directed to the curtain. Somebody near by leans close and whispers for
your enlightenment, “All-black man!” Out comes an old Southern Negro,
who sings to the wondering Russians a Slavonic version of the “Suwanee
River,” between verses delivering himself, with many a flourish, of
a clog-dance. Johnson is the man’s name. How he drifted so far from
Charleston he hardly knows himself. He followed the music-halls to
‘Frisco, and somebody, for whom he “has a razor ready,” told him he
would make his fortune in Vladivostok. He kept getting further and
further into the interior, picking up the language as he went, and
turning his songs into the vernacular. Poor chap, the pathos he puts
into the “Suwanee River”! He is thinking, in frozen Irkutsk, of the old
Carolina homestead, and is singing and dancing his way back.
A girl in peasant dress takes the stage after “Sambo.” She is singing
some song that is running its course across northern Asia. The lassies
at the tables and the men join in. Glasses clink and heels tap. The
miners who have made their stake, the prospectors who hope to, the
sable-merchants of the Yakutsk, the wool-dealers from Mongolia, all
meet here as the first place where the rigors of the hinterland can be
compensated. It is very gay--very, very gay.
In the years after the ukase of Paul I, ordering that all officers
who had made themselves notorious for lack of education or training
should be sent to the Siberian garrisons, it may be imagined what a
Gomorrah grew up under the Russian banners. Modern celebrations are by
comparison mild and temperate, as the cold beyond these double windows
is mild and temperate to that outside the Tunguses’ huts, in the
Yakutsk Province. But it is fairly impressive, nevertheless.
Even in a Siberian hotel, the world goes to bed sometime. By four
o’clock the music has stopped, and the traveler is tired enough to
sleep on even the populous plank-bottomed bed. Thus do all things work
together to weave the “web of life.”
It is nearing noon when one wakes to eat a combination of breakfast and
lunch, and plan for the day. The Post-Office and the Bank are the first
material objectives. One must register so that mail may be delivered.
We go down and join two companions of the road. With careful directions
from the porter, the party prepares for the half-mile walk to the
Post-Office. The preliminaries are formidable in themselves. First the
felt goloshes must be pulled over the shoes; then the big fur overcoat
must be swung on and carefully buttoned down its length. Finally a fur
cap, like a grenadier’s, with ear-flaps is tied, and great fleece-lined
gloves are donned. The droshky-drivers assembled before the hotel seem
to take it as an insult to their profession that we elect to walk, and
two or three follow along outside the curb until the group reaches the
corner and turns into the main street, Bolshoiskaia.
[Illustration: A CHAPEL BOLSHOISKAIA IN IRKUTSK]
There is an air of placid quiescence at this noon hour. The policeman
at the nearest corner is ruminatingly handling his sabre-hilt,
and watching the sleighs go by. Here and there a woman, with the
ubiquitous gray shawl over her head, passes, with a preoccupied air.
Sheepskin-clad mujiks are driving along, with sledge-loads of firewood
or stiffly-frozen carcasses, on their way to the bazaar markets. The
shop-windows attract our gaze. Here is one with the word “_Apteka_”
over the door, which is to say, Apothecary. Benches are set in front of
it, on which one may sit and watch the people pass, as in the chairs
before a New England country tavern. Further along is a solidly built
white department store, the Warsawski Magazine, wherein one can get all
manner of apparel,--shawls of the latest Irkutsk pattern, towels and
soap, and--most important--blankets for the trip into the interior. We
stroll in for a moment. An individual looking like a stalwart Chinaman,
with long braided queue, shoulders his way past us to buy some cloth.
“He is a Buriat of the tribe north of Irkutsk,” explains one of the
shop-girls, very close herself in type to those seen at Wanamaker’s in
Manhattan.
Near-by the imposing magazine is a low one-story booth occupied by
a watchmaker. Beyond that is a walled enclosure with lofty gates,
as befits a school. Still further is the yellow and green sign of a
government liquor-_traktir_. The name is said to be derived from the
French word _traiteur_, which was current in the days when Napoleon
and Bourrienne were planning conquests in their Parisian poverty.
As we turn up a side street, the shops for the poorer people appear.
