I was amused with a diversion quite peculiar to this city, that takes place during the three first days of the year. It consists in going to pay a visit to one’s friends disguised in costume and masked, in a way so effectually, that it is impossible to be recognized. To give more animation occasionally to the amusement, families mutually exchange houses, disguising themselves also, and then the visitors and the visited find themselves equally mystified. These merry réunions are generally accompanied with dancing and refreshments. The society of Omsk is too limited to afford facilities for any intrigue, and too strict even that such, if any, should be attended with any serious consequence; but for all that, there are few cities in the world, perhaps, where during these three days so much boisterous mirth may be heard as in this privileged spot on the Tartar steppe.
CHAPTER IX.
THE COLD ON THE WAY TO TOMSK.
The intense cold—Its inconveniences—The fine effects of light at a very low temperature—The baptismal fête of Christ on the Obi—Tomsk—Its commerce—An evening on the banks of the Tom.
I left Omsk on the 17th of January at one in the afternoon. This day was intensely cold; the thermometer indicated almost fifty degrees! I could hardly open my bachelique when I wished to do so, in order to admire the fine effects of light that invariably accompany so low a temperature.
The snow, through some optical effect I am unable to explain, presented, from certain points of view, reflections so dark as to be almost black; and then, in contrast to these, innumerable little crystals, reflecting the sun’s rays, sparkled with such resplendence, that one might fancy he was admiring particles of diamonds scattered over a rich velvet cloth. After a few hours of this journeying, we came to a part of the steppe called the long grass, on account of an abundance of it in these parts reaching a great height.
When I saw it, it was quite covered with a hoar frost. Towards evening, when the sun was disappearing in the horizon, the mass received the expiring rays and became dazzling white. The snow at the same time, disposed to take its hue from the sky, presented a dark blue tint. This fine spectacle, unfortunately, was of short duration. The sun had now gone down, and a feeble, mystic twilight began spreading over this immense plain, which presently became illumined by the aurora borealis, suffusing the whole with its rosy hue.
It would be impossible to depict in words the diverse and ever-varying tints I have witnessed, from time to time, beautifying Siberian landscapes. When the cold is very intense, the play of light that enters on the scene is far too subtile for art to give any conception of it. It is during some of these beautiful transformations I have mentioned that the light vapour in the air freezes; at these times, I have seen shoals of fine crystals, almost imperceptible, swimming in the air, glittering in the sunbeams, and casting their rainbows superimposed on the horizon. As we see these colours in France, generally in a more sombre sky, they are dull in comparison with the lively, fascinating, and mystic hues presented here on an azure of infinite purity.
A cold so rigorous is not without serious inconvenience to poor human beings who venture to brave it. The part of the face around the nose and mouth disappears completely, in a few moments, under a thick icy coating, formed from the moisture of the breath; and as it is necessary to remove this glacial crust from time to time, the operation occasions much suffering.