There was not a moment to lose! In that tropical drawing-room the only available scrap of drapery was a red plush table-cover. Bundling everything on the table ruthlessly to the ground, I had just time to snatch up the table-cloth and drape myself in it (I trust gracefully) when the ladies entered the room. I explained my predicament and lamented my inability to rise, and so we had tea together. It is the only occasion in the course of a long life in which I ever remember taking tea with six ladies, clad only in a red plush table-cloth with bead fringes.
Returning to Russia, the peasants fingered everything I possessed with the insatiable curiosity of children; socks, ties, and shirts. I am bound to say that I never had the smallest thing stolen. As our shooting expeditions were always during Lent, I felt great compunction at shocking the peasants' religious scruples by eating beef, ham, and butter, all forbidden things at that season. I tried hard to persuade one woman that my cold sirloin of roast beef was part of a rare English fish, specially imported, but she was, I fear, of a naturally sceptical bent of mind.
Lady Dufferin had one curious gift. She could spend the night in a rough country sledge, or sleep in her clothes on a truss of hay, and yet appear in the morning as fresh and neat, and spick and span, as though she had had the most elaborate toilet appliances at her disposal. On these occasions she usually wore a Canadian blanket-suit of dark blue and scarlet, with a scarlet belt and hood, and a jaunty little sealskin cap. She always went out to the forest with us.
The procedure on these occasions was invariably the same. An army of beaters was assembled, about two-thirds of them women. This made me uneasy at first, until I learnt that the beaters run no danger whatever from the bear. The beaters form five-sixths, or perhaps less, of a circle round the bear's sleeping place, and the guns are placed in the intervening open space. I may add that, personally, I always used for bear an ordinary smooth-bore sporting gun, with a leaden bullet. I passed every one of these bullets down the barrels of my gun myself to avoid the risk of the gun bursting, before they were loaded into cartridges, and I had them secured with melted tallow. The advantages of a smooth-bore is that at close quarters, as with bear, where you must kill your beast to avoid disagreeable consequences, you lose no time in getting your sights on a rapidly-moving object. You shoot as you would a rabbit; and you can make absolutely sure of your animal, if you keep your head. A leaden bullet at close quarters has tremendous stopping power. Of course you want a rifle as well for longer shots. I found this method most successful with tiger, later in India, only you must remain quite cool.
At a given signal, the beaters begin yelling, beating iron pans with sticks, blowing horns, shouting, and generally making enough pandemonium to awaken the Seven Sleepers. It effectually awakes the bear, who emerges from his bedroom in an exceedingly evil temper, to see what all this fearful din is about. As he is surrounded with noise on three sides, he naturally makes for the only quiet spot, where the guns are posted. By this time he is in a distinctly unamiable mood.
I always took off my ski, and stood nearly waist-deep in the snow so as to get a firm footing. Then you can make quite certain of your shot. Ski or no ski, if it came to running away, the bear would always have the pull on you. The first time I was very lucky. The bear came straight to me. When he was within fifteen feet, and I felt absolutely certain of getting him, I fired. He reared himself on his hind legs to an unbelievable height, and fell stone dead at Lady Dufferin's very feet. That bear's skin is within three feet of me as I write these lines. We went back to the village in orthodox fashion, all with fir-branches in our hands, as a sign of rejoicing; I seated on the dead bear.
As a small boy of nine I had been tossed in a blanket at school, up to the ceiling, caught again, then up a second time and third time. It was not, and was not intended to be, a pleasant experience, but in my day all little boys had to submit to it. The unhappy little brats stuck their teeth together, and tried hard to grin as they were being hurled skywards. These curious Russians, though, appeared to consider it a delightful exercise.
Arrived at the village again, I was captured by some thirty buxom, stalwart women, and sent spinning up and up, again and again, till I was absolutely giddy. Not only had one to thank them profusely for this honour, but also to disburse a considerable amount of roubles in acknowledgement of it. Poor Lady Dufferin was then caught, in spite of her protests, and sent hurtling skywards through the air half a dozen times. Needless to say that she alighted with not one hair of her head out of place or one fold of her garments disarranged. Being young and inexperienced then, I was foolish enough to follow the Russian custom, and to present the village with a small cask of vodka. I regretted it bitterly. Two hours later not a male in the place was sober. Old grey-beards and young men lay dead drunk in the snow; and quite little boys reeled about hopelessly intoxicated. I could have kicked myself for being so thoughtless. During all the years I was in Russia, I never saw a peasant woman drink spirits, or under the influence of liquor. In my house at Petrograd I had a young peasant as house-boy. He was quite a nice lad of sixteen; clean, willing, and capable, but, young as he was, he had already fallen a victim to the national failing, in which he indulged regularly once a month, when his wages were paid him, and nothing could break him of this habit. I could always tell when Ephim, the boy, had gone out with the deliberate intention of getting drunk, by glancing into his bedroom. He always took the precaution of turning the ikons over his bed, with their faces to the wall, before leaving, and invariably blew out the little red lamp, in order that ikons might not see him reeling into the room upon his return, or deposited unconscious upon his bed. Being a singularly neat boy in his habits, he always put on his very oldest clothes on these occasions, in order not to damage his better ones, should he fall down in the street after losing control of his limbs. This drunkenness spreads like a cancer from top to bottom of Russian society. A friend of mine, who afterwards occupied one of the highest administrative posts, told me quite casually that, on the occasion of his youngest brother's seventeenth birthday, the boy had been allowed to invite six young friends of his own age to dinner; my friend thought it quite amusing that every one of these lads had been carried to bed dead drunk. I attribute the dry-rot which ate into the whole structure of the mighty Empire, and brought it crashing to the ground, in a very large degree to the intemperate habits prevailing amongst all classes of Russian men, which in justice one must add, may be due to climatic reasons.
In the villages our imported food was a constant source of difficulty. We were all averse to shocking the peasants by eating meat openly during Lent, but what were we to do? Out of deference to their scruples, we refrained from buying eggs and milk, which could have been procured in abundance, and furtively devoured ham, cold beef, and pickles behind cunningly contrived ramparts of newspaper, in the hope that it might pass unnoticed. Remembering how meagre at the best of times the diet of these peasants is, it is impossible to help admiring them for the conscientious manner in which they obey the rules of their Church during Lent. I once gave a pretty peasant child a piece of plum cake. Her mother snatched it from her, and asked me whether the cake contained butter or eggs. On my acknowledgement that it contained both, she threw it into the stove, and asked me indignantly how I dared to imperil her child's immortal soul by giving her forbidden food in Lent. Even my sixteen-year-old house-boy in Petrograd, the bibulous Ephim, although he regularly succumbed to the charms of vodka, lived entirely on porridge and dry bread during Lent, and would not touch meat, butter, or eggs on any consideration whatever. The more I saw of the peasants the more I liked them. The men all drank, and were not particularly truthful, but they were like great simple, bearded, unkempt children, with (drunkenness apart) all a child's faults, and all a nice child's power of attraction. I liked the great, stalwart, big-framed women too. They were seldom good-looking, but their broad faces glowed with health and good nature, and they had as a rule very good skins, nice teeth, and beautiful complexions. I found that I could get on with these villagers like a house on fire. However cold the weather, no village girl or woman wears anything on her head but a gaudy folded cotton handkerchief.