“The villages spring up like mushrooms from the soil? But where? I see none. How far is the next village from yours?”
“Fifteen versts” (ten miles).
Thus does the peasant of the crown estate speak and think. The vast land is not spacious enough for him, and yet the twentieth part of what he has at his disposal would suffice for him if he would cultivate it. For the land is so fertile that it richly rewards even a very small amount of labour. But if it does once fail, if the harvest does not turn out as well as usual, if the peasant suffers from want instead of from superfluity, he regards this not as the natural consequence of his own laziness, but as a dispensation of God, as a punishment laid upon him for his sins.
In reality, however, he is very comfortable in spite of his sins and their punishment, and has more reason to talk of his reward. For not scarcity but superfluity troubles him. The government allows each peasant fifteen hektars of the best land, usually at his own choice, for every male member of his family; but of the 400,000 square versts of the crown-estate, only 234,000 had been taken up till 1876, so it does not matter much even now whether a peasant restricts himself to what he has a right to or not. Some families use not less than twelve or fifteen hundred hektars, and to these it is certainly a matter of indifference whether they keep only the number of horses necessary for their work, or twenty or thirty more. In reality, it often happens that the superfluous animals relieve the peasants from a heavy care—that of turning to account the over-abundant harvest which the extremely deficient means of transport prevent his converting into money. In a country in whose capital, under ordinary circumstances, the pood or thirty-six pounds of rye-meal is sold at sixpence, of wheat-meal at ninepence, of beef in winter at about one shilling and twopence at most; where a sheep costs four shillings, a weaned calf ten, a pig eight, and an excellent horse seldom more than five pounds of English money, an unusually good season lowers prices so far that the too-abundant harvest becomes a burden. When the peasant, who in any case works only when he must, can only get about one shilling and twopence for about two hundredweights of grain, the flail becomes too heavy in his hand, and the harvest, according to his limited ideas, becomes a curse.
These conditions, which apply to the present day, explain most of the vices as well as many of the virtues of our colonist: his laziness, his incorrigible contentment, his indifference to losses, his liberality to the needy, his compassion for the unfortunate. They also explain the intense desire, innate in all Siberians, to increase the population. The vast land is hungry for inhabitants, if I may so speak. Therefore even now the Siberian looks with pride on a numerous family; and there is no foundling asylum in the whole country. Why should there be? Every woman who cannot bring up the child she has borne, or who wants to be rid of it, finds someone willing and anxious to take the little creature off her hands. “Give it to me,” says the peasant to the faithless mother: “I will bring it up;” and he looks as pleased as if a foal had just been added to his stock. In former times, when the population was considerably less than it is now, children were married while still immature, or scarcely mature, so that they might become parents as soon as possible and gain other hands to help them; now youths do not usually marry until the beginning of their eighteenth year, but they frequently wed older women who give promise of early child-bearing, and the designs of such women upon marriageable youths are not only winked at but encouraged by the bridegroom’s parents.
In order that romance may not be altogether awanting, I may mention that elopements of young girls with love-struck youths, and secret marriages, are by no means rare occurrences among the peasants of the Altai. But the great majority of these elopements take place with the consent of all concerned, thus also of the parents of both bride and bridegroom—to avoid the customary entertaining of the whole village at a meal, simple in itself, but accompanied by a great deal of brandy. As may be imagined, however, love overcomes all obstacles, particularly the disapproval of parents, on the crown-lands as elsewhere. The maiden, like every other on the round earth, is soon won over by the youth who desires to run away with her; a holy servant of the Church can also be procured at all times by the payment of an exorbitantly high fee; but the angry parents are not so easily reconciled. The mother curses her daughter, the father his son; both swear by all the saints never to see their depraved children again.
“And Heaven, full of kindness,
Is patient with man’s blindness.”
But it is not from above that the reconciliation comes; that is brought about by a magic power beyond compare, known as schnaps among the races who inhabit German territory, as vodki among those living on the sacred soil of Russia. As soon as the father-in-law drinks, the young bridegroom has gained the day; for the mother-in-law drinks too, and the luscious nectar softens her inflexible heart also. If some friends arrive, as if by chance, to assist at the reconciliation festival, they are not denied admittance, for the cost of entertaining them is much less than if the whole village had assembled, and, drinking fervently, had called down the blessing of Heaven upon the newly-united pair. Who can deny after this that love, pure, holy love, makes even a peasant youth of the Altai inventive?
The bride of the Altai receives no dowry; her mother, on the other hand, expects a gift from the bridegroom, and sometimes demands it with much storming, weeping and howling, after the manner of women. Only under special circumstances, as, for instance, when, on the morning after the wedding, the nuptial linen does not fulfil the expectations of the assembled guests, the contrary takes place. The intelligent and experienced father-in-law makes use of the magic means already mentioned, produces an inspiriting number of bottles thoughtfully laid in beforehand, promises the indignant, or at any rate downcast son-in-law a foal, an ox, a sucking-pig, and the like; the minds of all are made easy again, and the reconciliation is effected.