LITMIR.BIZ

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but it would be all the same to this astute and cautious calculator – facts can only reach his understanding through the colored balls of his beloved schot. I don’t think he would rely with certainty upon the loose verbal statement that two and two make four without resorting to the schot for a verification. But to proceed:

      A few of the guests, too far gone with “little water” to get up and perform their devotions, rolled over on the floor and went to sleep. The lights grew dim. A gloomy silence began to settle over the room, interrupted only by the occasional grunting or snoring of the sleepers. The ruffians who sat at the table with me had been nodding for some time; but, roused by the cessation of noises, they called to the man of the house, and in a low voice gave him some orders. He got a light and opened a small door in a recess at one side of the room. I was then lifted up by the others and carried into an adjoining passage, and thence up a narrow stairway. In a large dingy room overhead I could see by the flickering rays of the lamp a bed in one corner. It was not very clean – none of the Russian beds are – but they laid me in it, nevertheless, for I could offer no remonstrance. What they had hitherto done was bad enough, but this capped the climax of outrages. Were the cowardly villains afraid to murder me, and was this their plan of getting it done, and at the same time getting rid of the body? Great heavens! was I to be devoured piecemeal by a rapacious horde of the wild beasts that are said to infest the Russian beds! And utterly helpless, too, without the power to grapple with as much as a single flea – the least formidable, perhaps, of the entire gang! It was absolutely fearful to contemplate such an act of premeditated barbarity; yet what could I do, unable to speak a word or move a limb.

      I am reminded by this that the Russians derive the most striking features of their civilization from the French and Germans. Their fashions, their tailors, their confectioners, their perfumeries, their barbers, are nearly all French or Germans; but their baths are a national institution, derived originally, perhaps, from the Orientals. We hear a good deal of Russian baths, especially from enthusiastic travelers, and are apt to suppose that where such a thorough system of scrubbing and boiling prevails, the human cuticle must present a very extraordinary aspect of cleanliness. Perhaps this is so in certain cases, but it is not a national characteristic. A Russian bath, in the genuine style, is rather a costly luxury. There are, to be sure, in St. Petersburg and Moscow, public bath-houses for the rabble, where the filthiest beggar can be boiled out and scrubbed for a few kopeks; but people who wear a coating of dirt habitually must become attached to it in the course of time, and hate very much to dispose of it at any price. At least there seemed to be a prejudice of this kind in Moscow, where the affection with which this sort of overlining is preserved is quite equal to that with which the Germans adhere to their old household furniture. It may be, perhaps, that the few summer months which they enjoy are insufficient for the removal of all the strange things that accumulate upon the body during the long winters. The poorer classes seldom remove their furs or change their clothing till warm weather and the natural wear and tear of all perishable things cause them to drop off of their own accord. I have seen on a scorching hot day men wrapped in long woolen coats, doubled over the breast and securely fastened around the waist, and great boots, capacious enough and thick enough for fire-buckets, in which they were half buried, strolling lazily along in the sun, as if they absolutely enjoyed its warmth; and yet these very articles of clothing, with but little addition, must have borne the piercing winds of midwinter. A suspicion crossed my mind that they were trying in this way to bag a little heat for winter use, as the old burghers of Schilda bagged the light to put in their town hall because they had no windows. These strange habits must have something to do with the number of ferocious little animals – I will not degrade their breed and variety by calling them, vermin – which infest the rooms and beds. But the Russian skin is like Russian leather – the best and toughest in the world. Something in the climate is good for the production of thick and lasting cuticles. It is doubtless a wise provision of nature, based upon the extremes of heat and cold to which these people are exposed. There is no good reason why animals with four feet should be more favored in this respect than bipeds. I doubt if an ordinary Russian would suffer the slightest inconvenience if a needle were run into the small of his back. All those physical torments which disturb thin-skinned people from other countries are no torments at all to him; and I incline to the opinion that it is the constant experience he enjoys in a small way that enables him to endure the wounds received in battle with such wonderful stoicism. A man can carry a bull if he only commences when the animal is young. Why not, on the same principle, accustom himself to being stabbed every night till he can quietly endure to be run through with a bayonet? The Russian soldiers possess wonderful powers of passive endurance. Being stabbed or cut to pieces is second nature to them – they have been accustomed to it, in a degree, from early infancy. Who does not remember how they were hewed and hacked down in the Crimean War, and yet came to life again by thousands after they were given up for dead? Perhaps no other soldiers in the world possess such stoicism under the inflictions of pain. They stand an enormous amount of killing; more so, I think, than any other people, unless it may be the Irish, who, at the battle of Vinegar Hill, in the rebellion of ’98, were nearly all cut to pieces and left for dead on the field, but got up in a day or two after and went at it again as lively as ever. This, however, was not owing to the same early experience, but to the healthy blood made of potatoes, with a slight sprinkling of Irish whisky. In fine, I don’t think a genuine Muscovite could sleep without a bountiful supply of vermin to titillate his skin any more than a miller bereft of the customary noise of his hoppers.

