COMME LE MONDE S'AMUSE
It is the last day of "Butter-week." Despite the excessive cold, the
streets of St. Petersburg are thronged with a tumultuous crowd. To-day
meat may still be eaten, to-morrow the great fast begins; every
butcher's shop will be shut; for seven whole weeks oil is in the
ascendant. Every one is in haste to make a good meal to-day.
The great Haymarket, the "Szenaja Plostadt," is the attraction to the
hungry throng. There, in long rows before the butchers' booths, stand on
their four feet frozen oxen, bucks, and wild boars, with heads
outstretched, the butcher either sawing or chopping off the desired
joint for his customers; his knife would make no impression upon the
hard-frozen meat. Quantities of small game--hares, partridges,
pheasants, and black-cock--from other countries, preserved by the icy
atmosphere, hang in festoons from the booths. The venders of bear's
flesh have their separate quarter; the centre of the square is taken up
by the fish shops, where great heaps of bemaned sea-lions are offered as
delicacies. Purchasers in tens of thousands pass before the booths, some
on foot, others in sleighs with bells jingling, the greater part of them
women, while the sellers are all men. No women hawkers are to be found
here. Even the special delicacy of Butter-week, the "blinnis," are made
by men bakers; these are omelets soaked in butter and spread with
caviare. Then there are the Raznocsiks, tall young fellows, their fur
coats fastened with a girdle round their waists, who, with baskets on
their heads piled high with every kind of eatable, go in and out of the
crowd with untiring cry, "Come, buy pirogo! saikis! kwast!" The venders
of tea are keeping it boiling hot in their great samovars; the doors of
the spirit-booths are forever on the swing. Pirog especially disposes to
a good drink. It is a flat cake, composed of chopped fish, meat, and
coarse vegetables--a choice morsel--and this is the last day on which it
may be enjoyed; to-morrow it may not even be thought of. All St.
Petersburg is in the streets. It is a lovely day in March; not a day of
spring and violets, but of frost and icicles. The north wind of
yesterday has sent down the thermometer fourteen degrees. Splendid
weather!
At midday, just as the great clock of Isaac Church begins to strike, a
fresh hubbub arises among the noisy throng. Down the long, straight
street, called Czarskoje Zelo Prospect, a party of huntsmen were seen
coming along in full pursuit of a magnificent twelve-antlered stag. A
stag-hunt at that season of the year is forbidden by the common laws of
hunting. The new antlers are not yet grown; they are but knots grown
over with tender hide. No less is it permitted to follow a hunt through
the streets of a city, more especially of St. Petersburg during Maflicza
week. But this distinguished party does not seem bound by ordinary laws.
The hunting-party consists of some twelve men and three of the opposite
sex, not counting about fifty huntsmen and packs of hounds. They send
the people flying the whole length of the street before them.
It may have been that the start had been in Czarskoje Zelo Deer Park,
that the stag had broken away and had taken his course towards the town,
the huntsmen after him. A huntsman's zeal does not stop to inquire which
way is permitted or which prohibited.
The stag dashes across Fontankabridge. In vain the toll-keepers put up
the barrier, it clears it at a bound. Then, seeing the hunting-party in
pursuit, the terrified toll-keepers prepare to reopen the passage.
"Leave it alone!" shouts the foremost, and the company, following the
example of the stag, clears it. Mr. Stag has meanwhile reached one of
the principal streets, the hounds on his track; the gaping country
bumpkins at the street corners rush back in panic as the huntsmen dash
past them.
At the entrance to the barracks of the Imperial Cadet Corps stands a
grenadier on guard. If he has any sense he will shoot down the
approaching stag, that it may not injure the crowd in its mad career.
But military etiquette goes before common-sense. The soldier on guard,
recognizing his superior in command, lowers his gun and presents arms.
The rebellious stag meanwhile, knowing no such etiquette, springs upon
the guard, and, catching him on its antlers, tosses him into the air.
The guard on reaching the ground again will probably present arms once
more from that lowly position. The stag, by this time, has reached a
cross street. This is one of the most frequented promenades in the
imperial city. The loungers rush away in all directions, women
screaming, men swearing, dogs barking--one runs against and upsets the
other--sledges overturn upon fallen foot-passengers. The stag and
hunting-party spring over outstretched bodies and overturned sledges
alike. It is capital sport--no one can take any hurt, the snow lies too
thick. Now the stag, reaching the Haymarket, seems somewhat bewildered.
