IV

That same year I made my first start as an explorer of popular life,

and this little work brought me one step nearer to our peasants, making

me see them under a new light; it also helped me later on a great deal

in Siberia.

Every year in July, on the day of ‘the Holy Virgin of Kazán’ which was

the fête of our church, a pretty large fair was held in Nikólskoye.

Tradesmen came from the neighbouring towns, and many thousands of

peasants flocked from thirty miles round to our village, which for a

couple of days had a most animated aspect. A remarkable description of

the village fairs of South Russia had just been published that year by

the Slavophile Aksákoff, and my brother, who was then at the height of

his politico-economical enthusiasm, advised me to make a statistical

description of our fair, and to determine the return of goods brought

in and sold. I followed his advice, and to my great amazement I really

succeeded: my estimate of returns, so far as I can judge now, was not

more unreliable than many similar estimates in books of statistics.

Our fair lasted only a little more than twenty-four hours. On the eve

of the fête, the great open space given to it was full of life and

animation. Long rows of stalls, to be used for the sale of cottons,

ribbons, and all sorts of peasant women’s attire, were hurriedly built.

The restaurant, a substantial stone building, was furnished with

tables, chairs and benches, and its floor was strewn over with bright

yellow sand. Three wine-shops were erected in three different places,

and freshly cut brooms, planted on high poles, rose high in the air

to attract the peasants from a distance. Rows and rows of light shops

for the sale of crockery, boots, stoneware, ginger-bread, and all

sorts of small things, rose as if by a magic wand; while in a special

corner holes were dug in the ground to receive immense cauldrons in

which bushels of millet and sarrasin and whole sheep were boiled,

for supplying the thousands of visitors with hot _schi_ and _kásha_

(soup and porridge). In the afternoon, the four roads leading to the

fair were blocked by hundreds of peasant carts, and cattle, corn,

casks filled with tar, and heaps of pottery were exhibited along the

roadsides.

The night service on the eve of the fête was performed in our church

with great solemnity. Half a dozen priests and deacons from the

neighbouring villages took part in it, and their chanters, reinforced

by young tradespeople, sang in the choir with such ritornellos as could

only be heard at the bishop’s in Kalúga. The church was crowded; all

prayed fervently. The tradespeople vied with each other in the number

and sizes of the wax candles which they lighted before the ikons, as

offerings to the local saints for the success of their trade; and

the crowd being so thick as not to allow the last comers to reach

the altar, candles of all sizes--thick and thin, white and yellow,

according to the offerer’s wealth--were transmitted from the back of

the church through the crowd, with whispers: ‘To the Holy Virgin of

Kazán, our Protector,’ ‘To Nicholas the Favourite,’ ‘To Frol and Laur’

(the horse saints--that was from those who had horses to sell), or

simply ‘the Saints’ without a further specification.

Immediately after the night service was over, the ‘fore-fair’ began,

and I had now to plunge headlong into my work of asking hundreds of

people what was the value of the goods they had brought in. To my great

astonishment my task went on admirably. Of course, I was myself asked

questions: ‘Why do you do this?’ ‘Is it not for the old prince, who

intends increasing the market dues?’ But the assurance that the ‘old

prince’ knew and would know nothing of it (he would have found it a

disgraceful occupation) settled all doubts at once. I soon caught the

proper way of asking questions, and after I had taken half a dozen cups

of tea in the restaurant with some tradespeople (oh, horror, if my

father had learned that!), all went on very well. Vasíly Ivánoff, the

elder of Nikólskoye, a beautiful young peasant with a fine intelligent

face and a silky fair beard, took an interest in my work. ‘Well, if

thou wantest it for thy learning, get at it; thou wilt tell us later on

what thou hast found out’--was his conclusion, and he told some of the

people that it was ‘all right.’ Everyone knew him for miles round, and

the word passed round the fair that no harm would ensue to the peasants

by giving me the information.

