A NIGHT AT A SHRINE
LIFE at Moscow was very full during the ensuing two months. What the
students did I did. Each night there was some new diversion; a visit to
the Narodny Dom with dancing and confetti fights until three in the
morning, or a skating masquerade at Chisty Prudy. Sometimes we would go
in sledges to Petrovsky Park; other times we would go to the Kremlin and
climb up the steeple of St John’s. These days were full of variety and
entertainment. One evening I presented myself at the stage-door of the
Theatre of Art; I could not find the box-office. Stanislavsky’s company
was performing _The Life of Man_. An actor met me and I asked him how I
should get a ticket. But, when he discovered I was an Englishman, he
took me to the manager, and got me a free pass to the third row of the
stalls. That was glorious hospitality. It was a magnificent performance;
the stage management was perfect if extremely ingenious. Another night a
Russian girl asked me to take her to the Hermitage Theatre; she was
going anyway, but she needed a “cavalier.” So we went and listened to
four French farces, all performed the same night. Katia, for so she was
called, was a Georgian and talked to me of the Caucasus all the time we
promenaded. In Russian theatres one has a quarter of an hour’s promenade
after each act. We were supposed to be immensely smitten with one
another, and ignorant of the state of my heart she said sweetly, as we
were in the sledge going home, “You were a quiet boy and I awakened you,
eh?”
Among a number of expeditions, visiting factory owners, tobogganing at
Sokolniky, or skiing, one adventure stands out more vividly than the
others. Phrosia, a lame woman who cooked for us in our Kislovka room,
had warned us she wouldn’t be at home for two days. She was going away
to pray. Shura wanted to know why she couldn’t remain in Moscow to pray,
but she only looked at him very solemnly and said her mother had always
prayed at Troitsky Lavra that day and so would she. I resolved to
accompany her. The account of my pilgrimage which I wrote at the time
will show the sequel.
“SERGIEVO, 2.30 a.m.
“This is written in the waiting-room here. Before me the lights
twinkle on the little vodka bar. There is much noise in the
room, but the heavy sound of snoring is gaining the victory over
all. What a night this has been! How came I here? How is it that
I still live? To-night—the first act was among crowds of
pilgrims at church; the second act in a one-room cottage framed
in old newspapers and inhabited by five men, two women and two
babies (thoughts of plague and exit!); the third act was spent
among the churches and the stars in the cool, fresh night;
fourth act, discovery of the railway station full of people
drunk or sleeping; the fifth act is to come. I am drinking my
eleventh glass of tea from the inexhaustible pot, but ah! how
restless I am! I am sure I carry on my person many of the
unnumbered inhabitants of that cottage. How the insects creaked
in its newspaper walls! About me now, picture fearful, monstrous
peasants spluttering, roaring, singing. A gentleman comes along
now and then and pretends to keep order. My _vis-à-vis_ is
uproarious. Figure him with thick red hair and wild red beard.
He is a fat man and he stands facing the _gendarme_ and answers
each remonstrance with an inarticulate roar. Rrrr! His hair has
been cut away with shears, and it overhangs his head equally all
round like the straw of a thatched cottage.
“‘Make w-way, will you,’ said the peasant to me with a voice
like thunder.
“I smiled gently. The peasant frowned and twisted his red lips
under his tangled moustache. He leaned down and brought his wild
phiz close up to mine and leered into my eyes. I could not have
dreamed of a more terrifying face. It recalled to me the
dreadful thoughts of my childhood as to what might be the face
of the Black Douglas or the Bogey Man.
“‘Make way, will you, or I’ll cut your throat,’ he roared.
“Several of his companions warned him that the _gendarme_ was
listening.
“‘You’re not very polite,’ I said. ‘What is it you want?’
“‘There’s no room for me anywhere else.’
“I made a place for him and he took it without a word. He became
immediately content and self-absorbed like a babe that, after
crying and kicking, has found its mother’s breast.
“He is now sitting with both elbows on the table. In one hand he
grasps a fish tightly; he held that fish in his hand all the
time he was confronting me. Ah! Now he is yelling to the counter
for vodka. He is a rough customer. A tall labourer in a red
shirt bent over to me just now and asked me if I knew what his
name was.
“‘His name is Dung.’
