At the church the deacon left us, and we went on beyond the village. There is an exposed path that leads up to the crest of the ridge, above the River Donetz. The wind had swept every loose particle of snow away, so that it was smooth as glass and hard as steel, like a well-used toboggan track. The wind behind us fairly took us up by itself, without any effort on our part, and when we reached the summit it began to blow us down on the other side. It blew us off our feet so that we both went rolling down the steep slope to the river, and we did not gain a foothold till we plunged into a huge bank of snow formed by a rock beside the river bed. It was a very amusing experience and we sat down in the snow and laughed. The wind blew as if it considered our mirth ill-timed. We gathered our cloaks about us and cowered from it.
It was a stiff walk home and the wind was appalling. The sound of music came to us as we came round a bend in sight of the village, and presently we saw a group of carol singers carrying what appeared to be a lantern. When we came nearer we found them to be a group of boys carrying a pasteboard star. The centre of the star was clear and a candle was fixed so that the light shone through; I thought at first it was a turnip lantern. When we looked closer we found that there was a picture of Christ in the centre, so that the light shone through the face. The chief boy carried the star and the next to him twirled the points. It was an interesting point that they made no collection; though, I am told, they all got a few coppers on the morrow. It was a very charming representation of the Star of Bethlehem. It made its whole journey whilst we were getting home, for we saw it finally enter the church, which, it may be supposed, they considered the most fitting place for the star to rest. They were all boys, and on an English Christmas Eve they would doubtless have been asleep, dreaming of Father Christmas and the car of toys drawn by the reindeer. And that reminds me—Father Christmas knows Russia also. We saw stockings hung outside several cottage doors. It apparently is the custom to hang them outside, so Santa Claus has not to solve the problem of coming down the chimney.
Every cottage window had a light and, looking through, we saw abundance of Christmas fare spread upon the tables. At some there were already guests eating and drinking. The three days’ feast had commenced. Nicholas and I went indoors and made a meal and went to bed.
II
The succeeding week was an orgy of eating and drinking. I had already spent one Christmas in England and had eaten not less than a big man’s share of turkey and plum-pudding, but I was destined to out-do in Russia every table feat that our homely English board had witnessed. On Christmas Day alone I ate and drank, for courtesy, at eight different houses. Nicholas accomplished prodigious feats, and the worthy deacon was as much beyond Nicholas as the latter was beyond me. Let me describe the spread. There were, of course, chicken, turkey and vodka; there was sucking-pig, roasted with little slices of lemon. There were joints of venison and of beef, roast goose, wild duck, fried sturgeon and carp, fat and sweet, but full of bones; caviare, tinned herrings, mushrooms, melons, infusion of fruit and Caucasian wines. The steaming samovar was always on the sideboard, and likewise tumblers of tea, sweetened with jam or sharpened by lemon slices. There were huge loaves of home-baked bread, but no cakes or biscuits, and no puddings. At peasants’ houses the fare was commoner, but not less abundant, than at the squires’, and it was very difficult to escape from either without making a meal equal to an English lunch.
The Russians are a hospitable nation and, above all things, like to keep open house. On the great feast days everyone is at home—and everyone is also out visiting. That is, the women stay at home and superintend the hospitalities and the men go the rounds. At Moscow it is a full-dress function; one drives about the city all day. At Lisitchansk it is less polite and more hearty than in the old capital and one makes no distinction of persons. Nicholas and I went out to the postman, and together with the postman we went to a poor peasant’s dwelling, a one-room cottage where a man and his wife and ten children lived and slept. There was a glorious fire and a pot of soup hanging from a hook over it. Very poor people they were, and the children were thin and wretched, but friends had given them extra coal and food and vodka, and it was as gaily Christmas there as anywhere else. We took a snack of their food and detached the man from his family and went away to the oilman’s home. We were four now, and it seemed as if we were going to increase like a ball of snow, but we dropped the postman with the oilman. Just at the door, as we left, we met the deacon, who arranged to meet us at the soap factory in the afternoon, and whilst we were talking the farmer of the vodka monopoly came up and insisted on all of us coming to his house at night. He forcibly reminded me of my train adventure, for he was the first very drunk man I had seen in Lisitchansk. From the moment he appeared on the scene to his actual parting he kept up a grotesque step-dance, the Kamarinsky Moujik, the deacon said. It seemed to consist chiefly in doing the splitz. After leaving him we went home and were just in time to meet the village police, who had come for Christmas drinks. I think they were all at the fifteenth glass of vodka. It was a matter of speculation to me how far they would get before they finally collapsed. I should think the remoter districts of the village were unvisited by these worthies. One of them had been in Siberia. “Ah, brother, you get vodka out there.” Klick, he smacked his lips. “There was an Englishman took a glass of Siberian vodka and for two days he was drunk. On the third day he drank a glass of water and that made him drunk again.” Klick, he smacked his lips again. “That’s what.” And he blinked his eyes at me with peculiar assurance.
When the police had tottered out the village musicians came in playing carols. The leader played the violin; he was the choir-master, an elderly man with flashing eyes and long black hair. Behind him were four young men with guitars or balalaikas. Then came a group of boys, perhaps the same as those who had followed the Star of Bethlehem the night before. They played some hymns and then received coppers all round. The elders drank a glass of vodka each, and then their leader, by way of thanks, gave the Ukrainsky National Dance on the violin, and stamped his feet and danced to the music. Nearly everyone in the room was moving legs or body to the music, and when the musicians made a move to go the scene was so lively that one might have thought the fairy fiddler had been present. The music ceased and the choir hurried away. They had to visit every house in the village, and so time was precious to them; they certainly couldn’t linger in the deacon’s house. I heard afterwards there was one family they didn’t visit; these were Baptists, and had celebrated their Christmas a fortnight earlier with the rest of Europe.
We met the deacon at the soap factory and there made a great feast off sucking-pig. A Little-Russian girl induced me to drink half a glass of vodka on condition that she drank the other half. I insisted that her half should be the first, and then I did not resist the bribe. But I don’t think her lips allayed the fire. She had the best of the bargain, and the company collapsed with laughter at my expense.
A number of us left the factory to go to the Squire’s, and as we tramped through the snow there was a lively discussion as to the grandeur of the spread and the merits of sucking-pig. The Chief of Police was with us, and he was of opinion that Pavel Ivanovitch was getting too deep in debt.
“What of that,” said a military officer, “everyone is in debt. ‘Not in debt, not decent.’ Don’t you know the proverb?”