Russian Rambles

adopted from others, not they from him. It can be seen on older students any day, even in winter, in the reading- room of the Imperial Public Library in St. Petersburg, on the imperial choir in the Winter Palace as undress uniform for week-day services, and elsewhere.

Some indulgent mothers make silk blouses for their sons, and embroider them with cross-stitch patterns in colored floss, as was the fashion a number of years ago, when a patriotic outburst of sentiment was expressed by the adoption of the 'national costume,' for house wear, by adults of both sexes. From this period dates also, no doubt, that style of 'peasant dress' which can be seen occasionally, in unfashionable summer resorts, on girls not of the highest class by any means, and which the city shops furnish in abundance as genuine to misguided foreigners. Every one is familiar with these fantastic combinations of colored lace insertion with bands of blue cotton worked in high colors, and fashioned into blouses and aprons such as no peasant maid ever wore or beheld.

What strikes one very forcibly about Russian children, when one sees them at play in the parks, is their quiet, self-possessed manners and their lack of boisterousness. If they were inclined to scream, to fling themselves about wildly and be rude, they would assuredly be checked promptly and effectually, since the rights of grown people to peace, respect, and the pursuit of happiness are still recognized in that land. But, from my observation of the same qualities in untutored peasant children, I am inclined to think that Russian children are born more agreeable than Western children; yet they seem to be as cheerful and lively as is necessary, and in no way restricted. Whistling, howling, stamping, and kindred muscular exercises begin just over the Western frontier, and increase in violence as one proceeds westward, until Japan is reached, or possibly the Sandwich Islands, by which time, I am told, one enters the Orient and the realm of peace once more.

What noise we heard in Tzarskoe came from quite another quarter. As we were strolling in the park one afternoon, we heard sounds of uproarious mirth proceeding from the little island in the private imperial garden, where the Duchess of Edinburgh, in her girlhood, had a pretty Russian cottage, cow-stalls, and so forth, with flower and potato beds. She and her brothers were in the habit of planting their pussy willows, received on Palm Sunday, on the bank of the stream, and these, duly labeled, have now grown into a hedge of trees. The screen is not perfect, however, and glimpses of the playground are open to the public across the narrow stream. On this summer afternoon, there was a party of royalties on the island, swinging on the Giant Steps. The Giant Steps, I must explain, consist of a tall, stout mast firmly planted in the earth, bound with iron at the top, and upholding a thick iron ring to which are attached heavy cables which touch the ground. The game consists of a number of persons seizing hold of these cables, running round the mast until sufficient impetus is acquired, and then swinging through the air in a circle. The Tzarevitch [8] who had driven over from the great camp at Krasnoe Selo, and whom I had seen in the church of the Old Palace that morning at a special mass, with the angelic imperial choir and the priests from the Winter Palace sent down from Petersburg for the occasion, was now sailing through the air high up toward the apex of the mast. One of his imperial aunts, clad in a fleecy white gown, occupied a similar position on another cable. It was plain that they could not have done their own running to gain impetus, and that the gardeners must have towed them by the ends of the ropes. The other grand dukes and duchesses were managing their own cables in the usual manner. The party included the king and queen of Greece and other royal spectators. What interested me most was to hear them all shrieking and conversing in Russian, with only occasional lapses into French, instead of the reverse.

But everything is not royal in the vicinity of these summer parks and palaces. For example, just outside of Tzarskoe Selo, on the Petersburg highway, lies a Russian village called Kuzmino, whose inhabitants are as genuine, unmodified peasants as if they lived a hundred miles from any provincial town. Here in the north, where timber is plentiful, cottages are raised from the ground by a half-story, without windows, which serves as a storeroom for carts, sledges, and farming implements. The entrance is through a door beside the large courtyard gate, which rears its heavy frame on the street line, adjoining the house, in Russian fashion. A rough staircase leads to the dwelling-rooms over the shed storeroom. Three tiny windows on the street front, with solid wooden shutters, are the ordinary allowance for light. In Kuzmino, many of the windows had delicate, clean white curtains, and all were filled with blooming plants. A single window, for symmetry, and a carved balcony fill in the sharp gable end of such houses, but open into nothing, and the window is not even glazed. Carved horses' heads, rude but recognizable, tuft the peak, and lacelike wood carving droops from the eaves. The roofs also are of wood.