“Everyone in the room laughed. Even the _gendarme_ grinned. The
peasant repeated his joke. It was evidently his only stock and
store. Perhaps his father taught him that joke, and he in his
turn had it from his grandfather. He is at this moment
addressing the peasant of the human thatch.
“‘Mr Dung, ha, ha, ha. Your Excellency Baron Dung, a
word with you, ha, ha, ha,’ etc. etc. etc. But, strange
to say, my antagonist pays no attention whatever, but
regards his fish and his, as yet, untasted, vodka with the
eye of an expert mathematician who is pondering some
more-than-usually-interesting problem.
“There has not been much occasion for _ennui_ since I came in
here. A Lettish pedlar has come in, he has a face like an
American music-hall hobo, a tramp artiste. So you would say to
see his high-arched eyebrows and his long mouth. But he is a
poor starved wretch, and there may be some truth in his
reiterated assertion that he has been robbed of three farthings.
If he doesn’t stop screeching out that fact the _gendarme_ is
likely to throw him out or take him to the ‘lock-up.’ My
attention is divided between him and a girl at the bar. During
the last ten minutes a peasant lass has taken five glasses of
vodka, and a well-dressed man, himself drunk, is making clumsy
attempts to kiss her. She grins and reels about—a country girl.
She smiles idiotically and tries to steer her cheek and lips
away from the man’s moustache. If he were a little less unsteady
on his feet he would have no difficulty, I am sure. The man is
making us all a speech now, and the peasants are jesting
according to their knowledge of jests. The _gendarme_ strolls
fretfully up and down, his fingers twitching. Oh, my
acquaintance with the one joke has risen and is addressing the
man who has been ‘treating’ the girl. He caught hold of the man
with the thatched head; the latter rose, thinking the policeman
wanted him. But no!
“‘Allow me to introduce you to Mr—’
“‘Here, I’ve heard enough of that, you go out,’ says the
_gendarme_, and grasps the joking man to put him out.
“Then up speaks the pedlar.
“‘Please, Mr Gendarme, he stole three farthings of mine.’
“‘Yes?’ replies the policeman. ‘Then you must both come to the
police-station.’ He blows his whistle vigorously. There is a
crowd of moujiks round him. The man with the thatched head has
sunk back sleepily into his seat. I hear him murmuring gently,
‘Cut his throat, cut his throat.’ Two other _gendarmes_ are here
now, and the two prisoners are being kicked out with great
turbulence.
“A furious noise, and yet many men and women are lying fast
asleep among the bundles on the floor. The bar-tender moves
hither and thither behind his orderly rows of glass bottles and
is quite at his ease. He is bringing me an extra pennyworth of
sugar now! In the darkest corner of the waiting-room an
elaborate temple is set up and little lamps burn dimly before
the gilded Ikons of Mary and the child Jesus. The drunkards look
thither furtively and cross themselves. The scene is strange. I
was rummaging through my pocket-book just now for some paper and
came across the photograph of dear K——. I took it out and let
the face look into the room. I felt convulsed with laughter at
the wistful way she looked out upon the scene; the print is
fading slightly, and there is a sort of ‘silken, sad, uncertain’
expression about it that was so astonishingly true that the real
face could not look differently if my friend could be instantly
brought here. But she sleeps peacefully in that London suburb
that I know. Fourteen hours to wait for a train! And what shall
I do this long day? I might walk back again to Moscow,
thirty-five versts is not far, but it has come to my mind that I
shall not walk this stretch. It has been a rough jaunt.
