Part 6

Well, it is pleasant, after a long train-ride, to stretch out in a big, if battered, armchair, and sip glasses of anything hot. The little teapot, full of a very strong decoction, is perched on the top of the samovar over its chimney. For a fresh glass you pour out a half-inch of the strong essence, throw in the sugar, and from the samovar’s spigot fill the glass with hot water. It is thus just the strength you personally prefer, and always hot. The samovar, by a judicious regulation of the draft, can be kept for hours exactly at the boil. It is a fine institution, but cannot be transplanted to a country where hot charcoal embers are not constantly available.

Comfortably ensconced and sipping one’s tea, one can leisurely, Russian fashion, think of the most amusing method of passing the time. It is getting on toward evening; for the day fades early here. To-morrow is soon enough to look at things and distribute letters of introduction. The beverage has also blighted the appetite. Perhaps a light supper and an early couch would be wise. The latter in the far room looks singularly unpromising, but, “_Nietchevo!_” It is rather early for dinner or supper, but what of that? As an elusive New York politician used to say to each of the office-seekers who came to ask his influence for nominations, “If you want it, there is no reason why you should not have it.” We will try another summons of the waiter.

Up he comes with the bill of fare printed in Russian and alleged French.

Perhaps some eggs would be good. You decide upon them to begin with, and you will have them poached.

“_Gaspadine_,” he says, “the eggs to-day cannot be poached. Will you not have an omelette instead?”

On second thoughts we will not have eggs at all this time; we will have a sterlet, a small steak, and a compote. He goes off to the nether regions again. A long time passes, but at length he returns with the sterlet, its chisel-shaped nose piercing its tail in true Siberian style. White creamy butter and Franzoski kleb, white bread, round out the course. The steak is excellent and the canned fruit is satisfying, eaten beside the singing samovar in the great room of the main hotel of Irkutsk. Half a dozen letters pass the next hours until it is time to sleep. They are written on the big desk beneath the drop-light, with a glass of tea at one’s elbow in warm cosy comfort.

The place is rather warm, and without any apparent source of heat, for there are no registers or gratings of obvious instrumentality. A search of elimination, like the game in which one is warm, warmer, very hot, leads at length to a rounded corner of porcelain built into the wall, of which only a curved segment shows in an angle of the room. Further inspection reveals that it is a big cylindrical stove fed by somebody in the hallway, and so arranged as to warm two adjoining rooms.

In mitigation of the fire-tender’s zeal, we decide to open a window. Perhaps with an hydraulic jack this might be possible; but to manual labor it is not. A single pane of the inner window, however, swings back, and then we can open a similar pane in the outer window, leaving a hole as big as the port of a ship. It is sufficient in this weather. Some further corridor-shouting, produces, in due time, sheets and blankets, and presently we lie down on the straw mattress in the little wooden-bottomed box called a bed. “_Spacoine notche_,” the attendant calls, and without trace of irony.

It is one thing to go to bed, another to sleep. Tales are told of powder-circled couches which the invaders, surmounting these ramparts by climbing walls, dropped upon from above. There is a legend that there are some people whom they do not bite. “_Nietchevo!_” Is it not Irkutsk, the Paris of Siberia? Why then complain of parasites?

Furthermore, a brass band has started up somewhere in the immediate neighborhood the tune of _Viens poupoule!_ to which there echoes a popular accompaniment of tapped glasses and stamping feet. Perhaps one had better get up and see things after all,--“Needs must when the Devil drives.” We dress again. An exploring expedition reveals the big dining-room on the floor below full to the doors with uniformed officers, long-haired students, and assorted civilians. All are drinking and smoking. On a stage at one end of the room thirty short-skirted damsels are singing and dancing in chorus, to the great approval of the audience. As the curtain rolls down on an act, the _ci-devant_ dancers descend to their friends on the floor. Corks pop, and sweet champagne flows. The call goes up for “_Papirose!_” and more cigarettes and more bottles come thick and fast.

