§1
THE Crown Prince[[110]] is coming to Vyatka! The Crown Prince is travelling through Russia, to see the country and to be seen himself! This news was of interest to everyone and of special interest, of course, to the Governor. In his haste and confusion, he issued a number of ridiculous and absurd orders—for instance, that the peasants along the road should wear their holiday kaftáns, and that all boardings in the towns should be repainted and all sidewalks mended. A poor widow who owned a smallish house in Orlóv informed the mayor that she had no money to repair her sidewalk; the mayor reported this to the Governor, and the Governor ordered the floors of her house to be pulled up—the sidewalks there were made of wood—and, if that was insufficient, the repairs were to be done at the public cost and the money to be refunded by the widow, even if she had to sell her house by auction for the purpose. Things did not go to the length of an auction, but the widow’s floors were torn up.
[110]. Afterwards Alexander II.
§2
Fifty versts from Vyatka is the spot where the wonder-working ikon of St. Nicholas was revealed to the people of Novgorod. When they moved to Vyatka, they took the ikon with them; but it disappeared and turned up again by the Big River, fifty versts away. The people removed it again; but they took a vow that, if the ikon would stay with them, they would carry it in solemn procession once a year—on the twenty-third of May, I think,—to the Big River. This is the chief summer holiday in the Government of Vyatka. The ikon is despatched along the river on a richly decorated barge the day before, accompanied by the Bishop and all the clergy in their full robes. Hundreds of boats of every description, filled with peasants and their wives, native tribesmen and shopkeepers, make up a lively scene, as they sail in the wake of the Saint. In front of all sails the Governor’s barge, decorated with scarlet cloth. It is a remarkable sight. The people gather from far and near in tens of thousands, wait on the bank for the arrival of the Saint, and move about in noisy crowds round the little village by the river. It is remarkable that the native Votyaks and Cheremisses and even Tatars, though they are not Christians, come in crowds to pray to the ikon. The festival, indeed, wears a purely pagan aspect. Natives and Russians alike bring calves and sheep as offerings up to the wall of the monastery; they slaughter them on the spot, and the Abbot repeats prayers and blesses and consecrates the meat, which is offered at a special window on the inner side of the monastery enclosure. The meat is then distributed to the people. In old times it was given away, but nowadays the monks receive a few pence for each piece. Thus the peasant who has presented an entire calf has to spend a trifle in order to get a bit of veal for his own eating. The court of the monastery is filled with beggars, cripples, blind men, and sufferers from all sorts of deformity; they sit on the ground and sing out in chorus for alms. The gravestones round the church are used as seats by boys, the sons of priests and shopmen; armed with an ink-bottle, each offers to write out names of the dead, that their souls may be prayed for. “Who wants names written?” they call out, and the women crowd round them and repeat the names. The boys scratch away with their pens with a professional air and repeat the names after them—“Marya, Marya, Akulina, Stepanida, Father Ioann, Matrona—no, no! auntie, half a kopeck is all you gave me; but I can’t take less than five kopecks for such a lot—Ioann, Vasilissa, Iona, Marya, Yevpraxia, and the baby Katherine.”
The church is tightly packed, and the female worshippers differ oddly in their preferences: one hands a candle to her neighbour with precise directions that it is to be offered to “the guest,” i.e., the Saint who is there on a visit, while another woman prefers “the host,” i.e., the local Saint. During the ceremonies the monks and attendant acolytes from Vyatka are never sober; they stop at all the large villages along the way, and the peasants stand treat.
This ancient and popular festival was celebrated on the twenty-third of May. But the Prince was to arrive on May 19, and the Governor, wishing to please his august visitor, changed the date of the festival; what harm could it do, if St. Nicholas paid his visit three days too soon? The Abbot’s consent was necessary; but he was fortunately a man of the world and raised no difficulty when the Governor proposed to keep the twenty-third of May on the nineteenth.
§3
Instructions of various kinds came from Petersburg; for instance, it was ordered that each provincial capital should organise an exhibition of the local products and manufactures; and the animal, vegetable, and mineral products were to be kept separate. This division into kingdoms perplexed our office not a little, and puzzled even the Governor himself. Wishing not to make mistakes, he decided, in spite of the bad relations between us, to seek my advice. “Now, honey, for example,” he said, “where would you put honey? And that gilt frame—how can we settle where that belongs?” My replies showed that I had surprisingly exact information concerning the three natural kingdoms, and he proposed that I should undertake the arrangement of the exhibition.