The izvostchik ran after us. "Let me sew it on, Your High Well-born," he cried. Seeing our surprise, he added, "God is my witness,--yay Bogu! I am a tailor by trade."
His rent and faded coat did not seem to indicate anything of the sort, but I thought I would try him, as I happened to have a needleful of silk and a thimble in my pocket. I gave them to him accordingly. He knelt down and sewed on the braid very neatly and strongly in no time. His simple, friendly manner was irresistibly charming. I cannot imagine accepting such an offer from a New York cabby,--or his offering to do such a job.
When we reached the old town, I asked a policeman where to find my author. I thought he might be able to tell me at once, as the town is not densely populated, especially with authors;--and for other reasons. He did not know.
"Then where is the police office or the address office?" I asked. (There is no such thing as a directory in Russian cities, even in St. Petersburg. But there is an address office where the names and residences on passports are filed, and where one can obtain the address wanted by paying a small fee, and filling out a form. But he must know the baptismal name and the patronymic as well as the surname, and, if the person wanted be not "noble," his profession or trade in addition!)
"There is no address office," he answered, "and the police office is closed. It is after four o'clock. Besides, if it were open, you could not find out there. We keep no record here, except of soldiers and strangers."
I thought the man was jesting, but after questioning him further, I was forced to conclude that it might be true, thought it certainly was amazing. As the author in question had been sent to Siberia once or twice, on the charge of complicity in some revolutionary proceedings, it did seem as though the police ought to be able to give his address, if Russia meant to live up to the reputation for strict surveillance of every soul within her borders which foreigners have kindly bestowed upon her.
As a house-to-house visitation was impossible, I abandoned the quest, and drove to a photographer's to buy some views of the town. The photographer proved to be a chatty, vivacious man, and full of information. I mentioned my dilemma to him. He said that the policeman had told the exact truth, but that my author, to his positive knowledge, was in the Crimea, "looking up material." Then he questioned me as to what we had seen at the Fair, mentioning one or two places of evening entertainment. I replied that we had not been to those places. I had understood that they were not likely to suit my taste. Had I been rightly informed, or ought I to have gone to them in spite of warning?
"No," he replied frankly, after a momentary hesitation, "you ought not to see them. But all the American women do go to them. There was a party here last year. O-o-o-oh, how they went on! They were told, as you have been, that they ought not to go to certain places; so of course they went, and took the men in the party with them,--which was just as well. I'd have given something to see their faces at the time, or even afterwards! An Englishman, who had traveled everywhere, and had seen everything, told me that nowhere, even in India, had he seen the like of the doings at this Fair; and he was greatly shocked." He added that an officer could not appear at these places in uniform.
I begged the photographer to remember in future that there were several sorts of American women, and that not all of them worked by the law of contraries. In my own mind I wondered what those particular women had done, and wished, for the hundredth time, that American women abroad would behave themselves properly, and not earn such a reputation for their country-people.
On Sunday we went to the Armenian church, to see the service and to meet some Armenian acquaintances. We found the service both like and unlike the Russian, in many points approaching more nearly to the Greek form. The music was astonishing. An undercurrent of sound, alternating between a few notes, was kept up throughout the service, almost without a break. At times, this undercurrent harmonized with the main current of intoning and chanting, but quite as often the discord was positively distressing. Perceiving that we were strangers, the Armenians showed their hospitality in an original way. First, when one of the congregation went forward to the chancel railing and received from the priest the triple kiss of peace, which he then proceeded to communicate to another person, who passed it on in dumb show, and so on through the whole assembly, neither men nor women would run the risk of offending us by offering the simulated kiss. Secondly, and more peculiar, besides throwing light on their motives in omitting the kiss, they deliberately passed us by when they brought round the plate for the collection! This was decidedly novel! A visit to the Armenian church in St. Petersburg convinced us that the discordant music was not an accident due to bad training, but deliberate and habitual. I noticed also that the men and women, though they stood on opposite sides of the church, as with the Russian Old Ritualists, with the women on the left,--in the State Church, at Court, the women stand on the right,--they crossed themselves from left to right, like Roman Catholics, instead of the other way about, as do the Russians.