For one second it stands affrighted, the dense throng blocking up the
great square. The next something attracts its attention. It is the row
of stags, which it takes for a herd, standing up before the
game-dealers' booths. Now the instinct of all hunted animals is to seek
refuge in a herd if they come upon one. So away into the thick of the
throng! Now the roar, the screams, and curses become a very pandemonium.
Booths and butchers' stalls overturned bear witness to the creature's
wild career; but no sooner has it reached its lifeless fellows and, with
quick instinct, scented blood, than, maddened with fury and with antlers
lowered, it forces itself a passage back into the Garten Strasse, and
tears off panting and snorting towards the Costinoi Dwor. This is one of
the curiosities of St. Petersburg--the great bazaar.
The Costinoi Dwor is a distinct quarter in itself, where everything of
most costly nature, from Persian carpets to diamond necklaces, is to be
bought. Here the stag evidently thinks to find shelter. All the doors
stand open. From among the thousand shops he must needs select that of a
Venetian glass-dealer, huntsmen and hounds in hot pursuit. In the vast
apartment, supported by pillars, are massed crystal ornaments,
amounting in value to hundreds of thousands of rubles, artistically
piled into pyramids of fairy-like elegance, the walls hung with Venetian
mirrors reaching from floor to ceiling. The unhappy Italian proclaims
himself bankrupt as he sees the stag make for his shop, containing such
costly and perishable wares, and it is a comical sight to see the poor
signor and his _fauteuil_ fall back head over heels when the crash
comes. But no sooner does the stag see an innumerable number of its
fellows reflected in the mirrors all around him, hounds upon them,
closely followed by galloping huntsmen, than it completely loses the
little remnant of wits it had retained, and, turning its back on the
raving Italian, it dashes through the ranks of its pursuers towards the
Appraxin Dwor, where Turks, Jews, Armenians, Persians, brokers,
second-hand dealers, Little and Great Russians, Copts, and Raskolniks,
Gruses, and Finlanders abound, their stalls crammed with old rubbish
from every quarter of the globe, and they themselves standing out in the
middle of the street to better attract the passers-by, two or three
seizing the unwary customer by the arm at the same time, crying up their
own wares, depreciating those of their neighbors, squabbling among
themselves, vociferating oaths, lying, cheating, bargaining--playing the
rogue in every barbaric language under the sun. And to them, in their
very midst, the excited, maddened stag! Now the real fun begins. It was
a sight to see the terrified peddlers scattered right and left among
their heaps of rubbish, to hear their agonized adjurations to all the
powers of heaven and earth; to see them crawl on all fours, frog-like,
into their holes, as the huntsmen and hounds went galloping in full
course over their fallen bodies; and to watch the angry company, after
the wild hunt had passed, streaming back again to their desecrated
wares with loud laments, proclaiming that the world was coming to an
end. The stag simply flew over the heads of the densely packed throng;
the hunt could not follow up so rapidly; it required the huntsmen's
whips to keep the dogs together in such a bewildering crowd. Thus it
gained a certain advantage, and, reaching the Boulevard of the Fontana
Canal, dashed across the frozen stream to the opposite bank, and sped
down the Goronschaja Street before its pursuers came up with it. [At the
time of our story (1825) a palace, surrounded by a large park, the
Bulasky Gardens, stood there. The great fire of 1862 has since laid it,
as well as the whole Appraxin Dwor, in ruins; the railway-station of
Czarskoje Zelo now occupies the site.]
The park is surrounded by a high gilded railing, through which sprigs of
vine-covered firs push their way. Perhaps the stag takes it for its
native home. Close by palace and park lies the great Obuchow Hospital;
some five hundred patients, men and women (most of them epileptics) are
just coming down the opposite street, returning from Trinity Church,
where they have been attending mass. Should the affrighted creature rush
in among the panic-stricken crowd, there would be no escape for
them--their crippled, infirm forms, their enfeebled brains, would render
it impossible. The very fright alone might kill them, deadened as are
their senses. Now a chorus of horror arises from the procession of
imbeciles, who, as if under a spell, come to a halt, helplessly awaiting
the attack of the incomprehensible foe. Infirmity has not crippled their
feet alone, but their thinking powers also. Nothing intervenes to stop
the approaching stag. As it flies in full career past the principal gate
of the Bulasky Gardens a shot resounds in the air. The stag makes a
side spring, throws back its head, sinks down, struggles up again,
plunges its bleeding nose into the snow, then stretches itself out,
resting its stately antlered head on the threshold of the gate, as
though in gratitude to him whose well-directed aim has released it from
its pursuers.
Sport was spoiled.