“Why, the sturgeon! Don’t you know the story of Gogol? The church was packed full of people, so that not a single person more could find room. Then the Chief of Police came and couldn’t get in. But the priest called out to the people to make room, and then everyone moved up just a little bit closer. So they managed to squeeze the Chief of Police in. Now this sturgeon is the Chief of Police, and you must make the other things move up.”
CHAPTER III
MUMMERS AT A COUNTRY HOUSE
ON St Stephen’s Day we drove in sledges to a country house. I feasted my eyes on a wonderful sight—high trees standing between the white ground and the great sun, and casting strange shadows on the whitest snow, and between the shadows a thousand living sparkles literally shot flames from the glistening snow. I had never seen anything like it before; it was very beautiful. We left the forest and passed over a vast plain of tumbled snow. There was snow everywhere as far as the eye could see. The sky above was deep glowing blue; the horizon lines a nascent grey darkness. One looked out upon an enchanted ocean of snow; the wind had wreathed it fantastically in crested waves, or left it gently dimpled like the sands of the seashore. Wave behind wave glistened and sparkled to the horizon, and a gentle breeze raised a snow spray from a thousand crests. The snow scud fled from wave to wave. Yes, it was very beautiful and new, and the world seemed very broad and full of peace. I felt it a privilege to exist in the presence of such beauty. It was my nameday, and it seemed as if there were a special significance in all the beauty which lay about me. Pure flame colours were about me as the glistening white robe of a candidate, to whom new mysteries are to be revealed.
The road was hard-beaten snow, a series of frozen cart ruts. The horses scampered ahead and the sledges shot after them. The sledge slipped over the snow like a boat over the reeds of a river. The red-faced driver sat immobile in his seat. We lay back in the sledges and took advantage of every inch of fur and rug. The runners were very low, and we could have touched the snow as we passed. Sometimes we rushed into a drift, and the snow would rise in a splash over us. And wasn’t it cold! My feet became like ice.
Our new host was a Count Yamschin, owner of a large estate in the Government of Ekaterinoslav. We arrived at his house in the afternoon, and I heard the deacon give orders to the sledge-drivers to return for us at midnight.
The house was a large one, the rooms spacious. Like Russian houses in general, it was simply and meagrely furnished. But for the people in them the rooms would have seemed empty. There were no carpets on the floor; only here and there a soft Persian rug. The firelight from the logs blazing on the broad hearth was the only illumination until late in the twilight. One watched the shadows about the high ceiling and in the recesses; animated faces moved into the bright gleam of light or passed into the shade. In a corner darker than the others stood the precious Ikons, the sacred pictures.
There were ten or fifteen people in the room, and we chatted in groups for half an hour. The principal topic of conversation was about a mystery play which was going to be performed in the evening. It was called the Life of Man, and everyone had evidently heard much about it before the performance. “You will see,” said the deacon, “it is an Ikon play. The Ikon speaks.” Presently the eldest son came striding in in jack-boots and besought us to go into the concert-hall. This was apparently part of a separate building, and we had all to wrap ourselves up and step into our goloshes, so as to trip through the shrubbery with no discomfort. It was a large hall and would have easily held all the people of the village. There was a stage curtained off, and in the body of the hall a grand piano. We held an impromptu concert, made up for the most part of songs and recitations in the Little Russian language. Little Russian is to Russian what broad Scotch is to English. I met a student who knew many long speeches from Shakespeare by heart, but Shakespeare in Russian translation. Shakespeare is a compulsory subject in most Russian colleges, and students have, on the whole, as good a knowledge of it as English people have. The young man professed to be extremely enthusiastic over the Life of Man, which was an expansion of Shakespeare’s thought:
“All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players.”