“‘Please, Mr Gendarme, he stole three farthings of mine.’
“‘Yes?’ replies the policeman. ‘Then you must both come to the police-station.’ He blows his whistle vigorously. There is a crowd of moujiks round him. The man with the thatched head has sunk back sleepily into his seat. I hear him murmuring gently, ‘Cut his throat, cut his throat.’ Two other gendarmes are here now, and the two prisoners are being kicked out with great turbulence.
“A furious noise, and yet many men and women are lying fast asleep among the bundles on the floor. The bar-tender moves hither and thither behind his orderly rows of glass bottles and is quite at his ease. He is bringing me an extra pennyworth of sugar now! In the darkest corner of the waiting-room an elaborate temple is set up and little lamps burn dimly before the gilded Ikons of Mary and the child Jesus. The drunkards look thither furtively and cross themselves. The scene is strange. I was rummaging through my pocket-book just now for some paper and came across the photograph of dear K——. I took it out and let the face look into the room. I felt convulsed with laughter at the wistful way she looked out upon the scene; the print is fading slightly, and there is a sort of ‘silken, sad, uncertain’ expression about it that was so astonishingly true that the real face could not look differently if my friend could be instantly brought here. But she sleeps peacefully in that London suburb that I know. Fourteen hours to wait for a train! And what shall I do this long day? I might walk back again to Moscow, thirty-five versts is not far, but it has come to my mind that I shall not walk this stretch. It has been a rough jaunt.
“This room with its vodka bar and its temple of God, and the drunkards flung all around the steps of the altar, is a picture of Russia—of an aspect of Russia. When I came into the village this afternoon the sacred Ikons were being borne in procession through the streets, and services were being conducted at street corners. Two priests were detailed off to officiate at this station. I saw them go in through the throng of the bare-headed crowd. Dressed in cloth of gold and mitred in purple, they moved about majestically in the performance of their office, and from their mouths came the unearthly sounds in which it is orthodox to clothe the words of their litany. Pilgrimages are made to this shrine on each great fast day. Many thousands flock hither from Moscow and from the country round about; some come on foot, some by train, and some in sledges. I came by train, third-class, with our cook; she is now somewhere sleeping in an unheavenly cottage there below. It has been interesting to see the far-distance pilgrims; the peasant women bent double by huge bundles on their backs, but resting on stout staffs and looking out very piously and anciently from their deep hoods. We had four of them in our carriage in the train; very gay they looked in their coloured cotton dresses; but they were reserved, and their monosyllabic groans and grunts scarcely sounded articulate outside the circle of their own company. The service last evening was grand; the festival commenced at six o’clock; I had been watching the crows whirling about the domes of the churches, settling on the high gilt crosses, flapping their wings, balancing themselves, calling to one another, and the dusk was deepening. I went into the great church and looked at the long queue of people waiting to consecrate their candles and be anointed with the holy oil. At last the priests came forward and lit one candle before each of the Ikons, and a long-haired pope stood before the people and pronounced the induction of the service. The choir voices swelled in unison as the incense reached one’s senses, and the solemn litany went forward with its eternal choric response: ‘Oh, Lord, have mercy, oh, Lord, have mercy.’ ‘Gospody pomeely, Gospody pomeely.’ ... And now and then the priest would repeat the words so rapidly that it sounded like gospodipity, gospodipity.
“About ten o’clock I left the dim church and went out into the darkness, among shadows of unknown men and women and bundles. A hundred yards distant a bright window gave a full light on to the night. A tavern was there, ‘where stood a company with heated eyes,’ a wild, hairy people who stormed and screamed and fell about. A glass of tea for me, also a bottle of black-currant water; the like of the latter we shall not drink again. No room to sit there. The street without was full of solicitous boys and girls who wanted to find you a lodging. To one of these I had recourse, and after many unsuccessful ventures she took me to the fore-mentioned cottage. There was more adventure and novelty than sleep on the bill of fare, and I was tempted. When one carries a portable bed one is fairly independent, but why had I no misgivings here? The great winter stove on which the good woman of the place bakes her bread had been at full heat all day, and the men and women who lay there were like lumps of flesh in a thick stew of air. On the torn newspaper ceiling the flies walked about or buzzed down to settle on the faces of the sleepers. The place of honour was given me, the one bed with a rag of curtain. I was blessed and prayed for before the cottage Ikons, which were set up in a further corner—perhaps I had need for prayer....
“At midnight, having passed through many adventures, I evacuated the position. Much difficulty there was among the legs of the sleepers, but an exit was achieved, and presently there was a ceiling of stars above me and a cold breeze about. The cottage being in the middle of a field there was some further difficulty in extrication. Then came a series of rencontres. First a beggar, very drunk, and whirling a cudgel above his head, tells me he knows me, has seen me in Moscow. (I wondered if, perhaps, he had actually seen me at the night-house with Nicholas.) Then a gendarme presents a bold aspect but falls back judiciously since I do not hesitate in my stride. I am a suspicious-looking character. Watchmen-monks, with the night breeze blowing their long hair about (the clergy all wear long hair), I have encounters with these. But the night was very good and full of music; never so many stars, never such a Milky Way or such black unstarry patches, and the air was thrilling. The newspaper cottage was far away. Presently I discovered the railway station and the waiting-room full of people, and here I am. It will soon be dawn. I have poured myself out the twelfth and thirteenth glasses of tea, very like hot water and without sugar or milk. If I have caught any malady at the cottage I should be saved by this internal washing. I become the latest convert to the system of Dr Sangrado of Gil Blas memory.... Two priests have arrived in the waiting-room....
“Ah! I hear that, after all, there will be a train home soon.
“I left the station at a run and was back at the newspaper cottage, and a half-dressed, half-sleeping woman let me in, got me my things and asked mournfully why it was I could not sleep.
“‘Was it too hot, barin?’
“She blessed me and let me depart.