Russian Rambles Part 6

"Of course," said cabby tranquilly, turning up the next parallel street, which brought us out on the square close to the palace.

As we drove into the courtyard I was surprised to see that it was filled with carriages, that the plumed cha.s.seurs of amba.s.sadors and footmen in court liveries were flitting to and fro, and that the great flight of steps leading to the grand entrance was dotted thickly with officers and gendarmes, exactly as though an imperial birthday _Te Deum_ at St.

Isaac's Cathedral were in progress, and twenty or twenty-five thousand people must be kept in order.

"Well!" I said to myself, "this appears to be a very elegant sort of sketch-club, with evening dress and all the society appurtenances. What did Yakoff Petrovitch mean by telling me that a plain street gown was the proper thing to wear? This enforced 'simplification' is rather trying to the feminine nerves; but I will not beat a retreat!"

I paid and dismissed my _izvostchik_,--a poor, shabby fellow, such as Fate invariably allotted to me,--walked in, gave my furs and galoshes to the handsome, big head Swiss in imperial scarlet and gold livery, and started past the throng of servants, to the grand staircase, which ascended invitingly at the other side of the vast hall. Unfortunately, that instinct with whose possession women are sometimes reproached prompted me to turn back, just as I had reached the first step, and question the Swiss.

"In what room shall I find the Ladies' Artistic Circle?"

"It does not meet to-night, madame," he answered. "Her Imperial Highness has guests."

"But I thought the Circle met every Wednesday night from November to May."

"It does, usually, madame; to-night is an exception. You will find the ladies here next week."

"Then please to give me my _shuba_ and galoshes, and call a sledge."

The Swiss gave the order for a sledge to one of the palace servants standing by, and put on my galoshes and cloak. But the big square was deserted, the ubiquitous _izvostchik_ was absent, for once, it appeared, and after waiting a few minutes at the grand entrance, I repeated my request to an officer of gendarmes. He touched his cap, said: "_Slushaiu's_" (I obey, madame), and set in action a series of shouts of "_Izvostchik! izvo-o-o-o-stchik!_" It ended in the dispatch of a messenger to a neighboring street, and--at last--the appearance of a sledge, visibly shabby of course, even in the dark,--my luck had not deserted me.

I could have walked home, as it was very close at hand, in much less time than it took to get the sledge, be placed therein, and b.u.t.toned fast under the robe by the gendarme officer: but my heart had quailed a little, I confess, when it looked for a while as if I should be compelled to do it and pa.s.s that array of carriages and lackeys afoot. I was glad enough to be able to spend double fare on the man (because I had not bargained in advance), in the support of my little dignity and false pride.

As I drove out of one gate, a kind of quiet tumult arose at the other.

On comparing notes, two days later, as to the hour, with a friend who had been at the palace that night (by invitation, not in my way), I found that the Emperor and Empress had driven up to attend these Lenten _Tableaux Vivants_, in which several members of the imperial family figured, just as I had got out of the way.

This was one of the very few occasions when I found any street reserved temporarily for the Emperor, who usually drives like a private citizen.

I have never been able to understand, however, what good such reservation does, if undertaken as a protective measure (as hasty travelers are fond of a.s.serting), when a person can head off the Emperor, reach the goal by a parallel street, and then walk into a small, select imperial party unknown, uninvited, unhindered, as I evidently could have done and almost did, woolen gown, bonnet, and all, barred solely by my own question to the Swiss at the last moment.

That the full significance of my semi-adventure may be comprehended, with all its irregularity, let me explain that my manner of arrival was as unsuitable--as suspicious, if you like--as it well could be. I had no business to drive up to a palace, in a common sledge hired on the street, on such an occasion. I had no business to be riding alone in an open sledge at night. Officers from the regiments of the Guards may, from economy, use such public open sledges (there are no covered sledges in town) to attend a reception at the Winter Palace, or a funeral ma.s.s at a church where the Emperor and Empress are present. I have seen that done. But they are careful to alight at a distance and approach the august edifice on their own n.o.ble, uniformed legs. But a woman-- without a uniform to consecrate her daring--!

