Among the wild creatures in our host's great forests were hares, wolves, moose, and bears. The moose had retreated, for the hot weather, to the lakes on the Crown lands adjacent, to escape the maddening attacks of the gadflies. Though it was not the hungry height of the season with the wolves, there was always an exciting possibility of encountering a stray specimen during our strolls, and we found the skull and bones of a horse which they had killed the past winter. From early autumn these gray terrors roam the scene of our mushroom-parties, in packs, and kill cattle in ill-protected farmyards and children in the villages.
It was too early for hare-coursing or wolf-hunting, but feathered game was plentiful. Great was the rivalry in "bags" between our host and the butler, a jealously keen sportsman. His dog, Modistka (the little milliner), had taught the clever pointer Milton terribly bad tricks of hunting alone, and was even initiating her puppies into the same evil ways. When "Monsieur, Madame, and Bébé" returned triumphantly from the forest with their booty, and presented it to their indignant masters, there were fine scenes! Bébé and his brothers of the litter were so exactly alike in every detail that they could not be distinguished one from the other. Hence they had been dubbed tchinovniki (the officials), a bit of innocent malice which every Russian can appreciate.
Of the existence of bears we had one convincing glimpse. We drove off, one morning, in a drizzling rain, to picnic on a distant estate of our host, in a "red" or "beautiful" forest (the two adjectives are synonymous in Russian), which is composed entirely of pines. During our long tramp through a superb growth of pines, every one of which would have furnished a mainmast for the largest old-fashioned ship, a bear stepped out as we passed through a narrow defile, and showed an inclination to join our party. The armed Russian and Mordvinian foresters, our guides and protectors, were in the vanguard; and as Misha seemed peaceably disposed we relinquished all designs on his pelt, consoling ourselves with the reflection that it would not be good at this season of the year. We camped out on the crest of the hill, upon a huge rug, soft and thick, the work of serfs in former days, representing an art now well-nigh lost, and feasted on nut-sweet crayfish from the Volga, new potatoes cooked in our gypsy kettle, curds, sour black bread, and other more conventional delicacies. The rain pattered softly on us,-we disdained umbrellas,-and on the pine needles, rising in hillocks, here and there, over snowy great mushrooms, of a sort to be salted and eaten during fasts. The wife of the priest, who is condemned to so much fasting, had a wonderfully keen instinct for these particular mushrooms, and had explained to us all their merits, which seemed obscure to our non-fasting souls. Our Russian forester regaled us with forest lore, as we lay on our backs to look at the tops of the trees. But, to my amazement, he had never heard of the Leshi and the Vodyanoi, the wood-king and water-king of the folk-tales. At all events, he had never seen them, nor heard their weird frolics in the boughs and waves. The Mordvinian contributed to the entertainment by telling us of his people's costumes and habits, and gave us a lesson in his language, which was of the Tatar-Finnish variety. Like the Tchuvashi and other tribes here on the Volga, the Mordvinians furnish pleasurable excitement and bewilderment to ethnographists and students of religions.
These simple amusements came to an end all too soon, despite the rain. We were seized with a fancy to try the peasant telyega for the descent, and packed ourselves in with the rug and utensils. Our Mordvinian, swarthy and gray-eyed, walked beside us, casting glances of inquiry at us, as the shaggy little horse plunged along, to ascertain our degrees of satisfaction with the experiment. He thrust the dripping boughs from our faces with graceful, natural courtesy; and when we alighted, breathless and shaken to a pulp, at the forester's hut, where our carriages awaited us, he picked up the hairpins and gave them to us gravely, one by one, as needed. We were so entirely content with our telyega experience that we were in no undue haste to repeat it. We drove home in the persistent rain, which had affected neither our bodies nor our spirits, bearing a trophy of unfringed gentians to add to our collection of goldenrod, harebells, rose-colored fringed pinks, and other familiar wild flowers which reminded us of the western hemisphere.
