I

NICHOLAS was twenty-one years of age and was the eldest child. His father, who was the village deacon, was in his prime. Six feet high, broad-shouldered, he was a proper figure of a man. Thick black hair hung down his back. His high-domed forehead and well-formed aquiline nose reminded one of Tennyson. His wife was a short, dear woman, who moved about in little steps—the sort of woman that never wears out, tender and gentle, but, at the same time, strong-bodied and hardy.

The two of them welcomed me to their home, and I felt thrilled with gratitude. Only he who has been out in the wilds, in distress, in strange parts, among alien people, can know the full joy of a return to home. After long travail, after isolation and privation, one’s heart is very sensitive to loving, human hands. It was very sweet for me to realise that in the terrible cold, in the wild night, there was a sheltering roof for me, a little sanctuary where accident and misfortune could no further pursue me, a home where a new father and mother awaited me.

The cottage was a very simple one. It was built of pine trunks placed one across another, reticulated at the comers in the style that children build with firewood. It contained three rooms. The partitions were of bright new wood and unadorned. We sat on straight-back wooden chairs at a wooden table, on which no cloth was spread. The sacred picture, the symbol of God in the home, looked down from a cleft in the pine wall.

The family had lately been at prayers, for Christmas Day begins at six o’clock on the 24th of December. Before us, on the table, stood the allegorical dish of dry porridge, eaten in memory of the hay and straw that lay in the manger in which the Child Jesus was laid. Nicholas’s little sister, Zhenia, was helping Masha, the servant, to bring in plates and spoons. A huge bowl, full of boiled honey and stewed fruit, was set in the middle of the table, and then mother and father and son and daughter bowed to the sacred picture and crossed themselves, and sat down to the meal.

The inhabitants of Lisitchansk are Little Russians, and all Little Russians sit down to honey and porridge on Christmas Eve. They call the custom koutia, and they cherish it as something distinguishing them from Great Russians or White Russians. The deacon explained its significance to me. What he said sounded rather naÏve in my ears. The Communion is a death feast; Koutia is in memory of His birth. “It is just a special Communion service,” said he, “and it is held only once a year.” He explained how each dish represented the manger: First we put porridge in the dish, which was like putting straw in the manger. The mother helped each of us to porridge; she stood for Mary, who would, of course, see that there was plenty of straw, so that it might be soft and warm. Then we each helped ourselves to honey and fruit and that symbolised The Babe. We made a place in the porridge and then poured the honey and fruit in. The fruit stood for the body; the honey stood for the spirit or the blood. “Blood means spirit, when one is speaking of Christ,” said the deacon, whom I perceived to be somewhat of a mystic.

Outside the cottage the wind roared and the snow sifted against the window panes. We were all present at the birth of Christ, and had been transported as if by magic to Bethlehem of Christmas night over nineteen centuries ago.

The brightness of the cottage faded into the half light of a stable, where a child lay in a manger among the horses and the oxen. Joseph and Mary were near and I had just arrived, having followed a particular bright star that for two thousand miles had led me here. Time itself had given birth to a child. My own new tender life lay in a cradle before me.

Koutia remained on the table and guests came and partook of the meal. They might have been the Wise Men, the Kings with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. Nicholas told me that the guests would return home by a different way from that by which they came—in order to escape Herod. Then the deacon took up a guitar and played carols, typifying, whether he intended it or not, the music of the angel hosts.

I think we spent too little of this night in bed. Much was to happen yet. Nicholas proposed a walk. We bowed to the sacred picture and took our leave. The deacon also had to go out. He curled up his long hair and put it under a high fur hat, and then wrapped himself in a purple cloak.

We stepped out along a narrow trench between two banks of snow, waist-high. There were no lights in the village. The snow fell no longer, but a strong wind blew the drift top in our faces. A heaven, distant and black, but radiant with stars, looked down upon us, and upon the white roofs of the village houses and upon the crosses and domes of the church. All was utterly silent.

At the church the deacon left us, and we went on beyond the village. There is an exposed path that leads up to the crest of the ridge, above the River Donetz. The wind had swept every loose particle of snow away, so that it was smooth as glass and hard as steel, like a well-used toboggan track. The wind behind us fairly took us up by itself, without any effort on our part, and when we reached the summit it began to blow us down on the other side. It blew us off our feet so that we both went rolling down the steep slope to the river, and we did not gain a foothold till we plunged into a huge bank of snow formed by a rock beside the river bed. It was a very amusing experience and we sat down in the snow and laughed. The wind blew as if it considered our mirth ill-timed. We gathered our cloaks about us and cowered from it.