In short, the ‘imports’ were determined very nicely. But next day,

the ‘sales’ offered certain difficulties, chiefly with the dry goods’

merchants, who did not themselves yet know how much they had sold. On

the day of the fête the young peasant women simply stormed the shops,

each of them having sold some linen of her own making and now buying

some cotton print for a dress and a bright kerchief for herself, a

coloured handkerchief for her husband, perhaps some neck lace, a ribbon

or two, and a number of small gifts to grandmother, grandfather, and

the children who had remained at home. As to the peasants who sold

crockery, or ginger-cakes, or cattle and hemp, they at once determined

their sales, especially the old women. ‘Good sale, grandmother?’ I

would ask. ‘No need to complain, my son. Why should I anger God? Nearly

all is sold.’ And out of their small items the tens of thousand roubles

grew in my note-book. One point only remained unsettled. A wide space

was given up to many hundreds of peasant women who stood in the burning

sun, each with her piece of handwoven linen, sometimes exquisitely

fine, which she had brought for sale--scores of buyers, with gypsy

faces and shark-like looks, moving about in the crowd and buying. Only

rough estimates of these sales could evidently be made.

I made no reflections at that time about this new experience of mine; I

was simply happy to see that it was not a failure. But the serious good

sense and sound judgment of the Russian peasants which I witnessed

during this couple of days, left upon me a lasting impression. Later

on, when we were making socialist propaganda among the peasants,

I could not but wonder why some of my friends, who had received a

seemingly far more democratic education than myself, did not know how

to talk to the peasants or to the factory workers from the country.

They tried to imitate the ‘peasants’ talk,’ by introducing into it

lots of so-called ‘popular phrases,’ and only rendered it the more

incomprehensible.

Nothing of this sort is needed, either in talking to peasants or in

writing for them. The Great Russian peasant perfectly well understands

the educated man’s talk, provided that it is not stuffed with words

taken from foreign languages. What the peasant does not understand is

abstract notions when they are not illustrated by concrete examples.

But when you speak to the Russian peasant plainly, and start from

concrete facts--and the same is true with regard to village-folk of

all nationalities--my experience is that there is no generalization

from the whole world of science, social or natural, which could not be

conveyed to the averagely intelligent man if you yourself understand

it concretely. The chief difference between the educated and the

uneducated man is, I should say, in the latter not being able to follow

a chain of conclusions. He grasps the first of them, and maybe the

second, but he gets tired at the third, if he does not see what you

are driving at. But, how often do we meet with the same difficulty in

educated people!

One more impression I gathered from that work of my boyhood--an

impression which I formulated but later on, and which will probably

astonish many a reader. It is the spirit of equality which is highly

developed in the Russian peasant and, in fact, in the rural population

everywhere. The Russian peasant is capable of much servile obedience

to the landlord or to the police officer; he will bend before their

will in a servile manner; but he does not consider them superior men,

and if the next moment that same landlord or officer talks to the same

peasant about hay or ducks, the latter will converse with them as an

equal to an equal. I never saw in a Russian peasant that servility,

grown to be a second nature, with which a small functionary talks to

a highly placed one, or a valet to his master. The peasant much too

easily submits to force, but he does not worship it.

I returned that summer from Nikólskoye to Moscow in a new fashion.

There being then no railway between Kalúga and Moscow, a man, Buck

by name, kept some sort of carriages running between the two towns.

Our people never thought of travelling in such a way: they had their

own horses and conveyances; but when my father, in order to save my

stepmother a double journey, offered me, half in joke, to travel alone

in that way, I accepted his offer with delight.

An old and very stout tradesman’s wife and myself on the back seats,

and a small tradesman or artisan on the front seat, were the only

occupants of the carriage. I found the journey very pleasant--first

of all because I travelled by myself (I was not yet sixteen), and

next because the old lady, who had brought with her for a three days’

journey a colossal hamper full of provisions, treated me to all sorts

of home-made delicacies. All the surroundings during that journey were

delightful. One evening especially is still vivid in my memory. We

came at night to one of the great villages and stopped at some inn.

The old lady ordered a samovár for herself, while I went out in the

street, walking about anywhere. A small ‘white inn’ at which only food

is served, but no drinks, attracted my attention and I went in. Numbers

of peasants sat round the small tables, covered with white napkins, and

enjoyed their tea. I did the same.

