Late in the evening I arrived at Lisitchansk, and Nicholas, my London acquaintance, was actually there waiting for me. He had brought a large fur cloak and rugs. A little pony-sledge was at hand. We fitted ourselves in tightly and gave the word to the driver, who whisked us off through the keen air.
In twenty minutes we had climbed up the steep slope to the village and threaded our way through the broad streets to the cottage of my friend.
CHAPTER II
CHRISTMAS IN LITTLE RUSSIA
I
NICHOLAS was twenty-one years of age and was the eldest child. His father, who was the village deacon, was in his prime. Six feet high, broad-shouldered, he was a proper figure of a man. Thick black hair hung down his back. His high-domed forehead and well-formed aquiline nose reminded one of Tennyson. His wife was a short, dear woman, who moved about in little steps—the sort of woman that never wears out, tender and gentle, but, at the same time, strong-bodied and hardy.
The two of them welcomed me to their home, and I felt thrilled with gratitude. Only he who has been out in the wilds, in distress, in strange parts, among alien people, can know the full joy of a return to home. After long travail, after isolation and privation, one’s heart is very sensitive to loving, human hands. It was very sweet for me to realise that in the terrible cold, in the wild night, there was a sheltering roof for me, a little sanctuary where accident and misfortune could no further pursue me, a home where a new father and mother awaited me.
The cottage was a very simple one. It was built of pine trunks placed one across another, reticulated at the comers in the style that children build with firewood. It contained three rooms. The partitions were of bright new wood and unadorned. We sat on straight-back wooden chairs at a wooden table, on which no cloth was spread. The sacred picture, the symbol of God in the home, looked down from a cleft in the pine wall.
The family had lately been at prayers, for Christmas Day begins at six o’clock on the 24th of December. Before us, on the table, stood the allegorical dish of dry porridge, eaten in memory of the hay and straw that lay in the manger in which the Child Jesus was laid. Nicholas’s little sister, Zhenia, was helping Masha, the servant, to bring in plates and spoons. A huge bowl, full of boiled honey and stewed fruit, was set in the middle of the table, and then mother and father and son and daughter bowed to the sacred picture and crossed themselves, and sat down to the meal.
The inhabitants of Lisitchansk are Little Russians, and all Little Russians sit down to honey and porridge on Christmas Eve. They call the custom koutia, and they cherish it as something distinguishing them from Great Russians or White Russians. The deacon explained its significance to me. What he said sounded rather naïve in my ears. The Communion is a death feast; Koutia is in memory of His birth. “It is just a special Communion service,” said he, “and it is held only once a year.” He explained how each dish represented the manger: First we put porridge in the dish, which was like putting straw in the manger. The mother helped each of us to porridge; she stood for Mary, who would, of course, see that there was plenty of straw, so that it might be soft and warm. Then we each helped ourselves to honey and fruit and that symbolised The Babe. We made a place in the porridge and then poured the honey and fruit in. The fruit stood for the body; the honey stood for the spirit or the blood. “Blood means spirit, when one is speaking of Christ,” said the deacon, whom I perceived to be somewhat of a mystic.