However, closed carriages do not stand at random on the street in St.

Petersburg, any more than they do elsewhere, and cannot often be had either quickly or easily, besides being expensive.

Nevertheless, neither then nor at any other time did I ever encounter the slightest disrespect from police, gendarmes, servants (those severe and often impertinent judges of one's attire and equipage), nor from their masters,--not even on this critical occasion when I so patently, flagrantly transgressed all the proprieties, yet was not interfered with by word or glance, but was permitted to discover my error for myself, or plunge headlong, unwarned, into the d.u.c.h.ess's party, regardless of my unsuitable costume.

On the following Wednesday, I drove to the palace again in the same style of equipage, and the same gown, which proved to be perfectly proper, as Mr. Y. P. had told me, and was greeted with a courteous and amiable smile by the head Swiss, who had the air of taking me under his special protection, as he conducted me in person, not by deputy, to the quarters of the Circle.

I had another ill.u.s.trative experience with closed streets. In February come the two grand reviews of the Guards, stationed in Petersburg, Peterhoff, and Tzarskoe Selo, on the Palace Place. They are fine spectacles, but only for those who have access to a window overlooking the scene, as all the streets leading to the Place are blockaded by the gendarmerie, to obviate the disturbance of traffic. On one of these occasions, I inadvertently selected the route which the Emperor was to use. I was stopped by mounted gendarmes. I told them that it was too far to walk, with my heavy furs and shoes, and they allowed me to proceed. A block further on, officers of higher grade in the gendarmerie rode up to me and again declared that it was impossible for me to go on; but they yielded, as did still higher officers, at two or three advanced posts. I believe that it was not intended that I should walk along that street either; I certainly had it all to myself. I know now how royalty feels when carefully coddled, and prefer to have my fellow-creatures about me.

I alighted, at last, with the polite a.s.sistance of a gendarme officer, at the very spot where the Emperor afterward alighted from his sledge and mounted his horse. At that time I was living in an extremely fas.h.i.+onable quarter of the city, where every one was supposed to keep his own carriage. The result was that the _izvostchiki_ never expected custom from any one except the servants of the wealthy, and none but the shabbiest sledges in town ever waited there for engagements.

Accordingly, my turnout was very shabby, and the gendarmes could not have been impressed with respect by it. On the other hand, had I used the best style of public equipage, the likatchi, the kind which consists of an elegant little sledge, a fine horse, and a spruce, well-fed, well-dressed driver, it is probable that they would not have let me pa.s.s at all. Ladies are not permitted, by etiquette, to patronize these _likatchi_, alone, and no man will take his wife or a woman whom he respects to drive in one. Had I foreseen that there would be any occasion for inspiring respect by my equipage, I would have gone to the trouble and expense of hiring a closed carriage, a thing which I did as rarely as possible, because nothing could be seen through the frozen window, because they seemed much colder than the open sledges, and had no advantage except style, and that of protecting one from the wind, which I did not mind.

VI.

A RUSSIAN SUMMER RESORT.

The spring was late and cold. I wore my fur-lined cloak (_shuba_) and wrapped up my ears, by Russian advice as well as by inclination, until late in May. But we were told that the summer heat would catch us suddenly, and that St. Petersburg would become malodorous and unhealthy.

It was necessary, owing to circ.u.mstances, to find a healthy residence for the summer, which should not be too far removed from the capital.

With a few exceptions, all the environs of St. Petersburg are damp.

