Russian Rambles

by Isabel Florence Hapgood

"Then you must be nearer God than we are!" they exclaimed, with a sort of reverence for people who came from the suburbs of heaven.

"Surely," I said, "you do not think that the earth is flat, and that we live on the upper side, and you on the lower?"

But that was precisely what they did think, in their modesty, and, as it seemed a hopeless task to demonstrate to them the sphericity of the globe, I left them in that flattering delusion.

I asked the old woman to explain her holy pictures to me, as I always enjoyed the quaint expressions and elucidations of the peasants, and inquired whether she thought the ikona of the Virgin was the Virgin herself. I had heard it asserted very often by over-wise foreigners that this was the idea entertained by all Russians, without regard to class, and especially by the peasants.

"No," she replied, "but it shows the Virgin Mother to me, just as your picture would show you to me when you were on the other side of the world, and remind me of you. Only--how shall I say it?--there is more power in a wonder-working ikona like this."

She handed me one which depicted the Virgin completely surrounded by a halo of starlike points shaded in red and yellow flames. It is called "the Virgin-of-the-Bush-that-burned-but-was-not-consumed," evidently a reminiscence of Moses. She attached particular value to it because of the aid rendered on the occasion which had demonstrated its "wonder-working" (miraculous) powers. It appeared that a dangerous fire had broken out in the neighborhood, and was rapidly consuming the close-set wooden village, as such fires generally do without remedy. As the fire had been started by the lightning, on St. Ilya's Day (St. Elijah's), no earthly power could quench it but the milk from a jet-black cow, which no one chanced to have on hand. Seeing the flames approach, my old woman, Domna Nikolaevna T., seized the holy image, ran out, and held it facing the conflagration, uttering the proper prayer the while. Immediately a strong wind arose and drove the flames off in a safe direction, and the village was rescued. She had a thanksgiving service celebrated in the church, and placed I know not how many candles to the Virgin's honor, as did the other villagers. Thus they had learned that there was divine power in this ikona, although it was not, strictly speaking, "wonder-working," since it had not been officially recognized as such by the ecclesiastical authorities.

These people seemed happy and contented with their lot. Not one of them could read or write much, the old woman not at all. They cultivated berries for market as well as carried on the milk business; and when we rose to go, they entreated us to come out on their plot of land and see whether some could not be found. To their grief, only a few small cherries were to be discovered,--it was September,--and these they forced upon us. As we had hurt their feelings by leaving money on the table to pay for the cream, we accepted the cherries by way of compromise. The old woman chatted freely in her garden. She had been a serf, and, in her opinion, things were not much changed for the better, except in one respect. All the people in this village had been crown serfs, it seemed. The lot of the crown serfs was easier in every way than that of the ordinary private serfs, so that the emancipation only put a definite name to the practical freedom which they already enjoyed, and added a few minor privileges, with the ownership of a somewhat larger allotment of land than the serfs of the nobility received. I knew this: she was hardly capable of giving me so complete a summary of their condition. But--it was the usual but, I found--they had to work much harder now than before, in order to live. The only real improvement which she could think of, on the inspiration of the moment, was, that a certain irascible crown official, who had had charge of them in the olden days, and whose name she mentioned, who had been in the habit of distributing beatings with a lavish hand whenever the serfs displeased him or obeyed reluctantly, had been obliged to restrain his temper after the emancipation.

"Nowadays, there is no one to order us about like that, or to thrash us," she remarked.

We found our fuddled old peasant guide hanging about for "tea-money," when we bade farewell to my friend Domna, who, with her family, offered us her hand at parting. He was not too thoroughly soaked with "tea" already not to be able to draw the inference that our long stay with the milkwoman indicated pleasure, and he intimated that the introduction fee ought to be in proportion to our enjoyment. We responded so cheerfully to this demand that he immediately discovered the existence of a dozen historical monuments and points of interest in the tiny village, all invented on the spot; and when we dismissed him peremptorily, he took great care to impress his name and the position of his hut on our memories, for future use.

We had already seen the only object of any interest, the large church far away down the mile-long street. We had found a festival mass in progress, as it happened to be one of the noted holidays of the year. As we stood a little to one side, listening to the sweet but unsophisticated chanting of the village lads, who had had no training beyond that given in the village school, a woman approached us with a tiny coffin tucked under one arm. Trestles were brought; she set it down on them, beside us. It was very plain in form, made of the commonest wood, and stained a bright yellow with a kind of thin wash, instead of the vivid pink which seems to be the favorite hue for children's coffins in town. The baby's father removed the lid, which comprised exactly half the depth, the mother smoothed out the draperies, and they took their stand near by. Several strips of the coarsest pink tarlatan were draped across the little waxen brow and along the edges of the coffin. On these lay such poor flowers as the lateness of the season and the poverty of the parents could afford,--small, half-withered or frost-bitten dahlias, poppies, and one stray corn-flower. The parents looked gently resigned, patient, sorrowful, but tearless, as is the Russian manner. After the liturgy and special prayers for the day, the funeral service was begun; but we went out into the graveyard surrounding the church, and ran the gauntlet of the beggars at the door,--beggars in the midst of poverty, to whom the poor gave their mites with gentle sympathy.