Gaudy pictures, of packages of tea, vegetables, and sugar-loaves,
illuminate the walls, to tell the unlettered that groceries are
sold within. Saws and hammers and vises are painted on the walls
of the hardware-shops. Loaves of bread, crescent rolls, and rococo
wedding-cakes decorate a bakery; boots and high-heeled slippers, a
shoemaker’s booth. The street is an open-air gallery of rude frescoes.
Presently we come to residences, some of cement-covered brick, with
high enclosing whitewashed walls and iron gates, some wooden, with
their rough-hewn logs unpainted save for the brilliant white sills and
window-frames.
At length, far from the town’s busy district, the Post-Office is
reached. The building is thronged. Two soldiers are loading their
saddle-bags with the mail for the regiment. Women are collecting
money-orders. A crowd waits at the window of the girl who sells stamps.
In rushing industry she makes the calculating beads of her abacus
fly across the wires. Everybody is far too occupied to register a
voyageur’s name,--excepting always the half-dozen soldiers posted in
different parts of the room and leaning stolidly upon their bayonets.
We venture to ask one of them which is the registry window.
“_Russisch verstehe ich nicht_,” is the answer.
A Siberian post-guard knowing no Russian and answering in German seems
extraordinary.
“Where are you from?” we inquire in his native tongue.
“Courland,” he answers,--“Courland by the Baltic.”
This city of Irkutsk gave trouble in 1905. If it gives trouble again,
the garrison will be safe.
The registering at length is done and we turn to go out. A tattered
figure, bearded and haggard, with rags bound on his feet, opens the
outer door.
“Will the _gaspadine_ help a man get back to Russia?”
Your companion looks closely at him.
“A convict! very bad people.” He adds: “There is a murder every day
here, and one cannot safely go out at night. Very bad men!”
With the contradictory charity that is so typical of the Russian, he
fumbles in his pocket and gives the unfortunate a fifty-kopeck piece.
We go now to the great market-place and the bazaars. Here where we
enter is a row of hardware-shops. In the first booth a string of
kettles hangs down, and knives, spoons, candlesticks, and hammers
are suspended so as to catch the eye. The proprietor stands outside,
chatting with a passer-by and the tenant of the adjoining booth.
Further on are stationers, with tables of cheap-covered books. The
wall of one is decked with chromos of galloping Cossacks, led by a
long-haired pope with a crucifix. The soldiers are sabring fleeing
Japanese, and red blood is lavishly provided. On the opposite wall are
glittering brass and silver ikons, and lithographs of ancient martyrdom.
Row upon row of red felt boots hang in the next line of booths, and
in still another--the wooden-ware bazaar--are bowls and spoons, and
platters of high and low degree. Further on a dozen women are grouped
around one of their class, who is bargaining for a huge forequarter of
beef, a full _pud_ weight by the big lever scales that are balancing it.
“_Dorogo! dorogo!_” (Too dear, too dear!) she cries. “I will give eight
kopecks a pound.”
The market-woman protests that she will be beggared at less than eleven
kopecks.
A half-_sotnia_ of little Buriat Cossacks come riding by, clad in their
puffy leather _shubas_. Yellow-topped fur caps are their only uniform
garment, and across their backs are hung the carbines. They make merry
at the haggling women. Two swing off their shaggy ponies, and begin in
turn to bargain in broken Russian for some paper-wrapped sweetmeats.
They close the deal finally, tuck these away, toss themselves back into
position, and ride off. Further along, half a dozen men cluster around
a fur-cap seller. He is a merry fellow, and there is much noise and
banter and gossiping. Such is the bazaar, the Forum of old Rome set
down in a Siberian city.
[Illustration: THE BAZAAR, IRKUTSK]
A short further stroll, and the party is at your other objective, the
Bank. You take leave of the rest and enter. At the door, a grandly
uniformed porter helps you off with the outer husk of furs, and motions
you into the outer office, with its half-dozen clerks bending over
sloping desks. One of these takes your card, and returning leads the
way to a capacious sitting-room, with armchairs scattered here and
there, pictures on the wall, magazines of many nations on the centre
table. The American typewriter, which alone betrays that this is an
office, is on a little table at one side. A tall military-looking
man, gray-mustached and grave in manner, is seated beside the window
reading some documents. He rises as you enter, and greets you, and
for some minutes the conversation in French is upon general themes.
Presently you go down into a side pocket and get out letters of
introduction. One is from the Petersburg headquarters. He looks at the
signature--Ignatieff.
