PILGRIMS.
Next to his religious energy, the mastering passion of a Russ is the
untamable craving of his heart for a wandering life.
All Slavonic tribes are more or less fond of roving to and fro; of
peddling, and tramping, and seeing the world; of living, as it were,
in tents, as the patriarchs lived; but the propensity to ramble from
place to place is keener in the Russ than it is in the Bohemian and
the Serb.
A while ago the whole of these Slavonic tribes were still nomadic; a
people of herdsmen, driving their flocks from plain to plain, in
search of grass and water; camping either in tents of skin, or in
frames of wood not much more solid than tents of skin; carrying with
them their wives and children, their weapons of war, and their
household gods. They chased the wild game of their country, and when
the wild game failed them, they ate their flocks. Some few among them
tilled the soil, but only in a crude and fitful way--as an Adonan
tends his patch of desert, as a Pawnee trifles with his stretch of
plain; for the Slavonic husbandman was nearly as wild a wanderer as
the driver of kine and goats. His fields were so vast, his kin so
scattered, that the soil which he cropped was of no more value to him
than the water he crossed, the air he breathed. He never dreamt of
occupying his piece of ground after it had ceased to yield him, in the
unbought bounty of nature, his easy harvest of oats and rye.
Some trace of these wandering habits may still be found, especially in
the pilgrim bands.
These pilgrim bands are not a rabble of children and women, gay and
empty folk, like those you meet when the vintage is gathered in Sicily
and the south of France; mummers who take to the pilgrim's staff in
wantonness of heart, and end a week of devotion by a feast in the
auberge and a dance under the plaintain leaves. At best that French or
Sicilian rabble is but a spent tradition and a decaying force. But
these Northern pilgrims are grave and sad in their doings, even as the
North is grave and sad. You never hear them laugh; you rarely see them
smile; their movements are sedate; the only radiance on their life is
the light of prayer and praise. Seeing these worshippers in many
places and at many times--before the tomb of Sergie near Moscow, and
before the manger at Bethlehem, I have everywhere found them the same,
in reverence, in humility, in steadfastness of soul. One of these
lowly Russ surprised me on the Jordan at Bethabara; and only yesterday
I helped his brother to cross the Dvina on his march from Solovetsk.
The first pilgrim had visited the tombs of Palestine, from Nazareth to
Marsaba; the second, after toiling through a thousand miles of road
and river to Solovetsk, is now on his way to the shrines at Kief. As
my horses rattled down the Dvina bluffs I saw this humble pilgrim on
his knees, his little pack laid by, and his forehead bent upon the
ground in prayer. He was waiting at the ford for some one to come
by--some one who could pay the boatman, and would give him a passage
on the raft. The day had not yet dawned; the wind came up the river in
gusts and chills; yet the face of that lowly man was good to see; a
soft and tender countenance, shining with an inward light, and glad
with unearthly peace. The world was not much with him, if one might
judge from his sackcloth garb, his broken jar, his crust of black
bread; but one could not help thinking, as he bowed in thanks, that it
might be well for some of us who wear fine linen and dine off dainty
food to be even as that poor pilgrim was.
This pilgrimage to the tombs and shrines of Russian saints, so far
from being a holiday adventure, made when the year is spent and the
season of labor past, is to the pilgrim a thing of life and death. He
has degrees. A pilgrim perfect in his calling will go from shrine to
shrine for several years. If God is good to him, he will strive, after
making the round of his native shrines, to reach the valley of
Nazareth, and the heights of Bethlehem and Zion. Some hundreds of
these Russian pilgrims annually achieve this highest effort of the
Christian life on earth; making their peace with heaven by kissing the
stones in front of the Redeemer's tomb. Of course the poorer and
weaker man can never expect to reach this point of grace; but his
native soil is holy. Russia is a land of saints; and his map is dotted
with sacred tombs, to which it is better for him to toil than rest at
home in his sloth and sin.
These pilgrims go on foot, in bands of fifty or sixty persons, men,
women, children, each with a staff in his hand, a water-bottle hanging
from his belt; edifying the country as they march along, kneeling at
the wayside chapel, and singing their canticles by day and night. The
children whine a plaintive little song, of which the burden runs:
"Fatherkins and motherkins,
Give us bread to eat;"
and this appeal of the children is always heard, since all poor people
fancy that the knock of a pilgrim at their window may be that of an
angel, and will bring them luck.
A part--a very large part--of these rovers are simple tramps, who make
a trade of piety; carrying about with them relics and rags which they
vend at high rates to servant-girls and superstitious crones.
A man who in other days would have followed his sheep and kine, now
seeks a wild sort of freedom as a pilgrim, hugging himself on his
immunity from tax and rent, from wife and brat; migrating from
province to province; a beggar, an impostor, and a tramp; tickled by
the greeting of young and old as he passes their door, "Whither, oh
friend, is the Lord leading thee?" Sooner or later such a man falls in
with a band of pilgrims, which he finds it his good to join. The
Russian Autolycus slings a water-bottle at his belt, and his female
companion limps along the forest road on her wooden staff. You meet
them on every track; you find them in the yard of every house. They
creep in at back-doors, and have an assortment of articles for sale,
which are often as precious in the eyes of a mistress as in those of
her maid; a bit of rock from Nazareth, a drop of water from Jordan, a
thread from the seamless coat, a chip of the genuine cross. These are
the bolder spirits: but thousands of such vagrants roam about the
country, telling crowds of gapers what they have seen in some holy
place, where miracles are daily performed by the bones of saints. They
show you a cross from Troitsa; they give you a morsel of consecrated
bread from St. George. They can describe to you the defense of
Solovetsk, and tell you of the incorruptible corpses of Pechersk.