The days were too brief for our delights. In the afternoons and evenings, we took breezy gallops through the forests, along the boundary sward of the fields, across the rich black soil of that third of the land which, in the "three-field" system of cultivation, is allowed to lie fallow after it has borne a crop of winter grain, rye, and one of summer grain, oats. We watched the peasants plowing or scattering the seed-corn, or returning, mounted side-saddle fashion on their horses, with their primitive plows reversed. Only such rich land could tolerate these Adam-like earth-scratchers. As we met the cows on their way home from pasture, we took observations, to verify the whimsical barometer of the peasants; and we found that if a light-hued cow headed the procession the next day really was pretty sure to be fair, while a dark cow brought foul weather. As the twilight deepened, the quail piped under the very hoofs of our horses; the moon rose over the forest, which would soon ring with the howl of wolves; the fresh breath of the river came to us laden with peculiar scents, through which penetrated the heavy odor of the green-black hemp.
One day the horses were ordered, as usual. They did not appear. The cavalryman who had been hired expressly to train them had not only neglected his duty, but had run away, without warning, to reap his own little field, in parts unknown. He had carefully observed silence as to its existence, when he was engaged. This was item number one. Item number two was that there was something the matter with all the horses, except Little Boy, Little Bird, and the small white Bashkir horse from the steppes, whose ear had been slit to subdue his wildness. The truth was, the steward's young son had been practicing high jumping, bareback, in a circus costume of pink calico shirt and trousers, topped by his tow-colored hair. We had seen this surreptitious performance, but considered it best to betray nothing, as the lad had done so well in the village school that our hosts were about to send him to town, to continue his studies at their expense.
The overseer, another soldier, was ordered to don his uniform and accompany us. He rebelled. "He had just got his hair grown to the square state which suited his peasant garb, and it would not go with his dragoon's uniform in the least. Why, he would look like a Kazak! Impossible, utterly!" He was sternly commanded not to consider his hair; this was not the city, with spectators. When he finally appeared, in full array, we saw that he had applied the shears to his locks, in a hasty effort to compromise between war and peace without losing the cut. The effect was peculiar; it would strike his commanding officer dumb with mirth and horror. He blushed in a deprecating manner whenever we glanced at him.
There was a bath-house beside the river. But a greater luxury was the hot bath, presided over by old Alexandra. Alexandra, born a serf on the estate, was now like a humble member of the family, the relations not having changed, perceptibly, since the emancipation, to the old woman's satisfaction. She believed firmly in the Domovoi (the house sprite), and told wonderful tales of her experiences with him. Skepticism on that point did not please her. When the horses were brought round with matted manes, a sign of an affectionate visit from the Domovoi, which must not be removed, under penalty of his displeasure, it was useless to tell Alexandra that a weasel had been caught in the act, and that her sprite was no other. She clung to her belief in her dreaded friend.
The bath was a small log house, situated a short distance from the manor. It was divided into anteroom, dressing-room, and the bath proper. When we were ready, Alexandra, a famous bath-woman, took boiling water from the tank in the corner oven, which had been heating for hours, made a strong lather, and scrubbed us soundly with a wad of linden bast shredded into fibres. Her wad was of the choicest sort; not that which is sold in the popular markets, but that which is procured by stripping into rather coarse filaments the strands of an old mat-sack, such as is used for everything in Russia, from wrappers for sheet iron to bags for carrying a pound of cherries. After a final douche with boiling water, we mounted the high shelf, with its wooden pillow, and the artistic part of the operation began. As we lay there in the suffocating steam, Alexandra whipped us thoroughly with a small besom of birch twigs, rendered pliable and secure of their tender leaves by a preliminary plunge in boiling water. When we gasped for breath, she interpreted it as a symptom of speechless delight, and flew to the oven and dashed a bucket of cold water on the red-hot stones placed there for the purpose. The steam poured forth in intolerable clouds; but we submitted, powerless to protest. Alexandra, with all her clothes on, seemed not to feel the heat. She administered a merciless yet gentle massage to every limb with her birch rods,-what would it have been like if she had used nettles, the peasants' delight?-and rescued us from utter collapse just in time by a douche of ice-cold water. We huddled on all the warm clothing we owned, were driven home, plied with boiling tea, and put to bed for two hours. At the end of that time we felt made over, physically, and ready to beg for another birching. But we were warned not to expose ourselves to cold for at least twenty-four hours, although we had often seen peasants, fresh from their bath, birch besom in hand, in the wintry streets of the two capitals.