A lady

Landed proprietors—Sketch of the country—The wolves: dreadful occurrence—A child lost—Winter amusements—Wolf-hunt—A cunning animal—Summer sketch—Russian costumes—The national dance—The peasants—Avarice of the landowners—Serfs and their treatment—Cruel and unprincipled proprietors—Opinion of the upper classes.

Mr. Oliphant, in his interesting account of his voyage down the Volga, mentions having fallen in with a vulgar landowner, who was addicted to habits of intemperance, and who was the envy of all because he was rich enough to become intoxicated on English bottled porter. Undoubtedly there are such low characters to be met with, but I believe they form exceptions to the general rule, for I must say that, as far as it was possible for me to judge, the landed proprietors in Russia are for the most part a very different class of individuals; they are not perhaps very refined or well-informed—far from it; and it is not possible that in the existing state of things they could become so. Many of them live with their families on their estates, surrounded by their serfs; their mode of existence is monotonous enough, and only varied by an occasional visit to the capital, or to the neighbouring town; the friends with whom they are acquainted are similarly situated with themselves. When we consider the immense distance the cities are apart, the total want of good roads, and the wide extent of their estates, it would be ridiculous to expect the high polish and great information that can only be attained by constant intercourse in good society and in civilized capitals. Supposing that a century ago, in the times of our fox-hunting squires, a traveller had accidentally met one of them in an intoxicated state on board of a Yarmouth hoy; he certainly, if he had no other opportunity of judging of the state of civilization in the rural districts of England, would have entertained anything but an exalted idea of its excellence. As far as it has been possible for a lady to remark, I have every reason to feel respect for the country ladies and gentlemen of the interior of Russia. Their hospitality is unbounded; they are, for the most part, humane to the serfs, are kind-hearted in the true sense of the word, and exceedingly amiable and polite to foreigners. There is very little ceremony, but much more heartiness in their welcome, and, rather than allow their guests to return home at night, they will put themselves to any inconvenience, and turn every apartment in the house into a sleeping-room, cause beds to be made up on sofas and chairs, and find accommodation for a couple of dozen acquaintances with as little care about the trouble it gives them as if it were merely a shake-down of straw in the stable: their principal concern is that everybody should be as comfortable as possible and sans gÊne in their house; and what is more, the guests are welcome to stay as long as they please—one night or six.

The serfs are better off if the proprietor resides on the estate all the year: it is the land-stewards that make the most tyrannical and oppressive masters: being very often foreigners, generally Germans, they have no sympathy for the Russian race, and have besides two pockets to fill—their own and their employers’. They all seem to think that the poor peasants are fair game, and it is their object to squeeze as much out of them as possible. I have often accompanied my friends on visits to the country seats in the interior, and I speak from experience. In Novogorod, Jaroslaf, Kastroma, Vologda, Twer, Moscow, and other provinces, I have found many estimable people, ready to offer the same kindness and hospitality. Some of the proprietors undoubtedly abuse their power, are cruel to their people, vicious, intemperate, grasping, and hateful; of them I speak chiefly by report; they are not often met in really good society, and their company is generally avoided by families of respectability.

There is very little of the country to be seen on the post-roads, which generally run in a straight line through forests, plains, and morasses; and there being few elevations, there are no extensive views. Were there such, many beautiful spots might be discovered, widely separated from each other it is true, but consisting of woods and lakes, with hills to vary the scenery, verdant islands here and there in the broad sheets of water, reflected as in a mirror in the clear blue surface. The white house of the noble proprietor, half-buried amid the trees, and close by the church with gilded dome belonging to the estate, in which both lord and serf offer up their prayers every Sunday and saint’s holiday. It is a different landscape in every respect from those in Old England, but it is beautiful nevertheless, and somehow becomes more firmly impressed on the memory than a more cultivated one, perhaps because there is more of nature in it.

It is dreary enough in the winter, when the ice has closed over the lake, and the trees have lost their foliage; when the snow lies three or four feet deep, like a white sheet over all, rendering it impossible to distinguish land from water, and silence and solitude hold their desolate reign. Plenty of wolves and bears then infest the woods near the house, and with stealthy step run across the frozen surface of the lake, while a few melancholy crows and sparrows hover in the vicinity of the village.

The wolves are sometimes rendered so bold by famine, that they will devour the dogs belonging to the villagers; and if an unlucky cow or horse be left out of the byre, its bones are the only relics remaining of it in the morning. One winter they even ate up a poor sentinel, whose post was near the palace at Twer, and who had probably fallen asleep; but they seldom attack men except when driven to desperation.