These are the impostors--rank and racy impostors--yet some of these
men and women who pass you on the roads are pious and devoted souls,
wandering about the earth in search of what they fancy is a higher
good. A few may be rich; but riches are dust in the eyes of God; and
in seeking after His glory they dare not trust to an arm of flesh.
Equally with his meekest brother, the rich pilgrim must take his
staff, and march on foot, joining his brethren in their devotions and
confessions, in their matins and their evening song.
Most of these pilgrim bands have to beg their crust of black bread,
their sup of sour quass, from people as poor as themselves in money
and almost as rich in the gifts of faith. Like the hadji going to
Mecca, a pilgrim coming to Archangel, on his way to the shrines, is a
holy man, with something of the character of a pope. The peasant, who
thinks the crossing of his door-step by the stranger brings him
blessings, not only lodges him by night, but helps him on the road by
day. A pilgrim is a sacred being in rustic eyes. If his elder would
let him go, he would join the band; but if he may not wend in person,
he will go in spirit, to the shrine. A prayer shall be said in his
name by the monks, and he will send his last kopeck in payment for
that prayer by the hand of this ragged pilgrim, confident that the
fellow would rather die than abuse his trust.
The men who escape from Siberian mines put on the pilgrim frock and
seize the pilgrim staff. Thus robed and armed, a man may get from Perm
to Archangel with little risk, even though his flesh may be burnt and
his papers forged. Pietrowski has told the story of his flight, and
many such tales may be heard on the Dvina praams.
A peasant living in a village near Archangel killed his father in a
quarrel, but in such a way that he was not suspected of the crime; and
he would never have been brought to justice had not Vanka, a friend
and neighbor, been a witness of the deed. Now Vanka was weak and
superstitious, and every day as he passed the image of his angel in
the street, he felt an inner yearning to tell what he had seen. The
murderer, watching him day and night, observed that he prayed very
much, and crossed himself very often, as though he were deeply
troubled in his mind. On asking what ailed him, he heard to his alarm
that Vanka could neither eat nor sleep while that terrible secret lay
upon his soul. But what could he do? Nothing; absolutely nothing? Yes;
he could threaten to do for him what he had done by accident for a
better man. "Listen to me, Vanka," he said, in a resolute tone; "you
are a fool; but you would not like to have a knife in your throat,
would you?" "God take care of me!" cried Vanka. "Mind me, then," said
the murderer: "if you prate, I will have your blood." Vanka was so
much frightened that he went to the police that very night and told
them all he knew; on which his friend was arrested, brought to trial
in Archangel, and condemned to labor on the public works for life.
Vanka was the main witness, and on his evidence the judge pronounced
his sentence. Then a scene arose in court which those who saw it say
they shall not forget. The man in the dock was bold and calm, while
Vanka, his accuser, trembled from crown to sole; and when the sentence
of perpetual exile to the mines was read, the murderer turned to his
friend and said, in a clear, firm voice, "Vanka! remember my words.
To-day is yours: I am going to Siberia; but I shall come to your house
again, and then I shall take your life. You know!" Years went by, and
the threat, forgotten by every one else, was only remembered by Vanka,
who, knowing his old friend too well, expected each passing night
would be his last on earth. At length the tragedy came in a ghastly
form. Vanka was found dead in his bed; his throat was cut from ear to
ear; and in a drinking-den close by lay his murderer, snoring in his
cups. He had made his escape from the mines; he had traversed the
whole length of Asiatic Russia; he had climbed the Ural chain, and
walked through the snow and ice of Perm, travelling in a pilgrim's
garb, and singing the pilgrim's song, until he came to the suburbs of
Archangel, where he slipped away from his raft, hid himself in the
wood until nightfall, crept to the familiar shed and drew his knife
across Vanka's throat.
No one suspects a pilgrim. With a staff in his hand, a sheepskin on
his back, a water-bottle at his belt, and a clot of bass tied loosely
round his feet, a peasant of the Ural Mountains quits his home, and
makes no merit of trudging his two or three thousand miles. On the
river he takes an oar, on the wayside he endures with incredible
fortitude the burning sun by day, the biting frost at night. In Moscow
I heard the history of three sisters, born in that city, who have
taken up the pilgrim's staff for life. They are clever women,
milliners by trade, and much employed by ladies of high rank. If they
could only rest in their shop, they might live in comfort, and end
their days in peace. But the religious and nomadic passions of their
race are strong upon them. Every year they go to Kief, Solovetsk, and
Jerusalem; and the journey occupies them forty-nine weeks. Every year
they spend three weeks at home, and then set out again--alone, on
foot--to seek, in winter snow and summer heat, salvation for their
souls. No force on earth, save that which drives an Arab across the
desert, and a Mormon across the prairie, is like this force.
In the hope of seeing these pilgrim bands, of going with them to
Solovetsk, and studying them on the spot, as also of inquiring about
the convent spectre, and solving the mystery which for many years past
connected that spectre with the Romanof family, I rounded the North
Cape, and my regret is deep, when landing at Archangel, to hear that
the last pilgrim band has sailed, and that no more boats will cross
the Frozen Sea until the ice breaks up in May next year.