CHRISTMAS IN LITTLE RUSSIA
I
NICHOLAS was twenty-one years of age and was the eldest child. His
father, who was the village deacon, was in his prime. Six feet high,
broad-shouldered, he was a proper figure of a man. Thick black hair hung
down his back. His high-domed forehead and well-formed aquiline nose
reminded one of Tennyson. His wife was a short, dear woman, who moved
about in little steps—the sort of woman that never wears out, tender and
gentle, but, at the same time, strong-bodied and hardy.
The two of them welcomed me to their home, and I felt thrilled with
gratitude. Only he who has been out in the wilds, in distress, in
strange parts, among alien people, can know the full joy of a return to
home. After long travail, after isolation and privation, one’s heart is
very sensitive to loving, human hands. It was very sweet for me to
realise that in the terrible cold, in the wild night, there was a
sheltering roof for me, a little sanctuary where accident and misfortune
could no further pursue me, a home where a new father and mother awaited
me.
The cottage was a very simple one. It was built of pine trunks placed
one across another, reticulated at the comers in the style that children
build with firewood. It contained three rooms. The partitions were of
bright new wood and unadorned. We sat on straight-back wooden chairs at
a wooden table, on which no cloth was spread. The sacred picture, the
symbol of God in the home, looked down from a cleft in the pine wall.
The family had lately been at prayers, for Christmas Day begins at six
o’clock on the 24th of December. Before us, on the table, stood the
allegorical dish of dry porridge, eaten in memory of the hay and straw
that lay in the manger in which the Child Jesus was laid. Nicholas’s
little sister, Zhenia, was helping Masha, the servant, to bring in
plates and spoons. A huge bowl, full of boiled honey and stewed fruit,
was set in the middle of the table, and then mother and father and son
and daughter bowed to the sacred picture and crossed themselves, and sat
down to the meal.
The inhabitants of Lisitchansk are Little Russians, and all Little
Russians sit down to honey and porridge on Christmas Eve. They call the
custom _koutia_, and they cherish it as something distinguishing them
from Great Russians or White Russians. The deacon explained its
significance to me. What he said sounded rather naïve in my ears. The
Communion is a death feast; Koutia is in memory of His birth. “It is
just a special Communion service,” said he, “and it is held only once a
year.” He explained how each dish represented the manger: First we put
porridge in the dish, which was like putting straw in the manger. The
mother helped each of us to porridge; she stood for Mary, who would, of
course, see that there was plenty of straw, so that it might be soft and
warm. Then we each helped ourselves to honey and fruit and that
symbolised The Babe. We made a place in the porridge and then poured the
honey and fruit in. The fruit stood for the body; the honey stood for
the spirit or the blood. “Blood means spirit, when one is speaking of
Christ,” said the deacon, whom I perceived to be somewhat of a mystic.
Outside the cottage the wind roared and the snow sifted against the
window panes. We were all present at the birth of Christ, and had been
transported as if by magic to Bethlehem of Christmas night over nineteen
centuries ago.
“It was the winter wild
While the heaven-born child
All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies.”
The brightness of the cottage faded into the half light of a stable,
where a child lay in a manger among the horses and the oxen. Joseph and
Mary were near and I had just arrived, having followed a particular
bright star that for two thousand miles had led me here. Time itself had
given birth to a child. My own new tender life lay in a cradle before
me.
[Illustration: RUSSIA]
_Koutia_ remained on the table and guests came and partook of the meal.
They might have been the Wise Men, the Kings with gifts of gold,
frankincense and myrrh. Nicholas told me that the guests would return
home by a different way from that by which they came—in order to escape
Herod. Then the deacon took up a guitar and played carols, typifying,
whether he intended it or not, the music of the angel hosts.
I think we spent too little of this night in bed. Much was to happen
yet. Nicholas proposed a walk. We bowed to the sacred picture and took
our leave. The deacon also had to go out. He curled up his long hair and
put it under a high fur hat, and then wrapped himself in a purple cloak.
We stepped out along a narrow trench between two banks of snow,
waist-high. There were no lights in the village. The snow fell no
longer, but a strong wind blew the drift top in our faces. A heaven,
distant and black, but radiant with stars, looked down upon us, and upon
the white roofs of the village houses and upon the crosses and domes of
the church. All was utterly silent.
At the church the deacon left us, and we went on beyond the village.
There is an exposed path that leads up to the crest of the ridge, above
the River Donetz. The wind had swept every loose particle of snow away,
so that it was smooth as glass and hard as steel, like a well-used
toboggan track. The wind behind us fairly took us up by itself, without
any effort on our part, and when we reached the summit it began to blow
us down on the other side. It blew us off our feet so that we both went
rolling down the steep slope to the river, and we did not gain a
foothold till we plunged into a huge bank of snow formed by a rock
beside the river bed. It was a very amusing experience and we sat down
in the snow and laughed. The wind blew as if it considered our mirth
ill-timed. We gathered our cloaks about us and cowered from it.
