Memoirs of an American Prima Donna

by Clara Louise Kellogg

We began to be frightfully tired of Russian food. The Russian arrangement for cold storage was very primitive. They merely froze solid anything they wanted to keep and unfroze it when it was needed for use. The staple for every day, and all day, was gelinotte, some sort of game. We lived on it until we were ready to starve rather than ever taste it again. It was not so bad, really, in its way, if there had not been so much of it. Some of the Russian food was possible enough, however. The famous sour milk soup, for instance, made of curdled milk and cabbage and, I think, a little fish, was rather nice; and they had a pretty way of serving bouchers between the soup and fish courses. But my mother and I began to feel that we should die if we did not have some plain American food. In fact, we both developed a vulgar craving for corned-beef. And, wonder of wonders! by inquiring at a little shop where garden tools were sold, we found the thing we longed for. As it turned out, the shop was kept by an American and his wife; so we got our corned-beef and my mother made delicious hash of it over our alcohol lamp. She was famous for getting up all manner of dainty and delicious food with a minute saucepan and a tiny spirit flame.

The water everywhere was horrid and we were obliged to boil it always before we dared to take a swallow. And all these things told on my poor mother, whose health was becoming very wretched. She came to hate Russia and pined to get away. So I tried to break my contract and leave (considering my mother's health a sufficiently valid reason), but, although money was due me that I was willing to forfeit, I found I could not go until I had sung out the full term of my engagement. I was so wrathful at this that I went to see the American Minister about leaving in spite of everything; but even he was powerless to help us. Apparently the Russians were accustomed to having their country prove too much for foreign singers, for the Minister remarked meditatively:

"Finland used to be open, but so many artists escaped that way that it is now closed!"

It proved to be even harder to get out of Russia than it had been to get in. One mother and daughter whom I knew went to five hotels in twenty-four hours, trying to evade the officials, so as to leave without the usual red tape; but they were kept merciless track of everywhere and their passports sent for at every one of the five. Such proceedings must be rather expensive for the government. Some Russian friends of mine once came to Aix without notifying their governmental powers and were sent for to come back within twenty-four hours. Fancy being kept track of like that! I am devoutly thankful that I do not live under a paternal government. In time, however, we did succeed in obtaining permission to leave Russia; and profoundly glad were we of it. I had but one desire before we left that dark and frigid land forever, and that was to see the Czar just once. My friends of the English Embassy told me that my best chance would be on the route between the Winter Palace and the Military Riding Academy, where the Czar went every Sunday to stimulate horsemanship. So I started out the following Sunday, alone, in my brougham.

There were crowds of the faithful blocking the way everywhere—well interspersed with Nihilists, I have little doubt. Russian men are, on the whole, impressive in appearance; big and fierce and immensely virile. They are half-savage, anyway. The better class wear coats lined and trimmed with black or silver fur; while a crowd of soldiers and peasants make a most picturesque sight. On this occasion the cavalry and mounted police patrolled the route, and ranks of soldiers were drawn up on either side. Yet there was such a surging populace that, in spite of all the military surveillance, there was some confusion. I was driven up and down very slowly. Then I grew cold and got out of the carriage to walk for a short distance. I had gone but a little way and was turning back when I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was an official who informed me that I might drive but could not be permitted to walk! So I re-entered the brougham and was driven again, up and down, bowing sweetly each time to the officer who had halted me and dared to take me by the shoulder. And, finally, I caught only a glimpse of the Czar, through the hosts of guardians that surrounded him like a cloud. I could not believe that he cared for all that pomp and ceremony, for he was a weary-looking man and I felt sorry for him. I believe that he would have been as democratic as anyone could well be if he could only have had half a chance. The wife of the shop-keeper who sold garden tools told me that the Czar was perfectly accessible to them and very friendly. He liked new inventions and patents and ingenious farming implements and American machine inventions. A man I once knew had been trying for months to obtain an official introduction at Court in order to exploit a patent which he thought would interest His Majesty, and in vain. But, when he chanced to meet a friend of the Czar's in a picture gallery and told him about his idea, he had no further difficulty. His Minister, who had told him it was hopeless to try to get access to the Czar, was amazed to find him going about at the Court balls in the most intimate manner.

"How did you do it?" he demanded. "How did you manage to reach the Czar?"

"Just met him through a friend as I would any other fellow," was the reply.

We were in Petersburg at the Christmas and New Year's celebrations, which are held two weeks later than ours are. The customs were odd and interesting—notably the one of driving out in a sleigh to "meet the New Year coming in." This pretty custom was always observed by Mme. Helena Modjeska and her husband, Count Bozenta, even in America. I went to services in several of the churches, where I heard divine singing, unaccompanied by any instrument. The vibrations were very slow and throbbed like the tones of an organ. Nothing can be more splendid than bass voices. The decorations of the churches were strange and barbaric to eyes accustomed to the Italian and French cathedrals. The savagery as well as the orientalism of the Russians comes out in a curious way in their ecclesiastical architecture. The walls were often inlaid with lapis and malachite, like the decorations of some Eastern temple, and the ikons were painted gaudily upon metals. There were no pews of any sort; the populace dropped upon its knees and stayed there.

The little wayside shrines erected over every spot where anything tragic had ever happened to a royal person are an interesting feature of worship in Russia. As the rulers of Russia have usually passed rather calamitous lives, there are plenty of these shrines, and loyal subjects always kneel and make them reverence. I could see one of these shrines from my window in the Hotel d'Europe and marvelled at the devout fervour of the kneeling men in their picturesque cloaks, praying for this or some other Emperor, with the thermometer far below zero. It was always the men who prayed. I do not remember ever seeing a woman on her knees in the snow.

Our experiences in the shops of Petersburg were sometimes interesting. Of course in the larger ones French was spoken, and also German, but in the small places where "notions" were sold, or writing materials, only Russian was understood. To facilitate the shopping of foreigners, little pictures of every conceivable thing for sale were hung outside the shops. All one had to do was to point to the reproduction of a spool, or a safety pin, or an egg, or a trunk, and produce a pocketbook. One day my mother wanted some shoe buttons and we wagered that she could not buy them unaided. I felt sure there would be no painting of a shoe button on the shop wall. But she came back victoriously with the buttons, quite proud of herself because she had thought of pointing to her own boots instead of wasting time hunting among the pictures.