IN A RUSSIAN "TRAKTEER."
We have it on the authority of no less a personage than Charles the Bold of Burgundy (the Charles of Quentin Durward, at least) that "never was Englishman who loved a dry-lipped bargain;" and the same thing may safely be said of the modern Russian. But although the trakteer (or coffee-house, as we should call it) undoubtedly witnesses many keen trials of commercial fence, this is very far from being its only use. What the Agora was to the Athenian, what the Forum was to the Roman, what the "tea-house" still is to the "heathen Chinee" and the "ice-house" to the West Indian,—all this, and more, the trakteer is to the Russian. It is his dining-saloon, his drinking-bar, his news-room (when he happens to be able to read), his place of meeting with his friends; and, in a word, his place of resort for any and every purpose.
In such a place the groups of figures are diverse enough to satisfy the most exacting "painter from life," and the dialogue is often far more entertaining (which is not saying much) than that of many a popular vaudeville. Indeed, a dramatist on the lookout for a bit of "comic business" not "adapted from the French" could not do better than drop into a trakteer in Moscow—or, better still, Kazan—and make good use of his eyes and his notebook for twenty minutes or half an hour.
Let us suppose our explorer to be strolling along the narrow, tortuous streets of the Kitai-Gorod (Chinese Town) at Moscow on a fine winter day, with the crisp snow crackling under foot, and the clear, bright, frosty sky over head. Away he goes, past painted houses and staring signs and gilded church-towers—past dark, narrow shop-doors like exaggerated rat-traps, with a keen, well-whiskered tenant peering watchfully out of each—past clamorous groups of blue-frocked, red-girdled cabmen—past sheepskin-clad beggars, each with his little tablet stamped with a gilt cross to show that the alms bestowed are to be devoted to the building of some apocryphal church, probably of the same kind as that spoken of by Petroleum V. Nasby: "The proceeds air to be devoted entirely to the 'church'—which is me."
At length, after many turnings and windings, he comes out upon the vast open space of the Krasnaya Ploshtchad (Red Plain), with the statues of Minin and Pojarski on his right, and on his left the cluster of many-colored domes that crown the fantastic church of Vasili the Blessed, while right in front of him rise the red-turreted wall of the Kremlin and the tall spear-pointed tower of the "Gate of Salvation." And now, being by this time somewhat fatigued by the exertion of a prolonged tramp in a heavy fur overcoat and felt-lined goloshes, he makes for a doorway above which appears, in crabbed Slavonian characters, the familiar word "ТРАКТИР."
Pushing open the heavy swing-door (through which issues a whiff of hot air charged with a combination of greasy smells that might knock down a rhinoceros), our hero enters the long, low, dingy room, and is instantly relieved of his coat and cap by half a dozen ready hands, while as many voices greet him with the stereotyped formula, "Be happy,[B] barin! What are you pleased to command?"
The "barin" is pleased to command a glass of tea, the customary order with trakteer-frequenters, and it is obeyed almost as soon as given. Off skips one of the shirt-sleeved brotherhood, and returns in a twinkling with a small tray, on which stand a large teapot full of hot water, a smaller one filled with strong, rich, aromatic tea, a big tumbler (the Russian substitute for a tea-cup), and several lumps of sugar in a tiny saucer.
[B] This is the literal meaning of the Russian Zdravstvuite! which answers to our "Good-morning!"