A dreadful anecdote was told me of a peasant woman and her children, who were crossing the forest that stretched for many miles between her isba and the neighbouring village. They were in one of those small country sledges, in shape something like a boat, drawn by a single horse. Suddenly they heard a rustling sound among the trees; it was but faint at first, but it rapidly approached; the instinct of the affrighted steed told him that danger was near at hand, he rushed on with redoubled speed. Presently the short yelp of a wolf aroused the mother; she started up and gazed around; to her terror she beheld a mighty pack of wolves sweeping across the frozen snow, in full cry upon their traces. She seized the whip, and endeavoured by repeated blows to urge on the fear-stricken horse to even greater swiftness. The poor animal needed no incentive to hasten his steps, but his force was well-nigh spent; his convulsive gasping showed how painfully his utmost energies were exerted. “But courage! there is hope! the village is in sight! far off it is true, but we shall gain it yet!” So thought the unhappy mother as she cast a look of horror on the hungry savage beasts that were following in the rear, and saw that they were rapidly gaining upon her. Now they are near enough for her to see their open mouths and hanging tongues, their fiery eyes and bristling hair, as they rush on with unrelenting speed, turning neither to the right nor to the left, but steadily pursuing their horrible chace. At last they came near enough for their eager breathing to be heard, and the foremost was within a few yards of the sledge; the overspent horse flagged in his speed; all hope seemed lost, when the wretched woman, frantic with despair, caught up one of her three children and threw him into the midst of the pack, trusting by this means to gain a little time by which the others might be saved. He was devoured in an instant; and the famished wolves, whose appetite it had only served to whet, again rushed after the retreating family. The second and the third infant were sacrificed in the same dreadful manner; but now the village was gained. A peasant came out of an isba, at the sight of whom the wolves fell back. The almost insensible woman threw herself out of the sledge, and, when she could find sufficient strength to speak, she related the fearful danger in which she had been, and the horrible means she had employed to escape from it.

“And did you throw them all to the wolves, even the little baby you held in your arms?” exclaimed the horror-stricken peasant.

“Yes, all!” was the reply.

The words had scarcely escaped from the white lips of the miserable mother, when the man laid her dead at his feet with a single blow of the axe with which he was cleaving wood when she arrived. He was arrested for the murder, and the case was decided by the Emperor, who pardoned him, wisely making allowance for his agitation and the sudden impulse with which horror and indignation at the unnatural act had inspired him.

When I was passing through a village in Olonetz, I remarked that the people were in great agitation. Upon asking the reason of it, the postmaster informed me that a child had been carried off by the wolves in the evening, and that the parents were half-distracted with grief at its loss.

Once I had a little adventure myself with one of these animals. It was in the autumn, and I very imprudently went to walk in a wood at a considerable distance from the house; presently I saw what I thought was a village dog, for there is much resemblance between the two. I wondered what it could do so far from a dwelling, and I noticed that whithersoever I went the creature followed, keeping a watchful eye on all my movements. I was engaged in picking hazel-nuts, and for a long time the idea of its being a wolf never entered my mind; but all at once the thought struck me: I however did not attempt to run away, as it would have been highly dangerous to have done so; but gradually backed out of the wood, keeping my face towards my companion. The animal advanced step by step as I retreated; fortunately I had not long to play the part, for I soon reached the open space; when I did so, and found I was no longer followed, I hastened home as quickly as possible. Search was instantly made by the villagers on the spot, and an enormous she-wolf and her cubs were found close by. She was apparently watching my steps, to see if I were going near her little ones; had I done so she would instantly have attacked me. My friends all congratulated me on my escape, and indeed I had reason to be thankful.

I do not know how true it may be, but wolf-hunters have often told me that the pack is almost always led by a female: that when a he-wolf is killed, the others will frequently stop and devour him; but if a she-wolf fall, they have never been known to do so, and at the cry of a she-wolf hundreds of animals will rush out of the forest to her assistance.

The amusements of the country ladies in the winter are very few—driving out in sledges, practising on the piano, and reading French novels, are the principal ones, now and then varied by a visit to a friend’s house. They find occupation in their household affairs and in embroidery, chiefly in Berlin work.

The gentlemen who are fond of sport make up hunting parties, their game being bears and wolves: the former are hunted out by dogs and peasants and then shot, but there are several ways employed to destroy the latter. Sometimes a dozen sportsmen collect, and all go out in a large sledge capable of containing the whole party: they are well provided with powder and shot, a long rope, a bag of hay, a young pig, and plenty of refreshments to keep them in good humour. When they have reached a part of the country well known as being the resort of wolves they prepare for the sport: the manservant who has charge of the pig gives its tail two or three pulls, which has the desired effect of causing as many loud squeaks; the bag of hay to which the rope is attached is then thrown out behind and trails after the sledge. A few more pulls at the tail and a few more squeaks as they go on cause the rushing sound of wolves to be heard at a distance, and very soon the pack is in sight, all eager to obtain the dainty bit of pork which the sounds warn them must be somewhere near at hand; their peculiar yelp brings others out of the forests, who all join in the pursuit. The repeated squeaks of the poor pig convince them that it is right ahead, and they fancy it must be in the bag of hay, consequently all their efforts are to reach it, whilst as fast as they advance within gunshot they are picked off by the rifles of the hunters: the bodies are left on the snow, but the peasants are sent the next day to pick them up, as their skins are valuable to line cloaks with.

