand the Russian muzhik!"

In this last remark I was obliged to concur, but since that time I have

come to know the muzhik better, and an incident of the kind would now

no longer surprise me. From a long series of observations I have come

to the conclusion that the great majority of the Russian peasants, when

dealing with the authorities, consider the most patent and barefaced

falsehoods as a fair means of self-defence. Thus, for example, when

a muzhik is implicated in a criminal affair, and a preliminary

investigation is being made, he probably begins by constructing an

elaborate story to explain the facts and exculpate himself. The story

may be a tissue of self-evident falsehoods from beginning to end, but

he defends it valiantly as long as possible. When he perceives that the

position which he has taken up is utterly untenable, he declares

openly that all he has said is false, and that he wishes to make a

new declaration. This second declaration may have the same fate as the

former one, and then he proposes a third. Thus groping his way, he

tries various stories till he finds one that seems proof against all

objections. In the fact of his thus telling lies there is of course