All was so new for me in these surroundings. It was a village of

‘Crown peasants’--that is, peasants who had not been serfs and enjoyed

a relative well-being, probably owing to the weaving of linen which

they carried on as a home industry. Slow, serious conversations, with

occasional laughter, were going on at those tables, and after the usual

introductory questions, I soon found myself engaged in a conversation

with a dozen peasants about the crops in our neighbourhood, and

answering all sorts of questions. They wanted to know all about St.

Petersburg, and most of all about the rumours concerning the coming

abolition of serfdom. And a feeling of simplicity and of the natural

relations of equality, as well as of hearty good-will, which I always

felt afterwards when among peasants or in their houses, took possession

of me at that inn. Nothing extraordinary happened that night, so that

I even ask myself if the incident is worth mentioning at all; and yet

that warm, dark night in the village, that small inn, that talk with

the peasants, and the keen interest they took in hundreds of things

lying far beyond their habitual surroundings, have made ever since a

poor ‘white inn’ more attractive to me than the best restaurant in the

world.

V

Stormy times came now in the life of our corps. When Girardot was

dismissed, his place was taken by one of our officers, Captain B----.

He was rather good-natured than otherwise, but he had got into his head

that he was not treated by us with due reverence, corresponding to

the high position which he now occupied, and he tried to enforce upon

us more respect and awe toward himself. He began by quarrelling about

all sorts of petty things with the upper form, and--what was still

worse--he attempted to destroy our ‘liberties,’ the origin of which was

lost in the darkness of time, and which, insignificant in themselves,

were perhaps on that same account only the dearer to us.

The result of it was that the school broke for several days into an

open revolt, which ended in wholesale punishment, and the exclusion

from the corps of two of our favourite pages de chambre.

Then, the same captain began to intrude in the class-rooms, where we

used to spend one hour in the morning in preparing our lessons before

the classes began. We were considered to be there under our teaching

staff, and were happy to have nothing to do with our military chiefs.

We resented that intrusion very much, and one day I loudly expressed

our discontent, saying to the captain that this was the place of the

inspector of the classes, not his. I spent weeks under arrest for that

frankness, and perhaps should have been excluded from the school, were

it not that the inspector of the classes, his assistant, and even our

old director, judged that after all I had only expressed aloud what

they all used to say to themselves.

No sooner all these troubles were over, than the death of the

Dowager-Empress--the widow of Nicholas I.--brought a new interruption

in our work.

The burial of crowned heads is always so arranged as to produce a

deep impression on the crowds, and it must be owned that this object

is attained. The body of the empress was brought from Tsárkoye Seló,

where she died, to St. Petersburg, and here, followed by the imperial

family, all the high dignitaries of the state, and scores of thousands

of functionaries and corporations, and preceded by hundreds of clergy

and choirs, it was taken from the railway station through the main

thoroughfares to the fortress, where it had to lie in state for

several weeks. A hundred thousand men of the Guard were placed along

the streets, and thousands of people, dressed in the most gorgeous

uniforms, preceded, accompanied, and followed the hearse in a solemn

procession. Litanies were sung at every important crossing of the

streets, and here the ringing of the bells on the church towers, the

voices of vast choirs, and the sounds of the military bands united in

the most impressive way, so as to make people believe that the immense

crowds really mourned the loss of the empress.

As long as the body lay in state in the cathedral of the fortress, the

pages, among others, had to keep the watch round it, night and day.

Three pages de chambre and three maids of honour always stood close by

the coffin, placed on a high pedestal, while some twenty pages were

stationed on the platform upon which litanies were sung twice every

day, in the presence of the emperor and all his family. Consequently,

every week nearly one-half of the corps was taken in turns to the

fortress, to lodge there. We were relieved every two hours, and in the

daytime our service was not difficult; but when we had to rise in the

night, to dress in our court uniforms, and then to walk through the

dark and gloomy inner courts of the fortress to the cathedral, to the

sound of the gloomy chime of the fortress bells, a cold shiver seized

me at the thought of the prisoners who were immured somewhere in this

Russian Bastille. ‘Who knows,’ thought I, ‘whether in my turn I shall

not also have to join them one day or other?’