An old gentleman with whom some of my friends were acquainted was so fond of this sport that, even when years had rendered him too feeble to take his place with the others, he often accompanied them in his close carriage, and used to fire upon the wolves from the window. One day he shot an enormous one, that fell, as he thought, dead on the snow: it lay perfectly quiet and motionless; he saw that it was wounded, for its blood had already dyed the ground, and the old sportsman, delighted with his success, descended from his carriage, determined upon seizing his prey to show it as a trophy to his companions, who were now a considerable distance in advance. The cunning wolf let him come quite close without showing the slightest sign of life; he then suddenly sprang up, seized the old gentleman by the throat, and tore it so dreadfully before the coachman could interfere that he expired almost instantly. The animal had, it appears, only been slightly wounded, and was enabled to make good his escape into the forest.

The summer amusements are agreeable in the country, and are enjoyed with greater zest on account of the long dreary winter and the weariness induced by continually gazing on snowy plains during the previous six months. No sooner has the ice disappeared than summer commences; the ground quickly becomes covered with verdure, the trees with foliage, and numberless lilies of the valley and buttercups (but no pink-edged daisies, alas!) are to be seen intermixed with what we call Canterbury-bells and various other wild flowers: even the dog-rose is often met with. There are no hawthorn-bushes, or May-hedges, or honeysuckles, or wild vines, blue-bells, cowslips, or violets, such as we see in the shady lanes of merry England; but the linden-flowers,[10] the white blossoms of the mountain-ash, the bright flowers of the flax-fields, the varied forest tints, from that of the sombre pine to the light birch, the beautiful sky, and the majestic eagle floating magnificently on the air, are sufficient to inspire us with admiration.

Immense quantities of strawberries and raspberries grow wild in Russia, also red and black currants are frequently met with in the woods. In the northern provinces there is a kind of yellow fruit, in shape like a mulberry, called maroshca, which makes an excellent preserve, and is also used medicinally as a remedy for the dropsy. Various wild berries, such as cranberries, bilberries, &c., abound in the forests, and numberless species of mushrooms; of all these they make preserves and pickles, which they use in the long winter-season as a substitute for fresh vegetables. The peasant-women and children gather them in great quantities and carry them about for sale, by which means they obtain a little money for the winter. A party of these villagers, with their prettily-shaped baskets made of birch-bark in their hands, and wearing their national costume, make interesting groups of figures, befitting admirably their native landscape.

There is something quite classic in the Russian dress, and we frequently stood to admire the people at their employment. The straight, half-moon shaped head-dress of the girls is almost a copy of that on Diana’s brow; the narrow band confining the hair of the men could find its counterpart on many antique heads; the closely-setting folds of the women’s sarafane are very like those in Greek paintings and on Etruscan vases; the loose shirts tied round the waist worn by the men, their moustached and bearded faces, look very like the figures on the friezes of the Athenian temples. Perhaps the reader may smile at the idea of comparing the half-civilized boors of Russia with the productions of the celebrated Phidias; but let him see those people in their native villages, not wrapped up in their sheepskin-coats, but in their summer attire, and he will alter his opinion; or let him witness a “chariot-race” between two peasants standing upright in their small country-carts and driving at the top of their horses’ speed, holding the reins with outstretched arms, their heads uncovered, their fine figures clothed in the red or white shirt fluttering in the wind, and their faces, if not classically handsome, not devoid of manly beauty, and say then whether it does not recall to his mind the Greek chariot-races such as were depicted when Greece was Greece.

During the summer the inhabitants of a Russian chÂteau live almost entirely out of doors; they pass their time in sitting under the trees, reading or smoking (for many of the ladies smoke), embroidering, and chatting, or they stroll into the woods in parties to look for mushrooms, which form a favourite dish at their tables. Nothing indeed can be more pleasant than the life at a country-house; everything is easy and without restraint. There is not that splendour and opulence which we see in England; on the contrary, the rooms are but scantily furnished—only what is absolutely necessary for use is kept there, excepting when the family reside entirely on their estates, for the summer season lasts but two or three months in the year, so it would be scarcely worth while to go to the expense and trouble of keeping up an establishment there for the other ten. The peasants have their own recreations, and very often on Sunday afternoon they assemble before the proprietor’s house, all dressed in their best, and dance and sing, not only for their own amusement, but because they think it agreeable to their master and mistress, who, with their family and guests, come out in the balcony to see them, and to scatter apples, sweetmeats, bonbons, and small coin among them, which they are quite as eager to scramble for as so many children.

