There was a couple who spoke bad French to each other out of refinement, but who relapsed into Russian when they had really something interesting to say. There was a student who played the pianoforte with astonishing facility and amazing execution; there were the elder sisters of the small children, who also played the pianoforte in exactly the same way as young people play it in England—that is to say, with convulsive jerks over the difficult passages, and uninterrupted insistence on the loud pedal, and a foolish bass. The grown-up members of the party played “Vindt” all day.
When we arrived at Kazan I got out to look at the town. It also possesses a Kremlin with white walls and crenellated towers and old churches, a museum of uninteresting objects, and a large monastery. It was the most stagnant-looking city.
The Volga beyond Nijni is considerably broader. It is never less than 1200 yards in breadth, and from Nijni onwards, on the right bank of the river, there is a range of lofty hills, mostly wooded, but sometimes rocky and grassy, which go sheer down into the river. The left bank is flat, and consists of green meadows. Below Kazan it is joined by the river Kama, and becomes a mighty river, never less than three-quarters of a mile in breadth. In various parts of its course the Volga reminded me of almost every river I had ever seen, from the Dart to the Liao-he, and from the Neckar to the Nile. Below Kazan its aspect was gloomy and sombre, a great stretch of broad brown waters, a wooded mountainous bank on one side, a monotonous plain on the other. But when the weather was fine—and it was gloriously fine after we reached Kazan—the effects of light on the great expanse of water were miraculous. It is at dawn that you feel the magic of these waters; at dawn and at sunset when the great broad expanse, turning to gold or to silver, according as the sky is crimson, mauve, or rosy and grey, has a mystery and majesty of its own. We met other steamers on the way, but during the whole voyage from Nijni to Astrakan we only passed two small sailing boats.
I got out at Samara and spent the night at an hotel. The next day I embarked again for Astrakan, after having explored the town, in which I failed to find an object of interest. From Samara to Saratov the hills on the right bank of the river diminish in size, and instead of descending sheer into the river, they slope away from it; and as the hills diminish, the vegetation grows more scanty. The left bank is flat and monotonous as before. From Samara to Saratov I travelled third-class, to see what it was like on board the steamer. There are on the steamer four official classes and an unofficial fifth-class. The third-class have a general cabin on the lower deck with two tiers of bunks. The fourth-class have a kind of enclosure, which contains one large broad board on which they encamp. The fourth-class contains the “steerage” passengers. It is indescribably dirty. The fifth-class is composed of still dirtier and still poorer people, who lie about on boxes, bales, or on whatever vacant space they can find on the lower deck. They lie, for the most part, like corpses, in a profound slumber, generally face downwards, flat upon the floor. The third-class is respectable and decently clean; it has, moreover, one immense advantage—some permanently open windows. In the first-class there was among the company a great aversion to draughts. They had not what someone once called “La passion des Anglais pour les courants d’air.” In the third-class there was no such prejudice. The passengers were various. There were two students, some merchants, twenty Cossacks going home on leave, a policeman, a public servant, several peasants, and a priest.
On the bunk just over mine sprawled a large bearded Cossack, who at once asked me where I was going, my occupation, my country, and my name. I told him that I was a newspaper correspondent and an Englishman. I then lay down on my bunk. Another Cossack from the other side of the cabin called out at the top of his voice to the man who was over me: “Who is that man?” “He is a foreigner.” “Is he travelling with goods?” “No; he is just travelling, nothing more.” “Where does he come from?” “I don’t know.” Then, looking down at me from his bunk, the Cossack who was above me said: “Thou art quite bald, little father. Is it illness that did it, or nature?” “Nature,” I answered. “Shouldst try an ointment,” he said. “I have tried many and strong ointments,” I said, “including onion, tar, and paraffin, none of which were of any avail. There is nothing to be done.” “No,” said the Cossack, with a sigh. “There is nothing to be done. It is God’s business.”
There was no particular discomfort in travelling third-class in the steamer. The bunks, with the aid of blankets, were as comfortable as those in the first-class. One could obtain the same food, and there was plenty of fresh air. Nevertheless, if one only travelled thus for a day and a night, it was indescribably fatiguing, because one had to change and readjust one’s hours. For at the first streak of dawn, the people began to talk, and by sunrise they had washed and were having tea. It is not as if they went to bed earlier. For all day long they talked, and they went to sleep quite late, about eleven. But they had the blessed gift, possessed by Napoleon, of snatching half-hours or five minutes of sleep whenever they felt in need of it. If one travelled like this for several days running, one got used to it, of course, and one also acquired the habit of snatching sleep at odd moments during the daytime; but if one travelled like this for a day or two, it was, as I have said already, extremely tiring.
The public servant, who had a small post in some provincial town, came and talked to me. He asked me if Chaliapine, the famous singer, had sung at Nijni. Chaliapine, he added, was his master. “I have,” he said, “a magnificent bass voice.” “Are you fond of music?” I asked. “Fond of music!” he cried. “When I hear music I am like a wild animal. I go mad.” “Do you mean to go on the stage?” I asked. “Yes,” he said, “when I have learnt enough. In the meantime I am a public servant—I am in the Government service.” “That, I suppose, you find tedious?” I said. “It is more than tedious; it is disgusting,” and he began to abuse the Government. I said: “There is a great difference between the Russia of to-day and the Russia of four years ago.” “There is no difference at all,” he said; “we have obtained absolutely nothing except paper promises.” I said: “I am not talking of what the Government has done or failed to do; I am talking of the general aspect of things, of Russian life as it strikes a foreigner. I was here three or four years ago, and I am struck by the great difference between then and now. Had I met you then, you would not have talked politics with me; there were no politics to talk.” “That is true,” he answered; “we have now a political life.”
Here one of the Cossacks asked him who he was. “I am a famous singer,” he answered. “I have sung at the Merchants’ Club at the district town of A⸺. I am a pupil of Chaliapine, who is the king of basses and is well known throughout the whole civilised world, and who has sung in America. He is a Russian. Think of that.” The Cossack seemed impressed. The singer got out at one of the stations.
The people in the cabin had their meals at different times of the day; the chief meal was tea, which took place twice a day. Every time we stopped at a place a crowd of beggars invaded our cabin asking for alms. The interesting point is that they received them. They were never sent empty away, and were invariably given either some coppers, some bread, or some melon. I am sure there is no country in the world where people give so readily to the poor as in Russia. One had only to walk about the streets in any Russian town to notice this fact. Here in the third-class saloon it especially struck me. I did not see one single beggar turned away without a gift of some kind. One little boy was given a piece of bread and a large slice of water-melon.
At the many small stations at which we called on the banks of the river there were crowds of itinerant vendors selling various descriptions of food—hot pies, fried fish, gigantic water-melons, apples, red currants, and cucumbers. The whole duration of each stop at any of these places was occupied by the unloading and loading of the steamer with goods. This was done by a horde of creatures in red and blue shirts called loaders, who had a kind of ledge strapped on to their backs which enabled them to support enormous loads. Like big gnomes, during the whole of the stop, they scurried from the hold of the steamer to the wooden quay and back again to the steamer. On the quay itself, either placidly looking on and munching sunflower seeds, or else wildly gesticulating over a bargain at a booth, a motley herd of passengers and inhabitants of the place swarmed: many-coloured, bright, ragged, and squalid, like the crowds depicted in a sacred picture waiting for a miracle or a parable under the burning sky of Palestine.