Soon there is an air of subdued expectancy, and eager looks are directed to the curtain. Somebody near by leans close and whispers for your enlightenment, “All-black man!” Out comes an old Southern Negro, who sings to the wondering Russians a Slavonic version of the “Suwanee River,” between verses delivering himself, with many a flourish, of a clog-dance. Johnson is the man’s name. How he drifted so far from Charleston he hardly knows himself. He followed the music-halls to ‘Frisco, and somebody, for whom he “has a razor ready,” told him he would make his fortune in Vladivostok. He kept getting further and further into the interior, picking up the language as he went, and turning his songs into the vernacular. Poor chap, the pathos he puts into the “Suwanee River”! He is thinking, in frozen Irkutsk, of the old Carolina homestead, and is singing and dancing his way back.

A girl in peasant dress takes the stage after “Sambo.” She is singing some song that is running its course across northern Asia. The lassies at the tables and the men join in. Glasses clink and heels tap. The miners who have made their stake, the prospectors who hope to, the sable-merchants of the Yakutsk, the wool-dealers from Mongolia, all meet here as the first place where the rigors of the hinterland can be compensated. It is very gay--very, very gay.

In the years after the ukase of Paul I, ordering that all officers who had made themselves notorious for lack of education or training should be sent to the Siberian garrisons, it may be imagined what a Gomorrah grew up under the Russian banners. Modern celebrations are by comparison mild and temperate, as the cold beyond these double windows is mild and temperate to that outside the Tunguses’ huts, in the Yakutsk Province. But it is fairly impressive, nevertheless.

Even in a Siberian hotel, the world goes to bed sometime. By four o’clock the music has stopped, and the traveler is tired enough to sleep on even the populous plank-bottomed bed. Thus do all things work together to weave the “web of life.”

It is nearing noon when one wakes to eat a combination of breakfast and lunch, and plan for the day. The Post-Office and the Bank are the first material objectives. One must register so that mail may be delivered. We go down and join two companions of the road. With careful directions from the porter, the party prepares for the half-mile walk to the Post-Office. The preliminaries are formidable in themselves. First the felt goloshes must be pulled over the shoes; then the big fur overcoat must be swung on and carefully buttoned down its length. Finally a fur cap, like a grenadier’s, with ear-flaps is tied, and great fleece-lined gloves are donned. The droshky-drivers assembled before the hotel seem to take it as an insult to their profession that we elect to walk, and two or three follow along outside the curb until the group reaches the corner and turns into the main street, Bolshoiskaia.

[Illustration: A CHAPEL BOLSHOISKAIA IN IRKUTSK]

There is an air of placid quiescence at this noon hour. The policeman at the nearest corner is ruminatingly handling his sabre-hilt, and watching the sleighs go by. Here and there a woman, with the ubiquitous gray shawl over her head, passes, with a preoccupied air. Sheepskin-clad mujiks are driving along, with sledge-loads of firewood or stiffly-frozen carcasses, on their way to the bazaar markets. The shop-windows attract our gaze. Here is one with the word “_Apteka_” over the door, which is to say, Apothecary. Benches are set in front of it, on which one may sit and watch the people pass, as in the chairs before a New England country tavern. Further along is a solidly built white department store, the Warsawski Magazine, wherein one can get all manner of apparel,--shawls of the latest Irkutsk pattern, towels and soap, and--most important--blankets for the trip into the interior. We stroll in for a moment. An individual looking like a stalwart Chinaman, with long braided queue, shoulders his way past us to buy some cloth.

“He is a Buriat of the tribe north of Irkutsk,” explains one of the shop-girls, very close herself in type to those seen at Wanamaker’s in Manhattan.

Near-by the imposing magazine is a low one-story booth occupied by a watchmaker. Beyond that is a walled enclosure with lofty gates, as befits a school. Still further is the yellow and green sign of a government liquor-_traktir_. The name is said to be derived from the French word _traiteur_, which was current in the days when Napoleon and Bourrienne were planning conquests in their Parisian poverty.