Unless one goes as far as Gatschina, or into the part of Finland adjacent to the city, Tzarskoe Selo presents the only dry locality. In the Finnish summer colonies, one must, perforce, keep house, for lack of hotels. In Tzarskoe, as in Peterhoff, villa life is the only variety recognized by polite society; but there we had--or seemed to have-- the choice between that and hotels. We decided in favor of Tzarskoe, as it is called in familiar conversation. As one approaches the imperial village, it rises like a green oasis from the plain. It is hedged in, like a true Russian village, but with trees and bushes well trained instead of with a wattled fence.

During the reign of Alexander II., this inland village was the favorite Court resort; not Peterhoff, on the Gulf of Finland, as at present. It is situated sixteen miles from St. Petersburg, on the line of the first railway built in Russia, which to this day extends only a couple of miles beyond,--for lack of the necessity of farther extension, it is just to add. It stands on land which is not perceptibly higher than St.

Petersburg, and it took a great deal of demonstration before an Empress of the last century could be made to believe that it was, in reality, on a level with the top of the lofty Admiralty spire, and that she must continue her tiresome trips to and fro in her coach, in the impossibility of constructing a ca.n.a.l which would enable her to sail in comfort. Tzarskoe Selo, "Imperial Village:" well as the name fits the place, it is thought to have been corrupted from _saari_, the Finnish word for "farm," as a farm occupied the site when Peter the Great pitched upon it for one of his numerous summer resorts. He first enlarged the farmhouse, then built one of his simple wooden palaces, and a greenhouse for Katherine I. Eventually he erected a small part of the present Old Palace. It was at the dedication of the church here, celebrated in floods of liquor (after a fas.h.i.+on not unfamiliar in the annals of New England in earlier days), that Peter I. contracted the illness which, aggravated by a similar drinking-bout elsewhere immediately afterward, and a cold caused by a wetting while he was engaged in rescuing some people from drowning, carried him to his grave very promptly. His successors enlarged and beautified the place, which first became famous during the reign of Katherine II. At the present day, its broad macadamized streets are lighted by electricity; its _Gostinny Dvor_ (bazaar) is like that of a provincial city; many of its sidewalks, after the same provincial pattern, have made people prefer the middle of the street for their promenades. Naturally, only the lower cla.s.ses were expected to walk when the Court resided there.

Before making acquaintance with the famous palaces and parks, we undertook to settle ourselves for the time being, at least. It appeared that "furnished" villas are so called in Tzarskoe, as elsewhere, because they require to be almost completely furnished by the occupant on a foundation of bare bones of furniture, consisting of a few bedsteads and tables. This was not convenient for travelers; neither did we wish to commit ourselves for the whole season to the cares of housekeeping, lest a change of air should be ordered suddenly; so we determined to try to live in another way.

Boarding-houses are as scarce here as in St. Petersburg, the whole town boasting but one,--advertised as a wonderful rarity,--which was very badly situated. There were plenty of _traktiri_, or low-cla.s.s eating-houses, some of which had "numbers for arrivers"--that is to say, rooms for guests--added to their gaudy signs. These were not to be thought of. But we had been told of an establishment which rejoiced in the proud t.i.tle of _gostinnitza_, "hotel," in city fas.h.i.+on. It looked fairly good, and there we took up our abode, after due and inevitable chaffering. This hotel was kept, over shops, on the first and part of the second floor of a building which had originally been destined for apartments. Its only recommendation was that it was situated near a very desirable gate into the Imperial Park.

Our experience there was sufficient to slake all curiosity as to Russian summer resort hotels, or country hotels in provincial towns, since that was its character; though it had, besides, some hindrances which were peculiar, I hope, to itself. The usual clean, large dining-room, with the polished floor, table decorated with plants, and lace curtains, was irresistibly attractive, especially to wedding parties of shopkeepers, who danced twelve hours at a stretch, and to breakfast parties after funerals, whose guests made rather more uproar on afternoons than did those of the wedding b.a.l.l.s in the evening, as they sang the customary doleful chants, and then warmed up to the occasion with bottled consolation. The establishment being shorthanded for waiters, these entertainments interfered seriously with our meals, which we took in private; and we were often forced to go hungry until long after the hour, because there was so much to eat in the house!