It was a stiff walk home and the wind was appalling. The sound of music came to us as we came round a bend in sight of the village, and presently we saw a group of carol singers carrying what appeared to be a lantern. When we came nearer we found them to be a group of boys carrying a pasteboard star. The centre of the star was clear and a candle was fixed so that the light shone through; I thought at first it was a turnip lantern. When we looked closer we found that there was a picture of Christ in the centre, so that the light shone through the face. The chief boy carried the star and the next to him twirled the points. It was an interesting point that they made no collection; though, I am told, they all got a few coppers on the morrow. It was a very charming representation of the Star of Bethlehem. It made its whole journey whilst we were getting home, for we saw it finally enter the church, which, it may be supposed, they considered the most fitting place for the star to rest. They were all boys, and on an English Christmas Eve they would doubtless have been asleep, dreaming of Father Christmas and the car of toys drawn by the reindeer. And that reminds me—Father Christmas knows Russia also. We saw stockings hung outside several cottage doors. It apparently is the custom to hang them outside, so Santa Claus has not to solve the problem of coming down the chimney.

Every cottage window had a light and, looking through, we saw abundance of Christmas fare spread upon the tables. At some there were already guests eating and drinking. The three days’ feast had commenced. Nicholas and I went indoors and made a meal and went to bed.

II

The succeeding week was an orgy of eating and drinking. I had already spent one Christmas in England and had eaten not less than a big man’s share of turkey and plum-pudding, but I was destined to out-do in Russia every table feat that our homely English board had witnessed. On Christmas Day alone I ate and drank, for courtesy, at eight different houses. Nicholas accomplished prodigious feats, and the worthy deacon was as much beyond Nicholas as the latter was beyond me. Let me describe the spread. There were, of course, chicken, turkey and vodka; there was sucking-pig, roasted with little slices of lemon. There were joints of venison and of beef, roast goose, wild duck, fried sturgeon and carp, fat and sweet, but full of bones; caviare, tinned herrings, mushrooms, melons, infusion of fruit and Caucasian wines. The steaming samovar was always on the sideboard, and likewise tumblers of tea, sweetened with jam or sharpened by lemon slices. There were huge loaves of home-baked bread, but no cakes or biscuits, and no puddings. At peasants’ houses the fare was commoner, but not less abundant, than at the squires’, and it was very difficult to escape from either without making a meal equal to an English lunch.

The Russians are a hospitable nation and, above all things, like to keep open house. On the great feast days everyone is at home—and everyone is also out visiting. That is, the women stay at home and superintend the hospitalities and the men go the rounds. At Moscow it is a full-dress function; one drives about the city all day. At Lisitchansk it is less polite and more hearty than in the old capital and one makes no distinction of persons. Nicholas and I went out to the postman, and together with the postman we went to a poor peasant’s dwelling, a one-room cottage where a man and his wife and ten children lived and slept. There was a glorious fire and a pot of soup hanging from a hook over it. Very poor people they were, and the children were thin and wretched, but friends had given them extra coal and food and vodka, and it was as gaily Christmas there as anywhere else. We took a snack of their food and detached the man from his family and went away to the oilman’s home. We were four now, and it seemed as if we were going to increase like a ball of snow, but we dropped the postman with the oilman. Just at the door, as we left, we met the deacon, who arranged to meet us at the soap factory in the afternoon, and whilst we were talking the farmer of the vodka monopoly came up and insisted on all of us coming to his house at night. He forcibly reminded me of my train adventure, for he was the first very drunk man I had seen in Lisitchansk. From the moment he appeared on the scene to his actual parting he kept up a grotesque step-dance, the Kamarinsky Moujik, the deacon said. It seemed to consist chiefly in doing the splitz. After leaving him we went home and were just in time to meet the village police, who had come for Christmas drinks. I think they were all at the fifteenth glass of vodka. It was a matter of speculation to me how far they would get before they finally collapsed. I should think the remoter districts of the village were unvisited by these worthies. One of them had been in Siberia. “Ah, brother, you get vodka out there.” Klick, he smacked his lips. “There was an Englishman took a glass of Siberian vodka and for two days he was drunk. On the third day he drank a glass of water and that made him drunk again.” Klick, he smacked his lips again. “That’s what.” And he blinked his eyes at me with peculiar assurance.

When the police had tottered out the village musicians came in playing carols. The leader played the violin; he was the choir-master, an elderly man with flashing eyes and long black hair. Behind him were four young men with guitars or balalaikas. Then came a group of boys, perhaps the same as those who had followed the Star of Bethlehem the night before. They played some hymns and then received coppers all round. The elders drank a glass of vodka each, and then their leader, by way of thanks, gave the Ukrainsky National Dance on the violin, and stamped his feet and danced to the music. Nearly everyone in the room was moving legs or body to the music, and when the musicians made a move to go the scene was so lively that one might have thought the fairy fiddler had been present. The music ceased and the choir hurried away. They had to visit every house in the village, and so time was precious to them; they certainly couldn’t linger in the deacon’s house. I heard afterwards there was one family they didn’t visit; these were Baptists, and had celebrated their Christmas a fortnight earlier with the rest of Europe.

