followed him inside. His father and mother, and several brothers, were asleep on the floor. Peasants usually sleep on the floor in summer. In winter there are “sleeping-boxes” over the stove. The old woman was the only one who moved at our entrance, and she did not look at all surprised. She pointed to an ancient home-made bed and told us we might lie there if we liked, but the floor was better. We knew the bed would be swarming with vermin, so we chose the floor. The old woman threw down a sheepskin for my friend. I rolled myself in my traveling rug.
This instance is typical of the muzhik’s placid hospitality. Not once but many times I knocked at peasants’ huts in out-of-the-way places and asked for shelter. Sometimes I received the greeting: “Where did God send you from?” But muzhik curiosity is easily appeased.
The psychology of muzhik religion brings one to the realm of mysticism and superstition. Russia is filled with sectarians. The Doukhobors are known in America because of their wholesale immigration into Canada a few years ago. They were a Caucasian sect. The Molokani are another, kindred sect, also originating in the Caucasus. In central Russia are many other sects, holding and practising strange tenets—among them, suicide by fire and exposure of their naked bodies to the furious storms of winter. Certainly no country in Europe has so great a variety of mysterious beliefs. But these all belong in a category apart from the superstitious orthodoxy of the average muzhik. To describe the sectarians would necessitate the compass of a volume, whereas there are certain salient characteristics of the accepted orthodoxy which are ever impressing themselves upon the traveler.
At the outset, the forms of religion are well-nigh universally observed. Most peasants remove their hats when passing a church, or an icon, and cross themselves three times. In the interior one sometimes finds a small, crude shrine, set up at the entrance to a village. Before this shrine traveling muzhiks prostrate themselves, falling to their knees and bowing forward till their foreheads rest in the dust. Every muzhik has his revered icon and holy pictures. Usually the icon is set in the corner of the wall facing the door, so that every one who enters may reverence it. After each meal the peasants upon rising from the table bow before the icon, crossing themselves. I have seen icons in vodka shops thus reverenced by peasants coming to buy liquor. The peasant, too, has a blind, but sometimes very real, faith in miraculous images and pilgrimages to well-known shrines like the Madonna of Kazan and the Iberian shrine in Moscow are constantly maintained.
The ringing of the village church-bells on a Sabbath morning or on the occasion of a saint’s day is something wondrous and memorable. There is nothing melodious in the sound. A terrible clanging and pounding, loud, wild, sonorous, discordant. But the muzhik believes that these sounds drive away evil spirits.
In spite of all of these surface signs of ingrained religion, the muzhik is not a religious being. The Orthodox church has no real grip upon his life, and apart from the sectarians and old believers, the peasant is intensely ignorant of all religion and religious beliefs. He strictly observes the church fasts because it has been his custom to do so and because the priests tell him that he must. But it must be remembered that the priest is not so much a spiritual teacher as an agent of the government. Nor do the priests, by their example, show the people what Christianity might do for them. They are frequently dirty, slovenly creatures, guilty of many excesses, of public drunkenness, and not infrequently accused of dishonesty. Monasteries are sometimes dens of iniquity and I know of convents which are semi-public brothels. The muzhik abstains from flesh food during the long Lenten fast and on the regularly prescribed fast days, but he drinks at the same time, and as a result of his impoverished physical condition he falls easy victim to the strong drink. This gives rise to the common idea that Russian peasants are drunken.
During a certain long fast I was spending some time at a large house in south Russia. One afternoon, upon returning to the house after several hours’ absence, the master and I met one of the maids in the hall, weeping bitterly. She told us to go quickly into the dining-room. There we found the gardener and the laundress, both maudlin drunk, standing before a small icon of the Virgin repeatedly drinking the good health of the Holy Mother. This shocking irreverence had quite undone the maid. Flagrant as this incident sounds, it is less so than many of the stories one hears of priests, holy sisters, and mother superiors. Mother superiors, like abbots, are often appointed because of their social influence, and may be without any previous ecclesiastical or monastic training.
There is a classic story in Russia, told of Alexander III, who was once visiting a certain town near Moscow. A local monastery was pointed out to the Emperor and a little way off a convent. The Emperor looked from one to the other and then began to scan every point of the horizon.
“Does your majesty seek something?” asked one of the escort.
“Yes,” responded the Emperor. “You tell me yonder is a monastery and over the way a convent. I am looking for the third building—the foundling institution.”