As we turn up a side street, the shops for the poorer people appear. Gaudy pictures, of packages of tea, vegetables, and sugar-loaves, illuminate the walls, to tell the unlettered that groceries are sold within. Saws and hammers and vises are painted on the walls of the hardware-shops. Loaves of bread, crescent rolls, and rococo wedding-cakes decorate a bakery; boots and high-heeled slippers, a shoemaker’s booth. The street is an open-air gallery of rude frescoes.

Presently we come to residences, some of cement-covered brick, with high enclosing whitewashed walls and iron gates, some wooden, with their rough-hewn logs unpainted save for the brilliant white sills and window-frames.

At length, far from the town’s busy district, the Post-Office is reached. The building is thronged. Two soldiers are loading their saddle-bags with the mail for the regiment. Women are collecting money-orders. A crowd waits at the window of the girl who sells stamps. In rushing industry she makes the calculating beads of her abacus fly across the wires. Everybody is far too occupied to register a voyageur’s name,--excepting always the half-dozen soldiers posted in different parts of the room and leaning stolidly upon their bayonets. We venture to ask one of them which is the registry window.

“_Russisch verstehe ich nicht_,” is the answer.

A Siberian post-guard knowing no Russian and answering in German seems extraordinary.

“Where are you from?” we inquire in his native tongue.

“Courland,” he answers,--“Courland by the Baltic.”

This city of Irkutsk gave trouble in 1905. If it gives trouble again, the garrison will be safe.

The registering at length is done and we turn to go out. A tattered figure, bearded and haggard, with rags bound on his feet, opens the outer door.

“Will the _gaspadine_ help a man get back to Russia?”

Your companion looks closely at him.

“A convict! very bad people.” He adds: “There is a murder every day here, and one cannot safely go out at night. Very bad men!”

With the contradictory charity that is so typical of the Russian, he fumbles in his pocket and gives the unfortunate a fifty-kopeck piece.

We go now to the great market-place and the bazaars. Here where we enter is a row of hardware-shops. In the first booth a string of kettles hangs down, and knives, spoons, candlesticks, and hammers are suspended so as to catch the eye. The proprietor stands outside, chatting with a passer-by and the tenant of the adjoining booth. Further on are stationers, with tables of cheap-covered books. The wall of one is decked with chromos of galloping Cossacks, led by a long-haired pope with a crucifix. The soldiers are sabring fleeing Japanese, and red blood is lavishly provided. On the opposite wall are glittering brass and silver ikons, and lithographs of ancient martyrdom.

Row upon row of red felt boots hang in the next line of booths, and in still another--the wooden-ware bazaar--are bowls and spoons, and platters of high and low degree. Further on a dozen women are grouped around one of their class, who is bargaining for a huge forequarter of beef, a full _pud_ weight by the big lever scales that are balancing it.

“_Dorogo! dorogo!_” (Too dear, too dear!) she cries. “I will give eight kopecks a pound.”

The market-woman protests that she will be beggared at less than eleven kopecks.

A half-_sotnia_ of little Buriat Cossacks come riding by, clad in their puffy leather _shubas_. Yellow-topped fur caps are their only uniform garment, and across their backs are hung the carbines. They make merry at the haggling women. Two swing off their shaggy ponies, and begin in turn to bargain in broken Russian for some paper-wrapped sweetmeats. They close the deal finally, tuck these away, toss themselves back into position, and ride off. Further along, half a dozen men cluster around a fur-cap seller. He is a merry fellow, and there is much noise and banter and gossiping. Such is the bazaar, the Forum of old Rome set down in a Siberian city.

[Illustration: THE BAZAAR, IRKUTSK]

A short further stroll, and the party is at your other objective, the Bank. You take leave of the rest and enter. At the door, a grandly uniformed porter helps you off with the outer husk of furs, and motions you into the outer office, with its half-dozen clerks bending over sloping desks. One of these takes your card, and returning leads the way to a capacious sitting-room, with armchairs scattered here and there, pictures on the wall, magazines of many nations on the centre table. The American typewriter, which alone betrays that this is an office, is on a little table at one side. A tall military-looking man, gray-mustached and grave in manner, is seated beside the window reading some documents. He rises as you enter, and greets you, and for some minutes the conversation in French is upon general themes. Presently you go down into a side pocket and get out letters of introduction. One is from the Petersburg headquarters. He looks at the signature--Ignatieff.