We met the deacon at the soap factory and there made a great feast off sucking-pig. A Little-Russian girl induced me to drink half a glass of vodka on condition that she drank the other half. I insisted that her half should be the first, and then I did not resist the bribe. But I don’t think her lips allayed the fire. She had the best of the bargain, and the company collapsed with laughter at my expense.

A number of us left the factory to go to the Squire’s, and as we tramped through the snow there was a lively discussion as to the grandeur of the spread and the merits of sucking-pig. The Chief of Police was with us, and he was of opinion that Pavel Ivanovitch was getting too deep in debt.

“What of that,” said a military officer, “everyone is in debt. ‘Not in debt, not decent.’ Don’t you know the proverb?”

“How fond you seem to be of getting together and eating and singing and dancing,” said I. “In England all the people are huddled up close to one another and yet one seldom takes tea with the next-door neighbour even.”

The deacon replied:

“You are all like the people of Moscow or Kiev or St Petersburg, I expect. You have forgotten that you are brothers. Money has come between you and money has made you work. You are all gathered together, not out of love, but out of hate. In England gregariousness, in Russia conviviality.”

“Yes, we live together,” said the Chief of Police; “you die together.”

“You have your pogroms,” I retorted, and everyone looked very grave, for they were all staunch supporters of the Tsar.

“The vine is better for the cutting,” said the deacon, softly.

“But surely you do not approve of shedding blood, you do not think it Christian to fight your enemies?”

“We do not strike them. They are cursed by God, and when they are struck it is by Him. But it is not a matter for argument. You have come to see Russia, you look about, and you will find happiness wherever you go. We are all happy, even the Jews, who are only here to make money out of us. Then, if we are happy you must not object to our Government.”

“But are you really happy? In nine out of every ten provinces you will have famine before the winter is over, and yet you are all wasting your stores by Christmas luxuriance. All these poor people who are gorging themselves to-day will be pinched with hunger to-morrow.”

“He who taketh thought for the morrow is a Jew,” said the officer, and so ended the conversation by flooding it with laughter. Everyone laughed, and I think everyone thought we had been getting too serious.

The Squire was the occupant of a grand old house with many spacious rooms and walls a yard thick. His dining-table, about twenty feet long, was heaped up with cold meats and bottles of wine. We were fortunate enough to escape with a plate of turkey and a glass of port each.

As we came home in the dusk we saw a lover and his lass who had just plighted their troth. The deacon insisted on their coming with us. “How was it done?” I asked.

“Oh, she says ‘What is your name?’; he replies, ‘Foma’; she rejoins, ‘Foma is my husband’s name.’ They are very fond of one another and arranged it of course. It is a custom to plight troth on Christmas Day.”

A few days later I was at the girl’s house and part of the betrothal ritual was concluded. There were about fourteen of us in one room awaiting the ceremony. Presently a knock came at the door, and the starosta, the old man of the village, entered, and with him the bridegroom. They carried loaves of bread in their hands. The starosta commenced a recitation in a sing-song voice. It ran something like this:

“We are German people, come from Turkey. We are hunters, good fellows. There was a time once in our country when we saw strange foot-prints in the snow, and my friend the prince here saw them, and we thought they might be a fox’s or a marten’s foot-prints, or it might be those of a beautiful girl. We hunters, we good fellows, are determined not to rest till we have found the animal. We have been in all cities from Germany to Turkey, and have sought for this fox, this marten or this princess, and at last we have seen the same strange foot-prints in the snow again, here by your court. And we have come in. Come, let us take her, the beautiful princess, for we see her in front of us—or can it be you would keep her till she grows a little older?”

Then the father made a speech in the same style, asking the name and lineage of the proud prince who sued for his daughter’s hand. Then, after considerable hesitation, both parties came to agreement, and the starosta leading the young man forward, and the father bringing the girl to him, the hands of the loving pair were joined and blessing was given. The rest of the evening was given over to carouse.

But to return to Christmas Day. We spent the night at the house of the farmer of the vodka monopoly. When we met the host he was dancing, and when we said good-night he was still dancing, and he had been dancing all the time. Beyond food there was no real entertainment. A young man played the guitar for four or five hours, and played the same tune the whole time. We had two dinners and two teas. At the second dinner the fifth course was roast sturgeon. I protested that I couldn’t eat any more.

“Don’t you think you could make all the other things squeeze up just a little and make room?” said the hostess.

“It’s the Chief of Police,” said the deacon.

“What is?”

“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.”