Isabel Hapgood - Russian Rambles

they sang; and suddenly ran the boat aground, and fled up the steep slope like deer, carrying with them their tall winter boots of gray felt, which had lain under the thwarts all day. We waited, shivering in the keen night air, and wondering whether we were deserted on this lonely reach of the river at midnight. If the apostle Peter understood the manoeuvre, he was loyal and kept their counsel. He gave no comfort beyond the oracular saytchas , which we were intended to construe as meaning that they would be back in no time.

When they did return, after a long absence, their feet were as bare as they had been all day. Their boots were borne tenderly in their arms, and were distended to their utmost capacity with apples! In answer to our remonstrances, they replied cheerfully that the night was very warm, and that the apples came from "their garden, over yonder on the bank." On further questioning, their village being miles distant, they retorted, with a laugh, that they had gardens all along the river; and they offered to share their plunder with us. The Affected One tossed an apple past my head, with the cry, "Catch, Sasha!" to our host, of whose familiar name he had taken note during the day. After this and other experiences, we were prepared to credit an anecdote which had been related to us of a peasant in that neighborhood, to illustrate the democratic notions of his class which prevailed even during the days of serfdom. One of the provincial assemblies, to which nobles and peasants have been equally eligible for election since the emancipation, met for the first time, thus newly constituted. One of the nobles, desirous of making the peasants feel at home, rose and began:-

"We bid you welcome, our younger brothers, to this "-

"We are nobody's inferiors or younger brothers any more," interrupted a peasant member, "and we will not allow you to call us so."

The nobles took the hint, and made no further unnecessary advances. Yes, these Volga peasants certainly possess as strong a sense of democratic equality as any one could wish. But the soft ingenuousness of their manners and their tact disarm wrath at the rare little liberties which they take. Even their way of addressing their former masters by the familiar "thou" betokens respectful affection, not impertinence.

Our men soon wearied of pulling against the powerful current, dodging the steamers and the tug-boats with their strings of barks signaled by constellations of colored lanterns high in air. Perhaps they would have borne up better had we been able to obtain some Astrakhan watermelons from the steamer wharves, which we besieged in turn as we passed. They proposed to tow us. On Piotr's assurance that it would be a far swifter mode of locomotion, and that they would pay no more visits to "their gardens," we consented. They set up a mast through an opening in one of the thwarts, passed through a hole in its top a cord the size of a cod-line, fastened this to the stern of the boat, and leaped ashore with the free end. Off they darted, galloping like horses along the old tow-path, and singing vigorously. Piotr remained on board to steer. As we dashed rapidly through the water, we gained practical knowledge of the manner in which every pound of merchandise was hauled to the great Fair from Astrakhan, fourteen hundred and forty miles, before the introduction of steamers, except in the comparatively rare cases where oxen were made to wind windlasses on the deck of a bark. It would have required hours of hard rowing to reach our goal; but by this means we were soon walking across the yielding sands to Piotr's cottage. Our cunning rogues of boatmen took advantage of our scattered march to obtain from us separately such installments of tea-money as must, in the aggregate, have rendered them hilarious for days to come, if they paid themselves for their minstrelsy in the coin which they had suggested to us before breakfast.

Piotr's smiling wife, who was small, like most Russian peasant women, had baked us some half-rye, half-wheat bread, to our order; she made it remarkably well, much better than Osip. We secured a more lasting memento of her handiwork in the form of some towel ends, which she had spun, woven, drawn, and worked very prettily. Some long-haired heads were thrust over the oven-top to inspect us, but the bodies did not follow. They were better engaged in enjoying the heat left from the baking.

It was two o'clock in the morning when we drove through the village flock of sheep, that lay asleep on the grassy street. With hand on pistol, to guard against a possible stray wolf, we dashed past the shadowy chalk hills; past the nodding sunflowers, whose sleepy eyes were still turned to the east: past the grainfields, transmuted from gold to silver by the moonlight; past the newly plowed land, which looked like velvet billows in its depths of brown, as the moon sank lower and lower beyond in a mantle of flame.

By this time practice had rendered us expert in retaining our seats in the low, springless lineika ; fortunately, for we were all three quarters asleep at intervals, with excess of fresh air. Even when the moon had gone down, and a space of darkness intervened before the day, our headlong pace was not slackened for a moment. As we drove up to the door, in the pearl-pink dawn, Tulip, the huge yellow mastiff with tawny eyes, the guardian of the courtyard, received us with his usual ceremony, through which pierced a petition for a caress. We heeded him not. By six o'clock we were fast asleep. Not even a packet of letters from home could keep our eyes open after that four-and-twenty hours' picnic, which had been unmarred by a single fault, but which had contained all the "experiences" and "local color" which we could have desired.

How can I present a picture of all the variations in those sweet, busy-idle days? They vanished all too swiftly. But now the rick-yard was heaped high with golden sheaves; the carts came in steady lines, creaking under endless loads, from those fields which, two years later, lay scorched with drought, and over which famine brooded. The peasant girls tossed the grain, with forked boughs, to the threshing-machine, tended by other girls. The village boys had a fine frolic dragging the straw away in bundles laid artfully on the ends of two long poles fastened shaft-wise to the horse's flanks. We had seen the harvesting, the plowing with the primitive wooden plow, the harrowing with equally simple contrivances, and the new grain was beginning to clothe the soil with a delicate veil of green. It was time for us to go. During our whole visit, not a moment had hung heavy on our hands, here in the depths of the country, where visitors were comparatively few and neighbors distant, such had been the unwearied attention and kindness of our hosts.

We set out for the river once more. This time we had a landau, and a cart for our luggage. As we halted to drink milk in the Tchuvash village, the inhabitants who chanced to be at home thronged about our carriage. We espied several women arrayed in their native costume, which has been almost entirely abandoned for the Russian dress, and is fast becoming a precious rarity. The men have already discarded their dress completely for the Russian. We sent one of the women home to fetch her Sunday gown, and purchased it on the spot. Such a wonderful piece of work! The woman had spun, woven, and sewed it; she had embroidered it in beautiful Turanian, not Russian, patterns, with silks,-dull red, pale green, relieved by touches of dark blue; she had striped it lengthwise with bands of red cotton and embroidery, and crosswise with fancy ribbons and gay calicoes; she had made a mosaic of the back which must have delighted her rear neighbors in church; and she had used the gown with such care that, although it had never been washed, it was not badly soiled. One piece for the body, two for the head, a sham pocket,-that was all. The footgear consisted of crash bands, bast slippers, rope cross-garters. The artists to whom I showed the costume, later on, pronounced it an ethnographical prize.