But Moscow seems to take a peculiar national pride in preserving the historical monuments of her country. There is a museum there, with a complete set of all these costumes on wax figures, and they range all the way from the grotesque to the lovely.
Madame Chabelskoi is now doing a very pretty as well as a valuable and historical work. She has two accomplished daughters, and these young girls spend all their time in selecting peasant women with typical features, dressing them in these costumes, photographing them, and then coloring these photographs in water-colors. They are making ten copies of each, to make ten magnificent albums, which are to be presented to the ten greatest museums in the world. The Hermitage in St. Petersburg is to have one, the British Museum another, and so on. Only one was to go to America, and to my metropolitan dismay I found that it was not to go to Chicago. I shall not say where it was intended to go; I shall only say that with characteristic modesty I asked, in my most timid voice, why she did not present it to a museum in the city which she had already benefited so royally with her generosity, and which already held her name in affectionate veneration. It seemed to strike her for the first time that Chicago was the proper city in which to place that album, so she promised it to us! I thanked her with sincere gratitude, and retired from the field with a modest flush of victory on my brow. I cannot forbear a wicked chuckle, however, when I think of that other museum!
We dined many times at “The Hermitage,” which is one of the smartest restaurants in Europe. The costumes of the waiters were too extraordinary not to deserve a passing mention. They consisted of a white cotton garment belted at the waist, with no collar, and a pair of flapping white trousers. They are always scrupulously clean—which is a wonder for Russian peasants—for they are made to change their clothes twice a day. They have a magnificent orchestrion instead of an orchestra here, and I could scarcely eat those beautiful dinners for listening to the music. We became so well acquainted with the répertoire that our friends, knowing our taste, ordered the music to match the courses. So instead of sherry with the soup, they ordered the intermezzo from “Cavalleria Rusticana.” With the fish we had the overture to “William Tell.” With the entrecôte we had a pot-pourri from “Faust.” With the fowl we had “Demon and Tamar,” the Russian opera. With the rest we began on Wagner and worked up to that thrilling “Tannhäuser” overture, until I was ready to go home a nervous wreck from German music, as I always am.
A very interesting incident occurred while we were in Moscow. The Tzar decorated a non-commissioned officer for an act of bravery which well deserved it. He was in charge of the powder-magazines just outside of Moscow, and from the view I had of them I should say that the gunpowder is stored in pits in the ground.
Something caught fire right on top of one of these pits, and this young officer saw it. He had no time to send for water, and if he delayed, at any moment the whole magazine might explode; one pit would communicate with another, and perhaps the whole city would be endangered; so without a second’s hesitation he and his men sprang into the fire and literally trod it out with their feet, running the risk of an explosion by concussion, as well as by a spark of fire. It was a superb act of courage, and the Tzar decorated this young sergeant with the order of Vladimir—one of the rarest decorations in all Russia. I am told that not over six living men possess it to-day. It was a beautiful thing for the Tzar thus to recognize this heroic deed.
When we left Moscow we were having our first real taste of Russian winter, for, strange to say, although so much farther south, the climate is much more severe than that of St. Petersburg.
My companion complained bitterly that we were not seeing anything of Russia because we came down from St. Petersburg at night, so we abandoned the courier train, and took the slow day-train for Kiev, the old capital of Russia, that she might see more of the country.
But now I come to my reward and her chagrin. Between Moscow and Kiev we were snowed in for sixteen hours. It was between stations, the food gave out—I mean it gave out because we did not have any to start with—the train became bitterly cold, and we came near freezing and starving to death. That made our Russian experiences quite complete. We had foolishly started without even fruit, and there was nothing to be had on board the train except the tea which the conductors make in a samovar and serve to you at the slightest provocation. But even the tea was exhausted at last, and then the fire gave out, because all the wood had been used up.
There we were, penned up, wrapped in our seal-skins and steamer-rugs and with nubias over our heads, so cold that our teeth chattered, and so hungry we could have eaten anything. The conductor came and spoke to us several times, but whether he was inviting us to lunch or quoting Scripture we could never tell. There was no one on the train who spoke English or French, and nobody else in our car to speak anything at all—owing to our having come on this particular train, in order for my companion to “see Russia.” I am delighted to record the fact that not only the outside but the inside windows were frosted so thickly that they had to light the sickly tallow candle in a tin box over the door of the compartment, so she never got a peep at Russia or anything else the whole way.
We consoled each other and kept up our spirits as best we could all day, but we arrived at Kiev so exhausted with cold and hunger that although we were received at the train by one of the most charming men I ever met, we both cried with relief at the sight of a friendly face and some one to whom we could speak and tell our woes. I have since wondered what he thought to be met by two forlorn women in tears! Whatever he thought, like all the Russians, he was courtesy itself, and we were soon whisked away to the inexpressible comfort of being thawed and fed.