“You are his friend?” The polished worldliness falls away as a cloak that is thrown off. “Splendid!” he says. “Welcome to our city. We must have tea.” He pushes a bell, and a page, red-bloused and wearing brightly polished jack-boots, appears. “_Chai_, Alexis,” he orders. “And how did you leave Ignatieff?” he begins eagerly. “Does he still drive his black stallions? It is two years that I have not seen him. When I was in Petersburg last winter, he was in Paris, and when I was in Paris, he was at Nice. One is very separated from his friends here. One might as well be a convict.”

You answer all his questions, and begin to feel as if you were at a little family party. Presently, in the midst of the double conversation,--for the Russians seem to talk and listen at the same time,--the boy comes in with a big samovar, and the other accompaniments. The banker makes the brew in the china pot. From this each of us serves himself as the compound conversation moves on.

“You have not yet seen the sights of Irkutsk?” he observes at last. “I will get my sleigh and show you around when we have finished.”

“It is the middle of the day. I cannot break into your work like that,” you protest.

But he rings a bell for the red-jacketed boy. “Order my sleigh.--We have the finest city in Siberia,” he continues; “eighty thousand people now, and growing always. And trade has come with the railroad as we had not dreamed before. In the days when they used to bring the tea overland from Kiahta, the sledges from Baikal would carry as many as five thousand bales daily. We thought when this began to be shipped through by the railroad that it would hurt the city. But there was so much other traffic that the loss was hardly felt.”

“The sleigh is ready,” the boy announces.

“May I have the honor?” he says, with his easy grace.

He leads the way to the coat-rack, and is received with the deepest bows by the uniformed worthy, who solicitously helps him on with his coat and overshoes. Then with a stereotyped motion the man holds out his hand for the tip. Though this servant is at the door of the banker’s own office and presumably upon his pay-roll, the incessant tribute is his perquisite. It is usual throughout Siberia for wealthy Russians to scatter small silver everywhere along their path--to friends’ servants, to house-porters, to beggars on the street. The most profuse miscellaneous generosity prevails. Riding to-day with the Russian banker is like watching the progress of a mediæval prince dispensing his largesse.

At the entrance to the bank is the sleigh, skeleton-framed and high-built, unlike most of the sleighs of Siberia. Three big black horses, with the snake-like Arab head that characterizes the best Orloff strains, are hitched to it, troika-fashion, the centre horse under a big bow yoke, the outside animals running free. The coachman has the square pillow-hat, and the enormous wadded corpulence of Jehu elegance.

It is an interesting ride in which we move slowly up the Bolshoiskaia, receiving, so far as the banker is concerned, neighborly greetings from most of the sleigh-riders, and respectful salutes from the foot-passers on the sidewalks. A nice social distinction our host draws in returning the formal salute for uniformed officials, the cordial wave of the hand for intimate friends, a nod for the humbler acquaintances: but none go unrecognized.

Something like the Roman’s idea of showing his city by turns up and down the Corso, is this Siberian’s. We do halt, however, and look at the big Opera House and the Geographical Society’s Museum and the many-domed Cathedral,--buildings which in no city would be other than sources of satisfaction. After an hour of driving in the piercing cold, one’s conscience begins to prick. The banker, even though absent from his affairs, does not appear to feel either business or atmosphere. At length we are brought at a gallop to the doorstep of the hotel.

“To-night we dine at eight. Adieu.” With a bow he draws the bearskin robes about him, and the black horses bear him swiftly around the corner.

An acquaintance from the train is in the hallway as you climb stiffly up the steps.

