AT UNCLE’S
UNCLE was station-master of a little place called Rubezhniya, a village
of ten families. Rubezhniya is on the edge of a great forest, though, I
think, that in Russia they call it a little wood. It extends a few
hundred miles, but then there is a forest in Russia where a squirrel
might travel straight on eastward four thousand miles, going from branch
to branch and never touching earth once. Rubezhniya is also on the black
land, and its peasants have money in the autumn, though, it may be
remarked, there is never any left by the time winter approaches. Surplus
money, unfortunately, finds its way quickly to the exchequer of an
unthrifty Government and to the pockets of the farmer of the vodka
monopoly.
There are no savings banks in Russia and no wives’ stockings. Ivan
Ivanovitch lives hand to mouth; what he earns he spends, and when he
earns nothing he gets food from the man next door, or rather next
field—for, except in towns, there is no next door, and in the villages
there is seldom anything so regular as a road. Rubezhniya was supposed
to be suffering from famine and the whole district to be in want of
relief; I was therefore interested to see whether Christmas fare was
less plentiful there than in Lisitchansk.
Uncle locked us in the first-class waiting-room and bade us undress and
be comfortable as if at home. The mother and Zhenia he took to his own
small lodging. Once in later days, when I begged hospitality of a
“pope,” he put me in the church, and on another occasion, when I went to
see a police-officer, he asked me if I would mind sleeping in a cell as
he was full up at home. In some respects Russians are Spartans.
We did undress _a little_ and turned out the lamp. The room was dark
save for the little light that burned before the Ikon, and there was
silence. We composed ourselves to sleep, but after about half an hour
came the heavy rumble of a train. We heard steps on the platform, the
soft crunching sound of someone walking through crisp snow. Two bells
sounded. “The train waits five minutes here,” whispered the deacon,
gruffly.
Suddenly a key turned in our door and a hoarse voice exclaimed:
“Devil take it, where’s the light? I’ve brought a little friend.”
It was Uncle again. I am sure we all cursed a little inwardly. But he
found his way to the lamp and lit it. The first thing I noticed was a
red parcel on the table. The parcel turned out to be a baby.
“A little friend I’ve brought,” said Uncle, apologetically.
“Where’d ye find it?” asked Nicholas.
It was a baby in a sack of red quilted flannel. Uncle picked it up by
the flap of the sack and let it dangle from his thumb and forefinger in
a way to cause a mother’s heart to tremble.
“Mine,” he said.
“A girl or a boy?” I asked.
“His name is Tarass, Tarass Bulba, eh?” He brought the baby to me and
sat down on my legs, for I had not got up from the park seat on which I
was resting.
“Where is his mother?” I asked. He put his finger to his lips.
“Asleep; say nothing. My little cossack, _there’s_ an arm for you,” said
he, taking a chubby little limb from its cosy resting-place, whereupon
he proceeded to undress the child for our edification. But just as he
was concluding that delicate operation a man in a goat-skin hat and
jacket burst into the waiting-room, and a couple of porters and three
third-class passengers.
“Outside, cut-throats,” said Uncle, pulling out a pistol from his belt.
The porters and the passengers fled. But the man in the goat-skin jacket
held up his arms as if Uncle had cried “Hands up!” and from the moment
he burst in he had kept saying “Water!” as if he was demented or the
train was on fire.
“Water, water, water!” Uncle put up his pistol in his belt again.
“More softly,” he whispered. “You want water? You’ll get no water here;
vodka plenty, but water none.”
I came to the conclusion it must be another comic engine-driver. He
protested by Mary in heaven that they could not go on without water.
“Won’t vodka do?”
The engine-driver smiled evasively as much as to say, “You are pleased
to be funny, but this is a serious matter.” Then the baby began to
scream.
“Devil take it,” said Uncle. “Clear out. There _is_ no water I tell you.
Wait for a luggage train to push you to the next station or go to the
devil.” At this point a passenger came in, an aged moujik with long
white hair.
“God bless all here,” said the moujik.
“What _is_ the matter?”
“The devil is in our midst!” He crossed himself and bowed to the Ikon.
“Lord have mercy upon us, for an unclean spirit has come out of the
forest!”
“Colour of his eyes?” asked Nicholas, maliciously.
