Hospitality is a plant that flourishes luxuriantly in Russian soil, and seems to find the smoky atmosphere of the izba as congenial as the clearer air of the palace. It was with great difficulty that Petrovitch could fix his departure for the next day but one; but a single day of rest for himself and of preparation for Ivan was all that the starost’s importunities could obtain from him, since he knew his father’s anxiety about the result of his mission.
That evening, in the starost’s cottage, there was much baking of wheaten bread, of cakes called kissel, and of greasy, indigestible pastry called pirogua. There was also a great slaughter,—a sheep, a couple of sucking pigs, and quite a multitude of fowls were sacrificed on the altar of hospitality; for the whole of Nicolofsky would no doubt assist at the festival of the next day, not in the French, but in the English sense of the word. Huge buckets of kvass were of course prepared; and it might have been better if this harmless beverage had not been supplemented by a plentiful supply of vodka.
Next day began, not unworthily, with a service in the church, a kind of farewell to Ivan and compliment to Petrovitch. But its remaining hours were wholly given up to revelry, and it is to be feared that but few sober men went to rest that night in Nicolofsky. Meanwhile Ivan bade farewell to the friends and playfellows of his childhood. With Anna Popovna his parting was a tearful one. He kissed her again and again, and vowed that he would come back and marry her as soon as his beard was grown.
“God be praised!” said her mother, who was standing by. “See how St. Nicholas protects the innocent, and will not let him take the sin of a false vow upon his soul! He does not dream, poor child, that his beard will never grow at all, since he is born a boyar, who will have to shave it off every morning—worse luck for him.”
But the saddest and most tender farewells were spoken at daybreak on the following morning, when Ivan was kissed and wept over by his foster-parents, and by all their immediate family. His own eyes were dim as he took his place in the kibitka beside Petrovitch; and when he turned to look his last upon the brown cottages of Nicolofsky, he could scarcely see them through his tears.
“But the winds of the morn blew away the tear.” By-and-by Ivan cheered up a little. He roused himself to listen to his companion’s stories of the great city, and began to be interested, and even to ask questions.
There was not much in the incidents of their journey to engage or rivet his attention. They crossed the Oka upon a raft—horse, kibitka, and all—but not at the spot so well remembered by Ivan as the scene of his adventure. After that came the long monotonous Moscow road, where everything seemed to Ivan always the same. Only that his senses assured him he was moving, and that rapidly, he would have fancied himself fixed in the centre of the same horizon, which was revolving around him eternally and unchangingly. Plains of sand, forests of birch or pine, went by in endless succession, merely diversified here and there by some pasture lands, or by a brown village built upon the pattern of Nicolofsky. On one occasion, however, they passed a company of horsemen carrying long lances, and clad in gray cloaks, with ample hoods drawn over their heads.
“Who are these?” Ivan asked with interest.
“Cossacks. I suppose they are going to join the army. They had better have stayed at home now that peace is being made with the French. That unlucky peace!” he grumbled, touching his horse rather unnecessarily with his long whip.
“Why do you say that? I thought peace was always a good thing. We have a proverb in Nicolofsky, ‘A bad peace is better than a good quarrel.’”