Tramping across the Crimean moors I lost my way in the mist near the
monastery of St. George, and was conducted by a peasant to the Greek
village of Kalon, well known to old campaigners--it is between
Sebastopol and Balaklava. The village remains the same to-day as it
was in the days of the Crimean War, and the same families as lived
there then, or their descendants, live there now. I visited the
_starosta_, and he indicated a home where I might sleep the night. I
was taken in by an aged Greek woman and entertained among her family.
They brought me bread and wine, and spread out the best couch for me.
The sons told me of hunting exploits with the bear and the wild boar;
they told me how at Christmas time the wild turkeys fly overhead in
such numbers that it is the easiest thing in the world to shoot one's
Christmas dinner--and I thought that very convenient. When the sons
were silent, or talking among themselves, the old dame told me about
her youth: how she was only seventeen years old at the time of the
war; how the English were the most handsome of all the soldiers, how
the Turks were the most lazy and the most brutal, how the French and
the Italians simpered; how the English soldiers were loved by the
Greek girls, how they were also more generous than the other troops
and gave freely clothes and tea and sugar and whatever was needed in
the cottages and asked no money for it whatever; how in these days the
little children played with the cannon-balls, rolling them over the
moors and up the village street--all manner of gossip the good old
lady told me, beguiling the hours and my ears till it was bedtime.
Next day I offered to pay at least for my food, but the old lady,
though poor, waved her hand and said, "Oh no, it is for the love of
God!" How often have I had that said to me day after day in Russia,
especially in the North!
Another day in Imeritia, when I passed at evening through a little
Caucasian village and was beginning to wonder where I should have
my supper and find a night's lodging, a Georgian suddenly hailed me
unexpectedly. He was sitting, not in his own house, but at a table
in an inn. There were of course no windows to the inn, and all
the company assembled could easily converse with the horsemen and
pedestrians in the street below. He called out to me and I went up to
him. A place was made for me at the table, and he ordered a chicken
and a bottle of wine. I was just a little doubtful, for I had never
seen the man before and his anticipation of my needs was surprising,
but I accepted his invitation, drank his health, and ate my meal. He
looked at me very pleasantly, and he was more sensible than a Russian,
the sort of person who is marvellously interested in you, but who is
so gentle that he will ask no questions lest you find some pain in
answering him. But I told him about myself. After the meal he took me
along to his house and gave me a spare bed. All was very disorderly
and he apologised, saying, "It is untidy, but I am a bachelor. What is
a bachelor to do? If I were married all would be different." I spent a
whole day with him, and in that short space he conceived for me as it
seemed an eternal friendship.
"You are very good," I said at parting. "You have been very
hospitable. I don't know how to thank you...." He stopped my words.
"No, no," he said, "it is only natural; it is no doubt what any one
would do for me in your country were I a stranger there."
"Would they?" I thought.
By the way, a curious example of inhospitality showed itself in this
village where I met the Georgian. We were sitting round a pitcher of
sweet rose-coloured wine, and one of us signalled to a rather morose
Akhbasian prince who was passing, but he took no notice. "He will not
drink wine with us," said my friend. "His wife is so beautiful."
"What _do_ you mean?" I asked.
"His wife is very beautiful and he is as jealous of her as she is
beautiful. He is like a dog who growls when he has suddenly got
something very good in his mouth: he fears any familiarity on the part
of other dogs."
As a tramp I have often felt how little I had to give materially for
all the kindness I have received. But even such as myself have their
opportunities of reciprocity, though they are of a humble kind. I call
to mind a cold, wet day near Batoum, how I had a big bonfire by a
stream under a bridge and I warmed myself, cooked food, and took
shelter from the rain. A Caucasian man and woman, both tramps, came
and sat by my fire a long while. The man took from his breast some
green tobacco leaves, dried them by the fire, and put them in his pipe
and smoked them. They spoke a language quite unintelligible to me
and knew not a word of Russian. But they were nevertheless extremely
demonstrative and told me all manner of things by signs and gestures.
Very poor, even starving, and I gave them some bread and beef and some
hot rice pudding from my pot. In return the man gave me five and a
half walnuts! We seemed like children playing at being tramps, but I
felt a very lively affection for these strange wanderers who had come
so trustingly to my little home under the bridge.
One of the beautiful things about hospitality is that though we do not
pay the giver of it directly, we do really pay him in the long run.
A is hospitable to B, B to C, C to D, and so on, and at last Z is
hospitable to A. It is largely a matter of "Forgive us our trespasses
as we forgive them that trespass against us." It is significant that
the Russian's parting word equivalent to our "God be with you" is
"Forgive!"