“You are his friend?” The polished worldliness falls away as a cloak
that is thrown off. “Splendid!” he says. “Welcome to our city. We
must have tea.” He pushes a bell, and a page, red-bloused and wearing
brightly polished jack-boots, appears. “_Chai_, Alexis,” he orders.
“And how did you leave Ignatieff?” he begins eagerly. “Does he still
drive his black stallions? It is two years that I have not seen him.
When I was in Petersburg last winter, he was in Paris, and when I was
in Paris, he was at Nice. One is very separated from his friends here.
One might as well be a convict.”
You answer all his questions, and begin to feel as if you were
at a little family party. Presently, in the midst of the double
conversation,--for the Russians seem to talk and listen at the
same time,--the boy comes in with a big samovar, and the other
accompaniments. The banker makes the brew in the china pot. From this
each of us serves himself as the compound conversation moves on.
“You have not yet seen the sights of Irkutsk?” he observes at last. “I
will get my sleigh and show you around when we have finished.”
“It is the middle of the day. I cannot break into your work like that,”
you protest.
But he rings a bell for the red-jacketed boy. “Order my sleigh.--We
have the finest city in Siberia,” he continues; “eighty thousand people
now, and growing always. And trade has come with the railroad as we
had not dreamed before. In the days when they used to bring the tea
overland from Kiahta, the sledges from Baikal would carry as many as
five thousand bales daily. We thought when this began to be shipped
through by the railroad that it would hurt the city. But there was so
much other traffic that the loss was hardly felt.”
“The sleigh is ready,” the boy announces.
“May I have the honor?” he says, with his easy grace.
He leads the way to the coat-rack, and is received with the deepest
bows by the uniformed worthy, who solicitously helps him on with his
coat and overshoes. Then with a stereotyped motion the man holds
out his hand for the tip. Though this servant is at the door of the
banker’s own office and presumably upon his pay-roll, the incessant
tribute is his perquisite. It is usual throughout Siberia for wealthy
Russians to scatter small silver everywhere along their path--to
friends’ servants, to house-porters, to beggars on the street. The
most profuse miscellaneous generosity prevails. Riding to-day with
the Russian banker is like watching the progress of a mediæval prince
dispensing his largesse.
At the entrance to the bank is the sleigh, skeleton-framed and
high-built, unlike most of the sleighs of Siberia. Three big black
horses, with the snake-like Arab head that characterizes the best
Orloff strains, are hitched to it, troika-fashion, the centre horse
under a big bow yoke, the outside animals running free. The coachman
has the square pillow-hat, and the enormous wadded corpulence of Jehu
elegance.
It is an interesting ride in which we move slowly up the Bolshoiskaia,
receiving, so far as the banker is concerned, neighborly greetings from
most of the sleigh-riders, and respectful salutes from the foot-passers
on the sidewalks. A nice social distinction our host draws in returning
the formal salute for uniformed officials, the cordial wave of the hand
for intimate friends, a nod for the humbler acquaintances: but none go
unrecognized.
Something like the Roman’s idea of showing his city by turns up and
down the Corso, is this Siberian’s. We do halt, however, and look at
the big Opera House and the Geographical Society’s Museum and the
many-domed Cathedral,--buildings which in no city would be other than
sources of satisfaction. After an hour of driving in the piercing cold,
one’s conscience begins to prick. The banker, even though absent from
his affairs, does not appear to feel either business or atmosphere. At
length we are brought at a gallop to the doorstep of the hotel.
“To-night we dine at eight. Adieu.” With a bow he draws the bearskin
robes about him, and the black horses bear him swiftly around the
corner.
An acquaintance from the train is in the hallway as you climb stiffly
up the steps.
“Has the drive been a bit cold?” he asks. “Come in and have a _stakan_
of vodka.”
“Is that not rather heady for a between-meal tipple?” you suggest.
“This is Siberia. When you run with the wolves, you must cry like a
wolf,--but tea, too, is good.”
You mount the stairs together, to the scene of last night’s orgy, and
order a couple of glasses of tea.
It is a strange anticlimax to find the room so deserted. At three
this morning it was a good imitation of the traditional “Maxim’s.”
At four in the afternoon it is simply a crude wooden hall, with the
stiff-backed, plush-seated chairs ranged in bourgeois regularity at the
discreetly covered tables. Only the shuffle of somebody practicing a
new step on the stage behind the curtains suggests the double life of
this innocent-looking hotel dining-room.