Our first experience of the place was characteristic. The waiter, who was also "boots," chambermaid, and clerk, on occasion, distributed two sheets, two pillows, one blanket, and one "cold" (cotton) coverlet between the two beds, and considered that ample, as no doubt it was according to some lights and according to the almanac, though the weather resembled November just then, and I saw snow a few days later.

Having succeeded in getting this rectified, after some discussion, I asked for towels.

"There is one," answered Mikhei (Micah), with his most fascinating smile.

The towel was very small, and was intended to serve for two persons!

Eventually it did not; and we earned the name of being altogether too fastidious. The washstand had a tank of water attached to the top, which we pumped into the basin with a foot-treadle, after we became skillful, holding our hands under the stream the while. The basin had no stopper.

"Running water is cleaner to wash in," was the serious explanation. Some other barbarian who had used that washstand before us must also have differed from that commonly accepted Russian opinion: when we plugged up the hole with a cork, and it disappeared, and we fished it out of the still clogged pipe, we found that six others had preceded it. It took a champagne cork and a cord to conquer the orifice.

Among our vulgar experiences at this place were--fleas. I remonstrated with Mikhei, our typical waiter from the government of Yaroslavl, which furnishes restaurant _garcons_ in hordes as a regular industry. Mikhei replied airily:--

"_Nitchevo!_ It is nothing! You will soon learn to like them so much that you cannot do without them."

I take the liberty of doubting whether even Russians ever reach that last state of mind, in a lifetime of endurance. Two rooms beyond us, in the same corridor, lodged a tall, thin, gray-haired Russian merchant, who was nearly a typical Yankee in appearance. Every morning, at four o'clock, when the fleas were at their worst and roused us regularly (the "close season" for mortals, in Russia, is between five and six A. M.), we heard this man emerge from his room, and shake, separately and violently, the four pieces of his bedclothing into the corridor; not out of the window, as he should have done. So much for the modern native taste. It is recorded that the beauties of the last century, in St.

Petersburg, always wore on their bosoms silver "flea-catchers" attached to a ribbon. These traps consisted of small tubes pierced with a great number of tiny holes, closed at the bottom, open at the top, and each containing a slender shaft smeared with honey or some other sticky substance. So much for the ancient native taste.

Again, we had a disagreement with Mikhei on the subject of the roast beef. More than once it was brought in having a peculiar blackish-crimson hue and stringy grain, with a sweetish flavor, and an odor which was singular but not tainted, and which required imperatively that either we or it should vacate the room instantly. Mikhei stuck firmly to his a.s.sertion that it was a prime cut from a first-cla.s.s ox.

We discovered the truth later on, in Moscow, when we entered a Tatar horse-butcher's shop--ornamented with the picture of a horse, as the law requires--out of curiosity, to inquire prices. We recognized the smell and other characteristics of our Tzarskoe Selo "roast ox" at a glance and a sniff, and remained only long enough to learn that the best cuts cost two and a half cents a pound. Afterward we went a block about to avoid pa.s.sing that shop. The explanation of the affair was simple enough. In our hotel there was a _traktir_, run by our landlord, tucked away in a rear corner of the ground floor, and opening on what Thackeray would have called a "tight but elegant" little garden, for summer use.

It was thronged from morning till night with Tatar old-clothes men and soldiers from the garrison, for whom it was the rendezvous. The horse beef had been provided for the Tatars, who considered it a special dainty, and had been palmed off upon us because it was cheap.

I may dismiss the subject of the genial Mikhei here, with the remark that we met him the following summer at the Samson Inn, in Peterhoff, where he served our breakfast with an affectionate solicitude which somewhat alarmed us for his sobriety. He was very much injured in appearance by long hair thrown back in artistic fas.h.i.+on, and a livid gash which scored one side of his face down to his still unbrushed teeth, and nearly to his unwashed s.h.i.+rt, narrowly missing one eye, and suggested possibilities of fight in him which, luckily for our peace of mind, we had not suspected the previous season.

