I ought to like Russia better than I do,if only for the sake of the many good friends I am proud to possess amongst the Russians.Alarge square photograph I keep always on my mantel-piece;it helps me to maintain my head at that degree of distention necessary for the performance of all literary work.It presents in the centre a neatly-written address in excellent English that I frankly confess Iam never tired of reading,around which are ranged some hundreds of names I am quite unable to read,but which,in spite of their strange lettering,I know to be the names of good Russian men and women to whom,a year or two ago,occurred the kindly idea of sending me as a Christmas card this message of encouragement.The individual Russian is one of the most charming creatures living.If he like you he does not hesitate to let you know it;not only by every action possible,but,by what perhaps is just as useful in this grey old world,by generous,impulsive speech.
We Anglo-Saxons are apt to pride ourselves upon being undemonstrative.Max Adeler tells the tale of a boy who was sent out by his father to fetch wood.The boy took the opportunity of disappearing and did not show his face again beneath the paternal roof for over twenty years.Then one evening,a smiling,well-dressed stranger entered to the old couple,and announced himself as their long-lost child,returned at last.
"Well,you haven't hurried yourself,"grumbled the old man,"and blarm me if now you haven't forgotten the wood."I was lunching with an Englishman in a London restaurant one day.Aman entered and took his seat at a table near by.Glancing round,and meeting my friend's eyes,he smiled and nodded.
"Excuse me a minute,"said my friend,"I must just speak to my brother--haven't seen him for over five years."He finished his soup and leisurely wiped his moustache before strolling across and shaking hands.They talked for a while.Then my friend returned to me.
"Never thought to see him again,"observed my friend,"he was one of the garrison of that place in Africa--what's the name of it?--that the Mahdi attacked.Only three of them escaped.Always was a lucky beggar,Jim.""But wouldn't you like to talk to him some more?"I suggested;"I can see you any time about this little business of ours.""Oh,that's all right,"he answered,"we have just fixed it up--shall be seeing him again to-morrow."I thought of this scene one evening while dining with some Russian friends in a St.Petersburg Hotel.One of the party had not seen his second cousin,a mining engineer,for nearly eighteen months.They sat opposite to one another,and a dozen times at least during the course of the dinner one of them would jump up from his chair,and run round to embrace the other.They would throw their arms about one another,kissing one another on both cheeks,and then sit down again,with moist eyes.Their behaviour among their fellow countrymen excited no astonishment whatever.
But the Russians's anger is as quick and vehement as his love.On another occasion I was supping with friends in one of the chief restaurants on the Nevsky.Two gentlemen at an adjoining table,who up till the previous moment had been engaged in amicable conversation,suddenly sprang to their feet,and "went for"one another.One man secured the water-bottle,which he promptly broke over the other's head.His opponent chose for his weapon a heavy mahogany chair,and leaping back for the purpose of securing a good swing,lurched against my hostess.
"Do please be careful,"said the lady.
"A thousand pardons,madame,"returned the stranger,from whom blood and water were streaming in equal copiousness;and taking the utmost care to avoid interfering with our comfort,he succeeded adroitly in flooring his antagonist by a well-directed blow.
A policeman appeared upon the scene.He did not attempt to interfere,but running out into the street communicated the glad tidings to another policeman.
"This is going to cost them a pretty penny,"observed my host,who was calmly continuing his supper;"why couldn't they wait?"It did cost them a pretty penny.Some half a dozen policemen were round about before as many minutes had elapsed,and each one claimed his bribe.Then they wished both combatants good-night,and trooped out evidently in great good humour and the two gentlemen,with wet napkins round their heads,sat down again,and laughter and amicable conversation flowed freely as before.
They strike the stranger as a childlike people,but you are possessed with a haunting sense of ugly traits beneath.The workers--slaves it would be almost more correct to call them--allow themselves to be exploited with the uncomplaining patience of intelligent animals.
Yet every educated Russian you talk to on the subject knows that revolution is coming.
But he talks to you about it with the door shut,for no man in Russia can be sure that his own servants are not police spies.I was discussing politics with a Russian official one evening in his study when his old housekeeper entered the room--a soft-eyed grey-haired woman who had been in his service over eight years,and whose position in the household was almost that of a friend.He stopped abruptly and changed the conversation.So soon as the door was closed behind her again,he explained himself.
"It is better to chat upon such matters when one is quite alone,"he laughed.
"But surely you can trust her,"I said,"She appears to be devoted to you all.""It is safer to trust no one,"he answered.And then he continued from the point where we had been interrupted.