“Has the drive been a bit cold?” he asks. “Come in and have a _stakan_ of vodka.”

“Is that not rather heady for a between-meal tipple?” you suggest.

“This is Siberia. When you run with the wolves, you must cry like a wolf,--but tea, too, is good.”

You mount the stairs together, to the scene of last night’s orgy, and order a couple of glasses of tea.

It is a strange anticlimax to find the room so deserted. At three this morning it was a good imitation of the traditional “Maxim’s.” At four in the afternoon it is simply a crude wooden hall, with the stiff-backed, plush-seated chairs ranged in bourgeois regularity at the discreetly covered tables. Only the shuffle of somebody practicing a new step on the stage behind the curtains suggests the double life of this innocent-looking hotel dining-room.

A couple of glasses of tea attack the cold in strategic fashion, from the inside, and are better than the external reheating method. We sip in silence for a while.

“I am going to drive over to the Banno and have a Russian bath,” observes your companion. “I do not like the tin tub they bring around here at the hotel. Are you impelled to come along?”

“Is there attendance and room for two? I’m not minded to sit around and wait.”

“Room for five hundred,” he says, with a long sweep of the hand. “Everybody goes there. It is one of the institutions of the city.”

As you are now warm enough to consider a further drive, you go down to assist in bargaining for a sleigh to make the tour to and from the Banno.

A big brick building a verst or so away, with a number of private equipages and a stand for public sleighs and droshkys, is our destination. A beggar-woman opens the double doors and gets her service percentage from each passer.

“How much is given in this part of the world to beggars!” you remark.

The Russian smiles. “It is a part of religion to give. At every big family affair,--a wedding, a christening, a funeral,--we distribute money and gifts to the poor.”

In the entresol of the bath-house, a big tiled anteroom, there are marble-topped tables, around which men and women are smoking and reading papers. One can dine here, even; but this comes after the bath. A ticket at the _kontora_ gives, for a rouble, the privilege of a preliminary boiling and a flaying by one of the naked attendants. A start is made by washing you with infinite thoroughness, section by section, the attendant continuing on each spot until told to stop or advance to the next. An unfortunate foreigner, in Irkutsk, had his head shampooed seven times in succession before he could recall the cabalistic word necessary to direct the man’s attention elsewhere.

One is scrubbed and rinsed, and is then conducted up onto a wooden platform, running along under the ceiling. Here, while the first inquisitioner dashes water on a steamer-oven below, the second scrapes the victim with new pine branches. One remembers an Irkutsk Russian bath at least as long as the smarting and the cold he gets from it endure.

Back at the hotel one can dig out his rather crumpled dress-suit in preparation for the evening’s entertainment. Later, he gathers in another sleigh, and sets out for the home of the banker.

In Irkutsk nobody relies on house-numbers to find his way. Even Moscow has not yet advanced to this refinement of civilization. If the driver does not know the route, he stops to ask passers-by, “Where is So-and-So’s house?” Again and again you are taken to the abode of somebody else with a name more or less similar. Then the driver will say, quite nonchalantly, “_Nietchevo!_”--ask the next person he encounters for directions, and start anew. You leave abundant margin of time, and usually arrive sooner or later.

Our host of to-night is, happily, well known throughout the city. So the driver whips up to a gallop and rushes down the snowy streets. It is not a long ride to the big arched doorway of the white two-storied plaster-covered house, in front of which the driver pulls up with a flourish. You ring a bell at the side of the door and wait. The _isvoschik_ has taken a station beside the curb, has folded his arms, and is nodding on the box, apparently prepared to camp there indefinitely. “Eleven o’clock, return,” you say. “_Haracho!_” is his drowsy answer, given without moving. The horses have drooped their heads; they too are settled for repose. The tinkle of a piano comes from within, but minute after minute goes by, the bell unanswered, the _isvoschik_ immovable on his little seat. Other pulls of the bell are at last of avail: the door slowly opens. A final objurgation to the coachman that he is not wanted until eleven o’clock falls on sealed ears. You go in through the massive doorway.