It was a stiff walk home and the wind was appalling. The sound of music
came to us as we came round a bend in sight of the village, and
presently we saw a group of carol singers carrying what appeared to be a
lantern. When we came nearer we found them to be a group of boys
carrying a pasteboard star. The centre of the star was clear and a
candle was fixed so that the light shone through; I thought at first it
was a turnip lantern. When we looked closer we found that there was a
picture of Christ in the centre, so that the light shone through the
face. The chief boy carried the star and the next to him twirled the
points. It was an interesting point that they made no collection;
though, I am told, they all got a few coppers on the morrow. It was a
very charming representation of the Star of Bethlehem. It made its whole
journey whilst we were getting home, for we saw it finally enter the
church, which, it may be supposed, they considered the most fitting
place for the star to rest. They were all boys, and on an English
Christmas Eve they would doubtless have been asleep, dreaming of Father
Christmas and the car of toys drawn by the reindeer. And that reminds
me—Father Christmas knows Russia also. We saw stockings hung outside
several cottage doors. It apparently is the custom to hang them outside,
so Santa Claus has not to solve the problem of coming down the chimney.
Every cottage window had a light and, looking through, we saw abundance
of Christmas fare spread upon the tables. At some there were already
guests eating and drinking. The three days’ feast had commenced.
Nicholas and I went indoors and made a meal and went to bed.
II
The succeeding week was an orgy of eating and drinking. I had already
spent one Christmas in England and had eaten not less than a big man’s
share of turkey and plum-pudding, but I was destined to out-do in Russia
every table feat that our homely English board had witnessed. On
Christmas Day alone I ate and drank, for courtesy, at eight different
houses. Nicholas accomplished prodigious feats, and the worthy deacon
was as much beyond Nicholas as the latter was beyond me. Let me describe
the spread. There were, of course, chicken, turkey and vodka; there was
sucking-pig, roasted with little slices of lemon. There were joints of
venison and of beef, roast goose, wild duck, fried sturgeon and carp,
fat and sweet, but full of bones; caviare, tinned herrings, mushrooms,
melons, infusion of fruit and Caucasian wines. The steaming samovar was
always on the sideboard, and likewise tumblers of tea, sweetened with
jam or sharpened by lemon slices. There were huge loaves of home-baked
bread, but no cakes or biscuits, and no puddings. At peasants’ houses
the fare was commoner, but not less abundant, than at the squires’, and
it was very difficult to escape from either without making a meal equal
to an English lunch.
The Russians are a hospitable nation and, above all things, like to keep
open house. On the great feast days everyone is _at home_—and everyone
is also out visiting. That is, the women stay at home and superintend
the hospitalities and the men go the rounds. At Moscow it is a
full-dress function; one drives about the city all day. At Lisitchansk
it is less polite and more hearty than in the old capital and one makes
no distinction of persons. Nicholas and I went out to the postman, and
together with the postman we went to a poor peasant’s dwelling, a
one-room cottage where a man and his wife and ten children lived and
slept. There was a glorious fire and a pot of soup hanging from a hook
over it. Very poor people they were, and the children were thin and
wretched, but friends had given them extra coal and food and vodka, and
it was as gaily Christmas there as anywhere else. We took a snack of
their food and detached the man from his family and went away to the
oilman’s home. We were four now, and it seemed as if we were going to
increase like a ball of snow, but we dropped the postman with the
oilman. Just at the door, as we left, we met the deacon, who arranged to
meet us at the soap factory in the afternoon, and whilst we were talking
the farmer of the vodka monopoly came up and insisted on all of us
coming to his house at night. He forcibly reminded me of my train
adventure, for he was the first very drunk man I had seen in
Lisitchansk. From the moment he appeared on the scene to his actual
parting he kept up a grotesque step-dance, the _Kamarinsky Moujik_, the
deacon said. It seemed to consist chiefly in doing the _splitz_. After
leaving him we went home and were just in time to meet the village
police, who had come for Christmas drinks. I think they were all at the
fifteenth glass of vodka. It was a matter of speculation to me how far
they would get before they finally collapsed. I should think the remoter
districts of the village were unvisited by these worthies. One of them
had been in Siberia. “Ah, brother, you get vodka out there.” Klick, he
smacked his lips. “There was an Englishman took a glass of Siberian
vodka and for two days he was drunk. On the third day he drank a glass
of water and that made him drunk again.” Klick, he smacked his lips
again. “That’s what.” And he blinked his eyes at me with peculiar
assurance.
When the police had tottered out the village musicians came in playing
carols. The leader played the violin; he was the choir-master, an
elderly man with flashing eyes and long black hair. Behind him were four
young men with guitars or balalaikas. Then came a group of boys, perhaps
the same as those who had followed the Star of Bethlehem the night
before. They played some hymns and then received coppers all round. The
elders drank a glass of vodka each, and then their leader, by way of
thanks, gave the Ukrainsky National Dance on the violin, and stamped his
feet and danced to the music. Nearly everyone in the room was moving
legs or body to the music, and when the musicians made a move to go the
scene was so lively that one might have thought the fairy fiddler had
been present. The music ceased and the choir hurried away. They had to
visit every house in the village, and so time was precious to them; they
certainly couldn’t linger in the deacon’s house. I heard afterwards
there was one family they didn’t visit; these were Baptists, and had
celebrated their Christmas a fortnight earlier with the rest of Europe.