      Which brings me back again to the adventure. On that filthy bed the ruffians laid me down to be devoured by the wild beasts by which it was infested. Then they turned about to a shrine that stood in a corner of the room, and each one bowed down before it three times and crossed himself, after which they all left the room and quietly closed the door behind them. I was penetrated with horror at the thought of the terrible death before me, but not so much as to avoid noticing that the chief furniture of the room consisted of a stove in one corner, of cylindrical form, made of terra-cotta or burnt clay, and glazed outside. It was colored in rather a fanciful way, like queensware, and made a conspicuous appearance, reaching from the floor to the ceiling. This was the genuine Russian stove, with which these people no doubt kept themselves warm during the winter. The windows are composed of double glasses, and between the sashes the space is filled with sand to keep out the air, so that to be hermetically sealed up is one of necessities of existence in this rigorous climate. While I was pondering over the marvelous fact that people can live by breathing so many thousand gallons of air over and over so many thousand times, a whole legion of fleas, chinches, and other animals of a still more forbidding aspect commenced their horrid work, and would probably soon have made an end of me but for a new turn in this most extraordinary affair. The door gently opened. A figure glided in on tiptoe. It was that of a female, I knew by the grace and elegance of her motions, even before I could see her face or trace the undulating outline of her form in the dim light that pervaded the room. My senses were acutely alive to every movement, yet I was utterly unable to move, owing to the infernal drug with which they had dosed me. The woman, or rather girl – for she could not have been over eighteen or nineteen – cautiously approached the bed, with her finger to her lips, as if warning me not to speak. She was very beautiful – I was not insensible to that fact. Her features were wonderfully aristocratic for one in her position, and there was something in the expression of her dark, gleaming eyes peculiarly earnest and pathetic. Her hair was tossed wildly and carelessly back over her shoulders – she had evidently just risen from bed, for her costume consisted of nothing more than a loose night-wrapper, which fell in graceful folds around her limbs, revealing to great advantage the exquisite symmetry of her form. I was certain she did not belong to the house. Approaching timidly, yet with a certain air of determination, she bent down and gazed a moment in my face, and then hurriedly whispered in French, “Now is the time – let us escape! They lie sleeping by the door. A servant whom I bribed has disclosed the fact of your capture to me; I also am a prisoner in this horrid den. Will you save me? Oh, will you fly with me?” Of course, being unable to move a muscle, except those of my eyes, I could not open my mouth to utter a word in reply. The unhappy young woman looked profoundly distressed that I should thus gaze at her in silence. “Oh, what am I to do? Who will save me?” she cried, wringing her hands in the deepest anguish: “I have not a friend upon earth!” Then, clasping me by the hand, she looked in my face appealingly, and said, “Monsieur, I know you are a Frenchman. I

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