A couple of glasses of tea attack the cold in strategic fashion, from
the inside, and are better than the external reheating method. We sip
in silence for a while.
“I am going to drive over to the Banno and have a Russian bath,”
observes your companion. “I do not like the tin tub they bring around
here at the hotel. Are you impelled to come along?”
“Is there attendance and room for two? I’m not minded to sit around and
wait.”
“Room for five hundred,” he says, with a long sweep of the hand.
“Everybody goes there. It is one of the institutions of the city.”
As you are now warm enough to consider a further drive, you go down
to assist in bargaining for a sleigh to make the tour to and from the
Banno.
A big brick building a verst or so away, with a number of private
equipages and a stand for public sleighs and droshkys, is our
destination. A beggar-woman opens the double doors and gets her service
percentage from each passer.
“How much is given in this part of the world to beggars!” you remark.
The Russian smiles. “It is a part of religion to give. At every big
family affair,--a wedding, a christening, a funeral,--we distribute
money and gifts to the poor.”
In the entresol of the bath-house, a big tiled anteroom, there are
marble-topped tables, around which men and women are smoking and
reading papers. One can dine here, even; but this comes after the
bath. A ticket at the _kontora_ gives, for a rouble, the privilege of
a preliminary boiling and a flaying by one of the naked attendants. A
start is made by washing you with infinite thoroughness, section by
section, the attendant continuing on each spot until told to stop or
advance to the next. An unfortunate foreigner, in Irkutsk, had his
head shampooed seven times in succession before he could recall the
cabalistic word necessary to direct the man’s attention elsewhere.
One is scrubbed and rinsed, and is then conducted up onto a wooden
platform, running along under the ceiling. Here, while the first
inquisitioner dashes water on a steamer-oven below, the second scrapes
the victim with new pine branches. One remembers an Irkutsk Russian
bath at least as long as the smarting and the cold he gets from it
endure.
Back at the hotel one can dig out his rather crumpled dress-suit in
preparation for the evening’s entertainment. Later, he gathers in
another sleigh, and sets out for the home of the banker.
In Irkutsk nobody relies on house-numbers to find his way. Even Moscow
has not yet advanced to this refinement of civilization. If the
driver does not know the route, he stops to ask passers-by, “Where
is So-and-So’s house?” Again and again you are taken to the abode
of somebody else with a name more or less similar. Then the driver
will say, quite nonchalantly, “_Nietchevo!_”--ask the next person he
encounters for directions, and start anew. You leave abundant margin of
time, and usually arrive sooner or later.
Our host of to-night is, happily, well known throughout the city. So
the driver whips up to a gallop and rushes down the snowy streets. It
is not a long ride to the big arched doorway of the white two-storied
plaster-covered house, in front of which the driver pulls up with
a flourish. You ring a bell at the side of the door and wait. The
_isvoschik_ has taken a station beside the curb, has folded his
arms, and is nodding on the box, apparently prepared to camp there
indefinitely. “Eleven o’clock, return,” you say. “_Haracho!_” is his
drowsy answer, given without moving. The horses have drooped their
heads; they too are settled for repose. The tinkle of a piano comes
from within, but minute after minute goes by, the bell unanswered, the
_isvoschik_ immovable on his little seat. Other pulls of the bell are
at last of avail: the door slowly opens. A final objurgation to the
coachman that he is not wanted until eleven o’clock falls on sealed
ears. You go in through the massive doorway.
In the antechamber a gray-bloused attendant helps you off with wraps
and goloshes, then silently disappears through a rear door, leaving
you standing there unannounced. The vestibule is cumbered with coats
and hats on the wall-hooks, overshoes helter-skelter on the floor, and
canes and umbrellas in the corner. It is like a clothing establishment.
Beyond the curtained doorway on the right are lights, and the sound
of the piano is louder. This seems the most promising direction for
exploration, so--forward!
