Colonel Horvat dutifully admired the view, but an unexpected surprise awaited him. “Look well around you, M. le Colonel,” said his guide, “the country, as far as you can see, is yours; it is the gift of the Empress!” Truly an Imperial gift, but all that remains of those great possessions are the estates where I was born. These properties were situated on the Dnieper, in the country known as “Little Russia,” which in former times was the seat of the Ukranian Government. My forefathers became typical Russian noblemen; they were lavishly generous where their inclinations were concerned, and it is asserted that one of them once exchanged a large forest for a sporting dog which he especially coveted!
Revovka, my birthplace, was close to the other estates which came into our possession through Prince Goleniktcheff Koutousoff, the hero who saved Russia from falling into the hands of the French. It was a delightful old house, standing in a well-wooded park, with avenues of lime trees where the nightingales sang, and as I write, I can smell the unforgettable perfume of the limes, and recall the beauty and peace of the surroundings; it was, indeed, a real fairyland. All was prosperity and happiness at Revovka. The village nestled close to the Great House, and my ancestors were buried in the church. There were rows of little cottages which were whitewashed every week; the roofs were thatched with reeds, and the gardens were gay with flowers. A cherry tree stood in every garden (cherry trees are typical of South Russia), it was the country of cherry trees, spotless houses and simple joys.
The peasants were on the best of terms with my family, and they regarded my grandmother Horvat as a beneficent deity who replaced the reed roofs when they were destroyed by fire, and who supplied them with unlimited quantities of fuel. They were quite contented, and my grandmother still employed some of the peasants who had once been given to her as serfs. In the old days, it was customary to include a few serfs in a bride’s corbeille, and the ten peasants who had been chosen to accompany my grandmother to Revovka adored her. “People say that we were unhappy as serfs,” they would often remark, “but we were always well looked after—our landlord and our owner was also our father.”
The peasant as master or mistress was invariably a tyrant, and I remember hearing about a beautiful girl who had become the mistress of a great nobleman, and who out-Heroded Herod in her arrogance. She employed her family to do her laundry work, and she always insisted upon her linen being rinsed in running water. If her petticoats were not sufficiently starched, the whole batch of her relatives was flogged. Personally, we did not resent the lack of starch, to this extent, but I suppose that this family flogging may be regarded as typical of the usual procedure of beggars on horseback!
My grandmother, Mme Horvat, née Baroness Pilar, was the sweetest of women, and I loved her with a child’s passionate devotion. She used to tell me all kinds of stories, and our old nurse ably seconded her. Whenever we walked by the river, and I exclaimed at the beauty of the lilies, I was thrilled anew by hearing how, long ago, when the Tartar hordes descended on Beletskovka, the women and children used to wade into the water, and shelter under the broad green lily-leaves until the marauders had passed. The peasants at Revovka were extremely superstitious, and they believed implicitly in witches and warlocks. It was common knowledge that certain women possessed tails and bewitched the cows, and woe betide the widow who mourned her husband too much! He would assuredly return in the likeness of a big snake, and make an unwelcome descent down the chimney. I was terribly scared by some of these narratives, and I much preferred the pretty customs prevalent at certain seasons, now vanished, alas! under the Bolshevik regime, since the teaching of Lenin would seemingly only include the ritual of blood in its category.
I chiefly remember the quaint methods of divination practised on New Year’s Eve, when the girls of the village went out to listen at the closed doors, and those who heard a man’s name mentioned were certain to marry within the year. They varied these proceedings by throwing their slippers over their heads, to see if they fell in the shape of anything that might be construed into an initial letter. Others preferred to try and catch the rays of the moon in a towel; all pretty gay conceits, dear to the heart of girlhood, and, on St. Catharine’s Day, cherry tree branches were put in water, and, if the bare wood blossomed by Xmas, then marriage bells were about to ring.
Midsummer Day was sacred to the river, a survival doubtless of those pagan customs which are so difficult to destroy. Large fires were lighted along the river banks, and the village maidens, wearing wreaths, leapt into the water, across the fires, and left the wreaths in the river as an offering, perchance to the God of Streams. The next morning, they set out to look for their wreaths, and those who were lucky enough to find them discovered by the direction in which the wreath had been washed up the way by which marriage would come.
The storks brought luck, and they were invited to sojourn with us by means of wheels placed in the roofs on which they built their nests. The solemn birds were family friends, and, whenever a baby stork fell from its nest, everyone went to enormous trouble to put it back.
My grandmother had a passion for embroidery, and she employed from ten to fifteen girls constantly working for her. She believed that, as a typical industry, the art of embroidery in South Russia ought to be revived, and she spared no pains or expense over her hobby. She proved conclusively that the progress of the nations from East to West had left its traces even in embroidery patterns, as she often saw similar designs in antique carpets and Venetian work.
None of my grandmother’s embroideries was ever sold: whenever a piece was finished, it was labelled with the date of its commencement and completion, and packed away in great presses, already nearly full of exquisite work. She presented a quantity of this embroidery to the Grand Duchess Elizabeth, the Tsaritsa’s sister, when she was received into the Greek Church. My grandmother had the honour of acting as godmother to the Grand Duchess, and I believe her “christening” present was much appreciated. The embroideries were really wonderful: the designs were never drawn, the threads only were counted, and the pattern was evolved in this painstaking manner. Some of my grandmother’s favourite designs were taken from Easter eggs, which were first covered with pinked-out wax, and colour inserted in them. Snow crystals formed another inspiration; my grandmother never tired of utilising anything decorative, and she was unusually successful. I like to think of those quiet days—the industrious girls, and the good feeling which existed between the employer and the employed. It is difficult to realise that the progress of Revolution has destroyed all this, that the great presses have been broken open and their contents dispersed to the four winds, and that to ask a peasant to pass her time profitably would be accounted a sin.