The burial did not pass without an accident which might have had

serious consequences. An immense canopy had been erected under the

dome of the cathedral over the coffin. A huge gilded crown rose above

it, and from this crown an immense purple mantle lined with ermine

hung towards the four thick pilasters which support the dome of the

cathedral. It was impressive, but we boys soon made out that the crown

was made of gilded cardboard and wood, the mantle was of velvet only in

its lower part, while higher up it was red cotton, and that the ermine

lining was simply cotton flannelette or swansdown to which black tails

of squirrels had been sewn, while the escutcheons which represented the

arms of Russia, veiled with black crêpe, were simple cardboard. But

the crowds which were allowed at certain hours of the night to pass by

the coffin, and to kiss in a hurry the gold brocade which covered it,

surely had no time to closely examine the flannelette ermine or the

cardboard escutcheons, and the desired theatrical effect was obtained

even by such cheap means.

When a litany is sung in Russia all the people present hold lighted wax

candles, which have to be put out after certain prayers have been read.

The Imperial family also held such candles, and one day the young son

of the grand duke Constantine, seeing that the others put out their

candles by turning them upside down, did the same. The black gauze

which hung behind him from an escutcheon took fire, and in a second the

escutcheon and the cotton stuff were ablaze. An immense tongue of fire

ran up the heavy folds of the supposed ermine mantle.

The service was stopped. All looks were directed with terror towards

the tongue of fire, which went higher and higher towards the cardboard

crown and the woodwork which supported the whole structure. Bits of

burning stuff began to fall down, threatening to set fire to the black

gauze veils of the ladies present.

Alexander II. lost his presence of mind for a couple of seconds only,

but he recovered immediately and said in a composed voice: ‘The coffin

must be taken!’ The pages de chambre at once covered it with the thick

gold brocade, and we all advanced to lift the heavy coffin; but in the

meantime the big tongue of flame had broken into a number of smaller

ones, which now slowly devoured only the fluffy outside of the cotton

stuff and, meeting more and more dust and soot in the upper part of the

structure, gradually died out in the folds.

I cannot say what I looked most at: the creeping fire or the stately

slender figures of the three ladies who stood by the coffin, the long

trains of their black dresses spreading over the steps which led to

the upper platform, and their black lace veils hanging down their

shoulders. None of them had made the slightest movement: they stood

like three beautiful carved images. Only in the dark eyes of one of

them, Mdlle. Gamaléya, tears glittered like pearls. She was a daughter

of South Russia, and was the only really handsome lady amongst the

maids of honour at the Court.

At the corps, in the meantime, everything was upside down. The classes

were interrupted; those of us who returned from the fortress were

lodged in temporary quarters, and, having nothing to do, spent the

whole day in all sorts of frolics. In one of them we managed to open a

cupboard which stood in the room and contained a splendid collection

of models of all kinds of animals for the teaching of natural history.

That was its official purpose; but it was never even so much as shown

to us, and now that we got hold of it we utilized it in our own way.

With the human skull which made part of the collection we made a

ghostly figure wherewith to frighten at night other comrades and the

officers. As to the animals, we placed them in the most unappropriate

positions and groups: monkeys were seen riding on lions, sheep were

playing with leopards, the giraffe danced with the elephant, and so on.

The worst was that a few days later one of the Prussian princes who

had come to assist at the burial ceremony (it was the one, I think,

who became later on the Emperor Frederick) visited our school, and

was shown all that concerned our education. Our director did not fail

to boast of the excellent educational appliances which we had at the

school, and brought him to that same unfortunate cupboard.... When

the German prince caught a glimpse of our zoological classification,

he drew a long face and quickly turned away. Our old director looked

horrified; he had lost the power of speech, and only pointed repeatedly

with his hand at some star-fishes which were placed in glass boxes on

the walls by the sides of the cupboard. The suite of the prince tried

to look as if they had noticed nothing, and only threw rapid glimpses

at the cause of so much disturbance, while we wicked boys made all

sorts of faces in order not to burst with laughter.