Beyond the portières is a splendidly lofty room, like that of an
Italian palace, brilliantly lighted with electricity. Many-paned
windows run high up, starting from the level of one’s breast, and
long heavy hangings half-conceal them. To the right of the door is a
mahogany grand piano, at which, oblivious of the world, the host is
diligently thumping away at _Partant pour la Syrie!_ with inadvertent
variations, singing carelessly as he plays. Beyond him, in an imposing
armchair of German oak, like King Edward’s throne in the Abbey, is
a lady, propped with many cushions. She is slender and darkly clad,
and is conversing with a young man in uniform, who sits very straight
on a dainty gilt chair of the Louis XVI epoch. A low lacquered table
before them is gayly painted with geisha girls and eaved pagodas.
It holds a massive brass samovar encircled by a row of beautifully
colored tea-tumblers of the sort that one sees on exhibition in the
glass-factories which front the Grand Canal at Venice. The chorus comes
from the banker at the piano:--
Amour à la plus belle;
Honneur au plus vaillant.
[Illustration: THE ICE-BREAKER, YERMAK--LAKE BAIKAL]
There is no use of paltering and waiting to be announced, so we enter
the room. The performer hears the steps on the polished floor and
swings round on the stool. “Ah, voilà!” he says, and rises to introduce
you to his wife.
“A moi le plaisir,” she says, smiling. “Mon frère, Ivan Semyonevich,”
presenting you next to the young officer, who rises abruptly and clicks
his heels as he takes your hand.
You are motioned to a replica of the little chair, and your host
returns to his piano, this time to play with immense satisfaction in
your honor a hazy memory of some bygone variety show: “There’ll be a
hot time in the old town to-night.”
“A friend is very welcome,” says Madame Karetnikov, when he finishes.
“We do not see many from the world here in Siberia.”
“The life, however, is interesting, is it not?”
“O monsieur, I, too, was interested at first, but there are so few
people of the world here, and we see them all the time. C’est affreux!
I give you a month to change that opinion.”
“You give a month, Irina; I give a week,” growls her brother.
“If it were not that we get away during the spring one would perish
of ennui,” the hostess adds. “But Japan is not far. We go there or to
Europe every year. Perhaps soon we shall get a transfer to another
branch.”
“You bankers have hopes,” observes the brother, “but what of us poor
officials of the Justice Department! We are chained to the bench like
old galley-slaves, and all we get is three hundred roubles a month and
a red button when we are seventy.”
As the macerated song floats anew from the piano, the hall-door opens
and there is dimly visible in the anteroom a curious much-encumbered
figure, with a gigantic sheepskin hat and short blue reefer coat. He
divests himself of these, and of a long woolen inside muffler, and,
brushing back his long hair, comes into the room. His blue tunic is
resplendent with brass buttons and he wears jack-boots. A light down is
growing upon his upper lip. He is nineteen or twenty.
“Good-day!” says our host, hailing him in English.
“Good-day, uncle!” he replies.
He presents himself before Madame Karetnikov, who holds out her hand,
which he formally kisses.
“_Zdravstvouitie_, Valerian!” says the official, shaking the young
man’s hand.
Then you are introduced with explanations.
“Valerian here is in his last year at the Irkutsk Realistic School,
studying preparatory to engineering.”
The status of science in Siberia becomes the theme, and the newcomer
infuses considerable local color into his pictures.
“Does the professor in drawing suit you now, Valerian?” the banker
inquires presently. Then he adds to you: “They all went on strike
because the old professor of drawing had a method they did not like.
The authorities had to replace him before any of the students would go
back.”
“The new professor respects our rights,” says Valerian soberly, not
liking the levity of his elder.
Soon, from an adjoining room, come in the children of the host,--a very
pretty girl of the age at which misses wear short dresses and braids;
and a little boy of about eight. The boy very respectfully kisses his
mother’s hand and is introduced to the stranger, but finds a superior
attraction in his father at the piano.
The girl, Marie Pavlovna, sits down beside her cousin Valerian. Lacking
the stock football amenities of a happier land, and half-embarrassed,
half-superior in the status of a budding young man, Valerian is not
much of a conversation-maker. Marie Pavlovna, too, is seen but not
heard. She is evidently the typical product of the French system of
sex-segregation and cloistered study, which keeps girls abnormally
uninteresting until marriage, perhaps to make amends subsequently.
“I think we had better go in and eat. It is half-past eight,” says the
host.
“Si tu veux,” replies his wife; and we stroll out into a big
dining-room, at one end of which is a heavily-freighted oak sideboard.
As we approach this, the host opens a far door, and shouts down into
the darkness:--
“Obeid, Dimitri.”