1 1
There is one thing more. Twice a week the post from Moscow came to Vyatka. With what excitement I waited near the postoffice while the letters were sorted ! How my heart beat as I broke the seal of my letter from horne and searched inside for a little enclosure, written on thin paper in a wonderfully small and beautiful hand I I did not read that in the post-office. I walked slowly horne, putting off the happy moment and feasting on the thought that the letter was there.
These letters have all been preserved. I left them at Moscow when I quitted Russia. Though I longed to read them over, I was afraid to touch them.
Letters are more than recollections, the very life blood of the past is stored up in them ; they are the past, exactly as it was, preserved from destruction and decay.
Is it really necessary once again to know, to see, to touch with hands which age has covered with wrinkles, what once you wore on your wedding-day ? 4
CHAPTER X
The Crown Prince at Vyatka - The Fall of Tyufyayev - Transferxed to Vladimir - The Inspector's Enquiry
1
TH E Crown Prince 1 is corning to Vyatka ! The Crown Prince is travelling through Russia, to see the country and to be seen himself ! This news was of interest to everyone and of special interest, of course, to the Governor. In his haste and confusion, he issued 4· These letters were from Herzen's cousin, Natalya Zakharin, who became his wife in 1838.
1 . Mterwards Alexander II.
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a number of ridiculous and absurd orders - for instance, that the peasants along the road should wear their holiday caftans, and that all hoardings in the towns should be repainted and all sidewalks mended. A poor widow who owned a smallish house in Orlov informed the mayor that she had no money to repair her sidewalk; the mayor reported this to the Governor, and the Governor ordered the floors of her house to be pulled up - the sidewalks there were made of wood - and, if that was insufficient, repairs were to be done at the public cost and the money to be refunded by the widow, even if she had to sell her house by auction for the purpose. Things did not go to the length of an auction, but the widow's floors were tom up.
2
Fifty versts from Vyatka is the spot where the wonder-working icon of St Nicholas was revealed to the people of Novgorod.
When they moved to Vyatka, they took the icon with them : but it disappeared and turned up again by the Big River, fifty versts away. The people removed it again i but they took a vow that, if the icon would stay with them, they would carry it in solemn procession once a year - on the twenty-third of May, I think - to the Big River. This is the chief summer holiday in the Government of Vyatka. The icon is despatched along the river on a richly decorated barge the day before, accompanied by the Bishop and all the clergy in their full robes. Hundreds of boats of every description, filled with peasants and their wives, native tribesmen and shopkeepers, make up a lively scene, as they sail in the wake of the Saint. In front of all sails the Governor's barge, decorated with scarlet cloth. It is a remarkable sight. The people gather from far and near in tens of thousands, wait on the bank for the arrival of the Saint, and move about in noisy crowds round the little village by the river. It is remarkable that the native Votyaks and Cheremises and even Tatars, though they are not Christians, come in crowds to pray to the icon. The festival, indeed, wears a purely pagan aspect. Natives and Russians alike bring calves and sheep as offerings up to the wall of the monastery ; they slaughter them on the spot, and the Abbot repeats prayers and blesses and consecrates the meat, which is offered at a special window on the inner side of the monastery enclosure. The meat is then distributed to the people. In old times
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it was given away, but nowadays the monks receive a few pence for each piece. Thus the peasant who has presented an entire calf has to spend a trifle in order to get a bit of veal for his own eating. The court of the monastery is filled with beggars, cripples, blind men, and sufferers from all sorts of deformity ; they sit on the ground and sing out in chorus for alms. The gravestones round the church are used as seats by boys, the sons of priests and shopmen ; armed with an ink-bottle, each offers to write out names of the dead, that their souls may be prayed for. 'Who wants names written ? ' they call out, and the women crowd round them and repeat the names. The boys scratch away with their pens with a professional air and repeat the names after them - 'Marya, Marya, Akulina, Stepanida, Father Joann, Matrena - no, no I auntie, half a kopeck is all you gave me; but I can't take less than five kopecks for such a lot - Joann, V asilisa, Iona, Marya, Yevpraxia, and the baby Katerina.'
The church is tightly packed, and the female worshippers differ oddly in their preferences : one hands a candle to · her neighbour with precise directions that it is to be offered to 'the guest', i.e. the Saint who is there on a visit, while another woman prefers 'the host', i.e. the local Saint. During the ceremonies the monks and attendant acolytes from Vyatka are never sober ; they stop at all the large villages along the way, and the peasants stand treat.
This ancient and popular festival was celebrated on the twentythird of May. But the Prince was to arrive on 19 May, and the Governor, wishing to please his august visitor, changed the date of the festival ; what harm could it do, if St Nicholas paid his visit three days too soon ? The Abbot's consent was necessary: but he was fortunately a man of the world and raised no difficulty when the Governor proposed to keep the twenty-third of May on the nineteenth.
3
Instructions of various kinds came from Petersburg ; for instance, it was ordered that each provincial capital should organise an exhibition of the local products and manufactures ; and the animal, vegetable, and mineral products were to be kept separate.
This division into kingdmns perplexed our office not a little, and puzzled even the Governor himself. Wishing not to make mis-
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takes, he decided, in spite of the bad relations between us, to seek my advice. 'Now, honey, for example,' he said, 'where would you put honey ? And that gilt frame - how can we settle where that belongs ? ' My replies showed that I had surprisingly exact information concerning the three natural kingdoms, and he proposed that I should undertake the arrangement of the exhibition.
4
I was still putting in order wooden spoons and native costumes, honey and iron trellis-work, when an awful rumour spread though the town that the Mayor of Orlov had been arrested. The Governor's face turned yellow, and he even seemed unsteady in his gait.
A week before the Prince arrived, the Mayor of Orlov wrote to the Governor that the widow whose floors had been tom up was making a disturbance, and that a rich and well-known merchant of the town declared his intention of telling the whole story to the Prince on his arrival. The Governor dealt very ingeniously with this firebrand ; he recalled with satisfaction the precedent of Petrovsky, and ordered that the merchant, being suspected of insanity, should be sent to Vyatka for examination.