Our chambermaid at first, at the Tzarskoe hostelry, was a lad fourteen years of age, who dusted in the most wonderfully conscientious way without being asked, like a veteran trained housekeeper. We supposed that male chambermaids were the fas.h.i.+on, judging from the offices which we had seen our St. Petersburg hotel "boots" perform, and we said nothing. A Russian friend who came to call on us, however, was shocked, and, without our knowledge, gave the landlord a lecture on the subject, the first intimation of which was conveyed to us by the appearance of a maid who had been engaged "expressly for the service of our high n.o.bilities;" price, five rubles a month (two dollars and a half; she chanced to live in the attic lodgings), which they did not pay her, and which we gladly gave her. Her conversation alone was worth three times the money. Our "boots" in St. Petersburg got but four rubles a month, out of which he was obliged to clothe himself, and furnish the brushes, wax, and blacking for the boots; and he had not had a single day's holiday in four years, when we made his acquaintance. I won his eternal devotion by "placing a candle" vicariously to the Saviour for him on Christmas Day, and added one for myself, to harmonize with the brotherly spirit of the season.

Andrei, the boy, never wholly recovered from the grief and resentment caused by being thus supplanted, and the imputation cast upon his powers of caring for us. He got even with us on at least two occasions, for the offense of which we were innocent. Once he told a fas.h.i.+onable visitor of ours that we dined daily in the _traktir_, with the Tatar clothes peddlers and the soldiers of the garrison, with the deliberate intention of shocking her. I suppose it soothed his feelings for having to serve our food in our own room. Again, being ordered to "place the _samovar_"

he withdrew to his chamber, the former kitchen of the apartment, and went to sleep on the cold range, which was his bed, where he was discovered after we had starved patiently for an hour and a half.

Andrei's supplanter was named Katiusha, but her angular charms corresponded so precisely with those of the character in "The Mikado"

that we referred to her habitually as Katisha. She had been a serf, a member of the serf aristocracy, which consisted of the house servants, and had served always as maid or nurse. She was now struggling on as a seamstress. Her sewing was wonderfully bad, and she found great difficulty in bringing up her two children, who demanded fas.h.i.+onable "European" clothing, and in eking out the starvation wages of her husband, a superannuated restaurant waiter, also a former serf, and belonging, like herself, to the cla.s.s which received personal liberty, but no land, at the emanc.i.p.ation. Her view of the emanc.i.p.ation was not entirely favorable. In fact, all the ex-serfs with whom I talked retained a soft spot in their hearts for the comforts and irresponsibility of the good old days of serfdom.

Katiusha could neither read nor write, but her naturally acute powers of observation, unconsciously trained by constant contact with her former owners, were of very creditable quality. She possessed a genuine talent for expressing herself neatly. For example, in describing a concert to which she had been taken, she praised the soprano singer's voice with much discrimination, winding up with, "It was--how shall I say it?-- round--as round--as round as--a cartwheel!"

Her great delight consisted in being sent by me to purchase eggs and fruit at the market, or in accompanying me to carry them home, when I went myself to enjoy the scene and her methods. In her I was able to study Russian bargaining tactics in their finest flower. She would haggle for half an hour over a quarter of a cent on very small purchases, and then would carry whatever she bought into one of the neighboring shops to be reweighed. To my surprise, the good-natured venders seemed never to take offense at this significant act; and she never discovered any dishonesty. When wearied out by this sort of thing, I took charge of the proceedings, that I might escape from her agonized groans and grimaces at my extravagance. After choking down her emotion in gulps all the way home, she would at last clasp her hands, and moan in a wheedling voice:--

"Please, _barynya_,* how much did you pay that robber?"