“They are perfect Rothschilds in their way,” said the professor, as walking home I noticed what palatial buildings some of the tea-merchants and gold-miners had erected, “but with no more manners than their own bullocks——in fact they are a class of themselves, and Siberia is the very best place for them. No one would stand them in Europe.”
There are, the professor told us, about fifteen of these men living in Kiakhta, one of them worth at least a million sterling. Walking back to Troitzkosavsk that day, we passed a huge building on the roadside, erected by M. Nempshinof——the millionaire in question——for a mausoleum for himself, at a cost of 40,000l. sterling. But all this is done more for vanity than anything else. Their donations to the poor, their gifts to the church, their building of churches, is not charity so much as a desire to show that they can spend more money than their neighbour. In Kiakhta, Herr R———— told us, their daily life consists in rising about mid-day, winter and summer, going down, if in the tea-season, to inspect the tea-bags and chests which sometimes burst or break in transit across Gobi, after which they visit each other’s houses and settle down to cards and champagne (at Rs. 13 [1l. 10s.] a bottle), with short intervals for refreshment, till four or five the next morning, when, helplessly drunk, they reel home to bed, or rather to a chair or sofa, for there are no beds in Kiakhta, even in the best regulated families. The favourite game in Kiakhta is nap, at which these men gamble for tremendously high sums, sometimes playing 1000l. a trick. Intellectual amusements they have none, indeed the majority cannot even read! But I shall have more to say of these strange creatures anon, and must now give the reader a full and graphic account of an evening party à la Sibérienne!
“M. Wormoff, my colleague, has deputed me to invite you to dine this evening,” said the professor, as we were about to bid him good evening. “Will you come? Do not let me persuade you against your will, but I think you will be amused at our, or let me rather say their, manners and customs.”
We gladly accepted, and presented ourselves at M. Wormoff’s residence at nine o’clock, the hour mentioned. Rather late, we thought, but no doubt the Siberian custom, though having tasted no food since breakfast, Glembodski having (as usual) nothing in the house, we would willingly have dined an hour or two earlier.
The guests were already assembled when we arrived, including our German friend, who introduced us to all present; Professor Wormoff, his newly married wife, a pretty little woman from Tomsk, Captain Cherkoff, of the Cossacks, who evidently thought Madame Wormoff a pleasant addition to Kiakhta society, a Russian professor of music, of mathematics, and chemistry (the last a German), the post-master, and ourselves. Of these Cherkoff and the chemist spoke French, the others not a word of anything but Russian.
Wormoff had a charming house, and evidences of his wife’s good taste could be everywhere seen in the drawing-room, into which we were shown. Introductions over, everybody sat solemnly down without a word, and Madame Wormoff left the room. I confess I hoped she had gone to see about dinner, but half-past eight, nine, half-past nine came, and no signs of moving. About this time Cherkoff offered me a cigarette, which, more to stave off the pangs of hunger than anything else, I accepted and lit. There was a magnificent grand piano (by Erard) in the room, upon which I was asked to perform, and played, with as much spirit as I could muster, the Russian Hymn and other patriotic tunes, but they fell flat, and no wonder. Everybody appeared to me to be getting gradually paler and paler with hunger, nor could I, with any propriety, get anywhere near R————, who was sitting next our host, to ask him if we were ever going to have anything to eat.
At last, about 11.30, the door opened, and a servant entered, bearing a tray with two large bottles of vodka. This, I thought, looked like a preliminary to food, at any rate the spirit kept faintness off! A quarter of an hour later Madame Wormoff returned to announce that dinner (dinner at 11.30!!) was ready, and we adjourned gravely to an upstairs apartment, where the repast awaited us. In a corner of the room stood a small table set out with smoked herrings, salmon, cheese, caviar, and flanked by half a dozen huge bottles of vodka, cognac, curaçao, kümmel, and other liqueurs. Here every one took a morsel of cheese or fish in his fingers, and gravely drank our health one by one, turning their glass up, if we did not drain ours to the dregs, to show that it was empty. By the time supper was served my head began to swim, for I had had to imbibe in this way, and on an empty stomach, seven or eight glasses of vodka, a liquid to which I was totally unaccustomed, and which is, I need not say, extremely potent.
One diminutive chicken and half a dozen small cutlets do not go far among half a dozen hungry men, but that was literally the only food there was. There was plenty to drink; but what drink! Brandy, vodka, and white port (English made). Beer, claret, or sherry, there were none, or even water, for after devouring salt fish like so many Esquimaux, one would gladly have put up with the latter, had there been any.
Madame Wormoff retired to rest shortly after midnight. Strangely enough, we missed our friend the Cossack at the very same moment. Such a proceeding would have seemed somewhat strange anywhere else, especially as the gallant Captain returned in half an hour, after a prolonged tête-à-tête with Madame, and joined us again. But nobody, even Wormoff, seemed in the least surprised.
The lady’s departure was the signal for real hard drinking to commence, though, indeed, our companions had lost no time before she left. In vain I protested that I never drank port, that strong liquor disagreed with me; my hosts either would not or could not understand, and insisted on my drinking with them separately and in turn. “Do not refuse, or they will pick a quarrel with you,” whispered R————; and not wishing to be mixed up in a mêlée with these giants, not one of whom was under six feet high, I made a virtue of necessity. It reminded me of the scene between the celebrated Mr. Jorrocks and his huntsman, who, when they had exhausted all other toasts, drank the healths of all the hounds separately. When our friends had exhausted the Czar, the army, the navy, the Queen of England, and all reigning potentates, including the Emperor of China, they fell back on themselves. I must have drunk at least three bottles of port that night, to say nothing of vodka, and by the time we left the table to adjourn to the piano and wind up the evening, or rather morning with song, my throat was like a lime-kiln, and my head spinning like a teetotum.