Some of their dances are extremely pretty, and others are monotonous. I remember at one of the village fÊtes a handsome young girl and a fine-looking man of about twenty-two stepped out from a group of their companions and performed a pas-de-deux, the national dance par excellence.

The girl had on the peculiar head-dress, her long hair hanging in a thick plait down the middle of her back; a crimson silk sarafane trimmed with gold lace and gilt buttons up the front; her white chemise gathered into a band round her shoulders and fastened before, the full sleeves tied up with sky-blue ribbon: gold-embroidered shoes from Tajock completed her costume. Her partner wore a crimson shirt confined with a narrow silver band round the waist (the peasants wear the shirt outside) over very full black velvet inexpressibles, the lower ends thrust into black leather boots. The dance was descriptive of courtship. At first the advances were treated with disdain; the suitor was not discouraged, he still hoped: he again made advances; she began to relent, then seemed pleased; he inspired her with love, but resolved to punish her former contempt with coldness. They at last become reconciled, and, after demonstrating their mutual happiness, the performance finished. Another dance, of which the villagers seemed very fond, was one in which a young man was enclosed in a circle of girls, who all joined hands and prevented him from breaking through the ring.

There is a game they very often used to play called garelki. They stand in a long double column, one pair behind the other, with a single one as leader. On the signal being given he runs forward as fast as he can; the two next endeavour to catch him; he or she that succeeds has him as partner, and the other takes his place, and so on in succession until the whole party are tired.

If this appear too Arcadian a picture, it is at least a true one; but it must be remembered that these are the bright hours of their existence. God knows that they have many a stormy day, full of toil and trouble, suffering and slavery, to counterbalance the few pleasures they have in life, even though they should have the good fortune to be under a kind proprietor, and it is a real happiness to see them joyous and merry sometimes.

The serfs belonging to inhuman and cruel landowners, or ground down by the merciless grasping of a steward, must suffer incredible hardships—they are at the mercy of every one, and find none merciful. I have heard tales of their wrongs and dreadful evils in the provinces that it was impossible to listen to without indignation, and a hearty detestation of those by whom they were inflicted.

A few years ago, during our stay in the country, there was quite a famine in some of the provinces. Now, by the law, each proprietor must have granaries on his estates, and keep a certain quantity of corn in store, in order to be provided against such a misfortune. It was just at the time that England was buying up large provisions of grain for the Irish, and was consequently paying very high prices in foreign markets. The landowners in Russia, tempted by this, actually sent millions of tchetvas of corn out of the country, and left their own people in a state of absolute starvation: they emptied the granaries, and the unhappy serfs were reduced to dreadful extremities. It is true that the crown appoints officers to visit the estates and see that the granaries are filled; but any one who has been in Russia knows well how easy it is to bribe them, and induce them, for the sake of a few roubles, to shut their eyes to abuses and their ears to complaints. If the Emperor could have known it, the poor serfs would have found a protector, but how was he to be informed of it? The officers sent affirmed that the granaries were full, and reported them as such to their superiors. Few of the slaves can ever escape to make their complaints in person, and, even if they should do so, the chances are that their owner has friends at court, who make out that the accusation is false, that the serfs are discontented, lazy, and disobedient, and deserving of punishment. I recollect seeing some slaves once in the country driven to their work by soldiers with bayonets fixed, and they had chains on their legs as if they were common convicts. We were told that they had gone to St. Petersburg to make some complaint; that the Emperor had caused inquiries to be made, and, finding them to blame, had commanded that they should be sent back to the estate and made to work in the condition in which we saw them.

The upper class of the land-proprietors are often estimable people, but there are others unprincipled and immoral, intemperate and debased, unworthy of the position they hold, and of whom fearful and disgusting tales are told enough to make one shudder that they should possess any power over their fellow-creatures. No wonder that the Russians look forward to a revolution, for, let the people be ever so patient, there is a measure of evil which cannot be borne for ever.

Among the upper classes there are several whom I have heard lament the existence of slavery, and express their hope for the time when the name of serf would no longer be known in the land, but they seemed to regard it as a kind of necessary evil in the present condition of the nation. Necessary it can scarcely be. One would think that as, in the course of a few years under the enlightened government of England, the natives of New Zealand were turned into an almost civilized community, the same period of cultivation of the Russian mind would ensure amongst the people as rapid an advance in the march of intelligence and intellect.