“This room with its vodka bar and its temple of God, and the
drunkards flung all around the steps of the altar, is a picture
of Russia—of an aspect of Russia. When I came into the village
this afternoon the sacred Ikons were being borne in procession
through the streets, and services were being conducted at street
corners. Two priests were detailed off to officiate at this
station. I saw them go in through the throng of the bare-headed
crowd. Dressed in cloth of gold and mitred in purple, they moved
about majestically in the performance of their office, and from
their mouths came the unearthly sounds in which it is orthodox
to clothe the words of their litany. Pilgrimages are made to
this shrine on each great fast day. Many thousands flock hither
from Moscow and from the country round about; some come on foot,
some by train, and some in sledges. I came by train,
third-class, with our cook; she is now somewhere sleeping in an
unheavenly cottage there below. It has been interesting to see
the far-distance pilgrims; the peasant women bent double by huge
bundles on their backs, but resting on stout staffs and looking
out very piously and anciently from their deep hoods. We had
four of them in our carriage in the train; very gay they looked
in their coloured cotton dresses; but they were reserved, and
their monosyllabic groans and grunts scarcely sounded articulate
outside the circle of their own company. The service last
evening was grand; the festival commenced at six o’clock; I had
been watching the crows whirling about the domes of the
churches, settling on the high gilt crosses, flapping their
wings, balancing themselves, calling to one another, and the
dusk was deepening. I went into the great church and looked at
the long queue of people waiting to consecrate their candles and
be anointed with the holy oil. At last the priests came forward
and lit one candle before each of the Ikons, and a long-haired
pope stood before the people and pronounced the induction of the
service. The choir voices swelled in unison as the incense
reached one’s senses, and the solemn litany went forward with
its eternal choric response: ‘Oh, Lord, have mercy, oh, Lord,
have mercy.’ ‘_Gospody pomeely, Gospody pomeely._’ ... And now
and then the priest would repeat the words so rapidly that it
sounded like gospodipity, gospodipity.
“About ten o’clock I left the dim church and went out into the
darkness, among shadows of unknown men and women and bundles. A
hundred yards distant a bright window gave a full light on to
the night. A tavern was there, ‘where stood a company with
heated eyes,’ a wild, hairy people who stormed and screamed and
fell about. A glass of tea for me, also a bottle of
black-currant water; the like of the latter we shall not drink
again. No room to sit there. The street without was full of
solicitous boys and girls who wanted to find you a lodging. To
one of these I had recourse, and after many unsuccessful
ventures she took me to the fore-mentioned cottage. There was
more adventure and novelty than sleep on the bill of fare, and I
was tempted. When one carries a portable bed one is fairly
independent, but why had I no misgivings here? The great winter
stove on which the good woman of the place bakes her bread had
been at full heat all day, and the men and women who lay there
were like lumps of flesh in a thick stew of air. On the torn
newspaper ceiling the flies walked about or buzzed down to
settle on the faces of the sleepers. The place of honour was
given me, the one bed with a rag of curtain. I was blessed and
prayed for before the cottage Ikons, which were set up in a
further corner—perhaps I had need for prayer....
“At midnight, having passed through many adventures, I evacuated
the position. Much difficulty there was among the legs of the
sleepers, but an exit was achieved, and presently there was a
ceiling of stars above me and a cold breeze about. The cottage
being in the middle of a field there was some further difficulty
in extrication. Then came a series of _rencontres_. First a
beggar, very drunk, and whirling a cudgel above his head, tells
me he knows me, has seen me in Moscow. (I wondered if, perhaps,
he had actually seen me at the night-house with Nicholas.) Then
a _gendarme_ presents a bold aspect but falls back judiciously
since I do not hesitate in my stride. I am a suspicious-looking
character. Watchmen-monks, with the night breeze blowing their
long hair about (the clergy all wear long hair), I have
encounters with these. But the night was very good and full of
music; never so many stars, never such a Milky Way or such black
unstarry patches, and the air was thrilling. The newspaper
cottage was far away. Presently I discovered the railway station
and the waiting-room full of people, and here I am. It will soon
be dawn. I have poured myself out the twelfth and thirteenth
glasses of tea, very like hot water and without sugar or milk.
If I have caught any malady at the cottage I should be saved by
this internal washing. I become the latest convert to the system
of Dr Sangrado of _Gil Blas_ memory.... Two priests have arrived
in the waiting-room....
“Ah! I hear that, after all, there will be a train home soon.
“I left the station at a run and was back at the newspaper
cottage, and a half-dressed, half-sleeping woman let me in, got
me my things and asked mournfully why it was I could not sleep.
“‘Was it too hot, barin?’
“She blessed me and let me depart.
“Now the little village was in movement, the church bell was
sounding and many little bells were tinkling; and many sleepy
folks were making their way to church, for at dawn another great
service commenced. At the waiting-room a service was begun. And
now the night gave way to early dusk, and the dark churches
became dimly visible; the sleepy peasants rubbed their eyes.
Presently a glorious sunrise began to flush upon the gold and
silver Ikons, and softly and lowly with the in-coming light the
services in the churches proceeded, in sweet, melancholy music.
The faces of the worshippers became less shadowy, and at last
all was in full day. Then, too, my lazy train steamed away, and
Sergievo and last night were both behind me.”
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