We met the deacon at the soap factory and there made a great feast off
sucking-pig. A Little-Russian girl induced me to drink half a glass of
vodka on condition that she drank the other half. I insisted that her
half should be the first, and then I did not resist the bribe. But I
don’t think her lips allayed the fire. She had the best of the bargain,
and the company collapsed with laughter at my expense.
A number of us left the factory to go to the Squire’s, and as we tramped
through the snow there was a lively discussion as to the grandeur of the
spread and the merits of sucking-pig. The Chief of Police was with us,
and he was of opinion that Pavel Ivanovitch was getting too deep in
debt.
“What of that,” said a military officer, “everyone is in debt. ‘Not in
debt, not decent.’ Don’t you know the proverb?”
“How fond you seem to be of getting together and eating and singing and
dancing,” said I. “In England all the people are huddled up close to one
another and yet one seldom takes tea with the next-door neighbour even.”
The deacon replied:
“You are all like the people of Moscow or Kiev or St Petersburg, I
expect. You have forgotten that you are brothers. Money has come between
you and money has made you work. You are all gathered together, not out
of love, but out of hate. In England _gregariousness_, in Russia
_conviviality_.”
“Yes, we live together,” said the Chief of Police; “you die together.”
“You have your pogroms,” I retorted, and everyone looked very grave, for
they were all staunch supporters of the Tsar.
“The vine is better for the cutting,” said the deacon, softly.
“But surely you do not approve of shedding blood, you do not think it
Christian to fight your enemies?”
“We do not strike them. They are cursed by God, and when they are struck
it is by Him. But it is not a matter for argument. You have come to see
Russia, you look about, and you will find happiness wherever you go. We
are all happy, even the Jews, who are only here to make money out of us.
Then, if we are happy you must not object to our Government.”
“But are you really happy? In nine out of every ten provinces you will
have famine before the winter is over, and yet you are all wasting your
stores by Christmas luxuriance. All these poor people who are gorging
themselves to-day will be pinched with hunger to-morrow.”
“He who taketh thought for the morrow is a Jew,” said the officer, and
so ended the conversation by flooding it with laughter. Everyone
laughed, and I think everyone thought we had been getting too serious.
The Squire was the occupant of a grand old house with many spacious
rooms and walls a yard thick. His dining-table, about twenty feet long,
was heaped up with cold meats and bottles of wine. We were fortunate
enough to escape with a plate of turkey and a glass of port each.
As we came home in the dusk we saw a lover and his lass who had just
plighted their troth. The deacon insisted on their coming with us. “How
was it done?” I asked.
“Oh, she says ‘What is your name?’; he replies, ‘Foma’; she rejoins,
‘Foma is my husband’s name.’ They are very fond of one another and
arranged it of course. It is a custom to plight troth on Christmas Day.”
A few days later I was at the girl’s house and part of the betrothal
ritual was concluded. There were about fourteen of us in one room
awaiting the ceremony. Presently a knock came at the door, and the
starosta, the old man of the village, entered, and with him the
bridegroom. They carried loaves of bread in their hands. The starosta
commenced a recitation in a sing-song voice. It ran something like this:
“We are German people, come from Turkey. We are hunters, good fellows.
There was a time once in our country when we saw strange foot-prints in
the snow, and my friend the prince here saw them, and we thought they
might be a fox’s or a marten’s foot-prints, or it might be those of a
beautiful girl. We hunters, we good fellows, are determined not to rest
till we have found the animal. We have been in all cities from Germany
to Turkey, and have sought for this fox, this marten or this princess,
and at last we have seen the same strange foot-prints in the snow again,
here by your court. And we have come in. Come, let us take her, the
beautiful princess, for we see her in front of us—or can it be you would
keep her till she grows a little older?”
Then the father made a speech in the same style, asking the name and
lineage of the proud prince who sued for his daughter’s hand. Then,
after considerable hesitation, both parties came to agreement, and the
starosta leading the young man forward, and the father bringing the girl
to him, the hands of the loving pair were joined and blessing was given.
The rest of the evening was given over to carouse.
But to return to Christmas Day. We spent the night at the house of the
farmer of the vodka monopoly. When we met the host he was dancing, and
when we said good-night he was still dancing, and he had been dancing
all the time. Beyond food there was no real entertainment. A young man
played the guitar for four or five hours, and played the same tune the
whole time. We had two dinners and two teas. At the second dinner the
fifth course was roast sturgeon. I protested that I couldn’t eat any
more.
“Don’t you think you could make all the other things squeeze up just a
little and make room?” said the hostess.
“It’s the Chief of Police,” said the deacon.
“What is?”
“Why, the sturgeon! Don’t you know the story of Gogol? The church was
packed full of people, so that not a single person more could find room.
Then the Chief of Police came and couldn’t get in. But the priest called
out to the people to make room, and then everyone moved up just a little
bit closer. So they managed to squeeze the Chief of Police in. Now this
sturgeon is the Chief of Police, and you must make the other things move
up.”
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