“Red, like fire, your Excellency. An unclean spirit has come out of the
forest and entered into the body of Pavel Fedoritch.”
“He means a man in the train has gone mad,” said Nicholas. “That comes
of running your trains so fearfully fast and using up all your water.”
The engine-driver protested mildly and then stared at the baby, who was
yelling as if Satan had entered into it as well as into Pavel Fedoritch.
“Lord God, preserve us,” said the engine-driver, and crossed himself
feverishly.
“A man has gone mad,” said Uncle. “Very well, take him to the police
station and ask them to cut his head off; and now _outside_ all those
who haven’t got first-class tickets!”
He rose to push them all out but suddenly gave way to one mightier than
he. A burly woman in a red petticoat pushed through the little crowd
assembled at the doorway, and levelled abuse to right and to left till
she got right in and snatched up the baby. It was Auntie. It was Uncle’s
wife, and Uncle subsided and Auntie scolded them all for disturbing our
rest and cleared the room. Then she sat on the table and quieted the
child and told us what a good-for-nothing her husband was. Poor Uncle!
He sat meekly by and listened. He evidently felt very sorrowful.
Then she left us and the train went out, without water and without
discharging the unclean spirit, I believe, and we were left with Uncle,
who insisted on our coming to the bar and making a meal. After that, at
about 5.30 a.m., we retired to the waiting-room, there to glean what
sleep we might in the three hours that were left to us.
From utter weariness I could have slept all day, but Uncle had no mercy.
We were obliged to wake up at seven. The door opened again, and a very
ragged and dirty young man lit the gas. He sprinkled some water on the
floor and swished a mop over it. He had no boots or stockings on, but
there were pieces of hard sheepskin on the soles of his feet, and with
these he polished the floor, dancing and stamping, rubbing and
smoothing. Russian floors are generally of tessellated wood and are
polished in this manner. At eight we had to wash and dress and go up to
Uncle’s for breakfast.
The deacon proposed to go to Lisitchansk directly after breakfast. Uncle
said we must have dinner first, and then he would come also. I wanted to
stay and look around, so I proposed that Nicholas and I remain with
Uncle, and that the old folks and Zhenia might go back if they wanted to
and we would come on in the afternoon. They agreed. Father, mother and
daughter went off in one sledge, Zhenia sitting on her father’s knee,
and we strolled away to the forest—“to shoot wolves,” Uncle said.
We passed through the village, a collection of mud huts and pine izbas,
all much poorer than Lisitchansk.
“Come and spend the summer here,” said Uncle.
“No, he’s coming to Lisitchansk,” said Nicholas.
“It doesn’t look very tempting,” I replied.
“Oh, don’t judge by the present,” said Uncle, “we are all sleeping like
bears in their holes. We don’t really wake up till the spring.”
“Yes, like bears,” said Nicholas. “Every nation tends to take the
characteristics of the animals amongst which it lives; the Russians are
like bears, the Indians are like snakes, the Irish like pigs, the
Australians like kangaroos, the English like cows.”
“Nonsense,” said Uncle; “the Russians are like eagles, the English like
lions—eh?”
I agreed—the Russians were as much like eagles as the English like
lions.
“There aren’t any eagles in Russia except in the Caucasus,” said
Nicholas.
“Yes, that’s the place to go to, the Caucasus, full of bears,” said
Uncle.
I laughed and pointed out that I was going to Moscow first, there to
finish the winter. The summer was a long way off and I could foresee
nothing. But it was probably during this talk that it first occurred to
me to go to the Caucasus and tramp the mountains there. Moscow, however,
was the idea that forced itself upon my consideration, for as soon as
this Little-Russian visit was completed I intended to go thither.
In the forest we met the village moujiks, all engaged in cutting timber
and loading sledges, and Uncle amused himself and us by feats of
log-lifting. He was very proud of his strength.
[Illustration: A RUSSIAN STREET SCENE]
[Illustration: A CAUCASIAN CHIEF]
At dinner-time his wife forbade him to go to Lisitchansk, and he, after
some protest about his promises, obeyed her. The Christmas festival was
evidently ending. The feasting and revelry of the past three days was
like a gay dream from which we were awaking, awaking into a grey,
ordinary world.
“If you go to the Caucasus come _via_ Rubezhniya,” said Uncle, as he
kissed us in the sledge and bade us good-bye.
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