This was the style of the cottages in Kuzmino. The name of the owner was inscribed on the corner of each house; and there appeared to be but two surnames, at most three, in the whole village. One new but unfinished house seemed to have been built from the ridgepole downward, instead of in the usual order. There were no doorways or stairs or apertures for communication between the stories, which were two in number. It was an architectural riddle.

As a stroll to the village had consumed an unexpected amount of time, we found ourselves, at the breakfast hour, miles away from our hotel. We instituted a search for milk, and were directed at random, it seemed, until a withered little old peasant, who was evidently given to tippling, enlisted himself as our guide. He took us to the house of a woman who carried milk and cream to town twice a week, and introduced us with a comical flourish.

The family consisted of an old woman, as dried and colorless as a Russian codfish from Arkhangel, but very clean and active; her son, a big, fresh-colored fellow, with a mop of dark brown curls, well set off by his scarlet cotton blouse; his wife, a slender, red-cheeked brunette, with delicate, pretty features; and their baby girl. They treated us like friends come to make a call; refused to accept money for their cream; begged us to allow them to prepare the samovar, as a favor to them, and send for white rolls, as they were sure we could not eat their sour black bread; and expressed deep regret that their berries were all gone, as the season was past. They showed us over their house in the prettiest, simplest way, and introduced us to the dark storeroom where their spare clothing and stores of food for the winter, such as salted cucumbers in casks, and other property, were packed away; to a narrow slip of a room on the front, where the meals for the family were prepared with remarkably few pots and no pans; to the living-room, with its whitewashed stone-and-mud oven in one corner, for both cooking and heating, a bench running round the walls on three sides, and a clean pine table in the corner of honor, where hung the holy images. They had a fine collection of these images, which were a sign of prosperity as well as of devotion. The existence of another tiny room also bore witness to easy circumstances. In this room they slept; and the baby, who was taking her noonday nap, was exhibited to us by the proud papa. Her cradle consisted of a splint market basket suspended from the ceiling by a stout wire spring, like the spring of a bird-cage, and rocked gently. The baby gazed at us with bright, bird-like eyes and smiled quietly when she woke, as though she had inherited her parents' gentle ways. We believed them when they said that she never cried; we had already discovered that this was the rule with Russian children of all classes.

They were much interested to learn from what country we came. I was prepared to find them unacquainted with the situation of America, after having been asked by an old soldier in the park, 'In what district of Russia is America?' and after having been told by an izvostchik that the late Empress had come from my country, since 'Germany' meant for him all the world which was not Russia, just as the adjective 'German' signifies anything foreign and not wholly approved.

'Is America near Berlin?' asked our peasant hosts.

'Farther than that,' I replied.

They laughed, and gave up the riddle after a few more equally wild guesses.

'It is on the other side of the world,' I said.

'Then you must be nearer God than we are!' they exclaimed, with a sort of reverence for people who came from the suburbs of heaven.

'Surely,' I said, 'you do not think that the earth is flat, and that we live on the upper side, and you on the lower?'

But that was precisely what they did think, in their modesty, and, as it seemed a hopeless task to demonstrate to them the sphericity of the globe, I left them in that flattering delusion.

I asked the old woman to explain her holy pictures to me, as I always enjoyed the quaint expressions and elucidations of the peasants, and inquired whether she thought the ikona of the Virgin was the Virgin herself. I had heard it asserted very often by over-wise foreigners that this was the idea entertained by all Russians, without regard to class, and especially by the peasants.

'No,' she replied, 'but it shows the Virgin Mother to me, just as your picture would show you to me when you were on the other side of the world, and remind me of you. Only-how shall I say it?-there is more power in a wonder-working ikona like this.'