I had already accomplished more than a quarter of the distance that separated me from Kazan.
We continued travelling over the Volga. A little before daybreak I was surprised at the strange noise that was being produced by the horses’ feet over the ice: it was no longer the dull, hollow sound that had terrified me at Nijni-Novgorod. It was to me one quite novel, and people generally, especially the most experienced,—a circumstance far from reassuring,—begin to get uneasy at it. This sound seemed to me the most fearful that one could hear on the ice; it was a splashing. I listened in terror; but as my companion had smiled at my first affright at Nijni, I did not venture, till after a long interval, to reveal it to him this time.
Through an excess of amour-propre which I probably now derived from intercourse with Russians, I was just going to allow him to fall off asleep, when I was splashed full in the face, and my terror, excited to its highest pitch, could no longer be smothered. I started up, leaping almost over Constantine, who, to use a Siberian saying, “was snoring enough to frighten the wolves.” It was but a poor resource against actual danger. Whilst I was rousing him, my wits seemed to be going a-wool-gathering; what wonderful feat were they not going to perform in such a peril as this? My imagination in fact, stirred up, no doubt, by the poesy of the journey, brought to my mind Dame Fortune saving the life of a sleeping infant on the brink of a well. The complete absence of wheels, however, soon brought me round to sober reality, and I explained the situation to Constantine with a conciseness that might serve as a model to many an orator. He questioned the yemschik on the matter, who replied with complete indifference: “Yes, sir, it is thawing; but it is merely the snow melting: the ice is just as thick as ever.”
The sky being very cloudy, the night was profoundly dark. Experience principally served to guide the driver in his course, and then the water—a fatal indication, indeed, of the way, when this way is over the bed of a frozen river! I crept back, without saying a word more, into the bottom of the sledge; but I must admit that it seemed to me that the ice successively yielded, cracked, and opened, and then, freezing over again with sufficient thickness, bore us up firmly. What does not the imagination shadow forth to an excited brain?
Gradually, but very gradually, the day came forth, or it would be more exact to say rather a kind of twilight, for a thick fog veiled nearly every object from our eyes. The summits of the hills that continuously command the right bank of the Volga marked a shadow on the horizon barely more sombre. Everything else appeared confounded in a general grey hue, and nothing, not even the shore, could be distinguished. Our ears soon began to catch the ominous sounds of a crackling under the horses’ feet, thereby announcing that the thaw had begun its work, now, indeed, on the ice. Then we could just distinguish very portentous fissures, starting right and left under the passage of the sledge. The yemschik at last, discovering that the situation was becoming perilous, thought it now high time to take precautions. He therefore dashed on as if chased by a pack of famishing wolves as far as the first village, and here we were glad to set foot at last on terra firma.
The following night snow began to fall, to our great discomfiture; for no state of the atmosphere here is so disagreeable to travellers in a sledge only partially closed.
Fatigued by the exciting emotions of the preceding night, and especially by thirty-six hours’ duration of a kind of locomotion to which I was not yet accustomed, I had fallen into a sound sleep. As it was not very cold, Constantine and I had never thought of lowering the canvas that partially closes in the front of the vehicle, and, moreover, we had neglected to take the precaution to cover our faces. But as the warmth of our breath dissolved the flakes that would otherwise have interrupted our respiration, we had scarcely noticed our situation. The snow, indeed, had penetrated and fallen thickly everywhere; our faces even were quite covered; it had insinuated itself in the openings of our dachas, and melting there, saturated our inner mantles: water was now running fast down our necks and sleeves; we were drenched: and it was likely to have been a very serious matter if the cold, which then commenced to make itself felt very acutely, had not roused us from our slumbers. But what a transition was that awakening! My mind, which seemed at first to be wandering far away from actual life, could in no way account for the situation; we opened our eyes, it is true, but were unable to distinguish anything; we felt a load pressing us down everywhere, and yet we were unable to grasp anything. I fancied myself one moment in a delirium and in the next the victim of a vivid nightmare; but the cold at last brought me to my senses. The first thing we did was to urge the yemschik to drive as fast as he could, that we might dry ourselves as soon as possible at the first stage. The wind now turned towards the north, the clouds had dispersed, and a piercing cold benumbed our limbs. Everything was frozen to our garments, which had become to the touch as rigid as tanned hides bristling “like quills upon the fretful porcupine.”
Fortunately, in this plight, the distance that separated us from Kazan was not very great. The surface of the Volga, on which we were enabled to continue our journey at daybreak, contributed very much to shorten the way, and on the 19th of December, about one in the afternoon, we drove into the ancient capital of the Tartars, after having accomplished what they consider in Siberia a short, easy journey.
CHAPTER V.
KAZAN—JOURNEY TO PERM.
The Virgin of Kazan—Russian manner of expressing disapproval—Dining with a grandee—His description of the enfranchisement of the serfs—The Tartars—Journey in a sledge—Caravan of exiles—The Votiaks—Aspect of European Russia.
The city of Kazan is not situated on the banks of the Volga. It stands at the distance of at least half a mile from the left bank of this river.
The day after we arrived here, Constantine introduced me to one of his old college companions, a young man who had just finished his studies in medicine at the university of Kazan. Being desirous of seeing Kazan and its neighbourhood, and this young medical man knowing them well, I begged him to become my guide, which he most courteously consented to do.
We first went to the university, which is celebrated; then to the cathedral, which interested me very much. Its style is different from the Byzantine—a style that obtrudes so often on the eye of the stranger in Russia that he at last gets tired of it; but this cathedral reminds one of certain portions of the ancient Kremlin, and is evidently a construction of a remote period. Its paintings are very crude, as in the early stages of the art, though well-executed specimens of the epoch. Another object that attracted my attention was the high altar in massive silver.
Then we went on a pilgrimage to the Virgin of Kazan, the patron saint of travellers. This virgin was formerly left hanging on a tree in the middle of the forest. There she performed wonderful miracles amid the awestruck peasantry, who made long pilgrimages to obtain pardon of their sins and find favour in her sight. One of the chief bishops of Kazan, touched at her exposure in so wild a spot, ordered her to be conducted to the cathedral, that she might be honoured in a sanctuary worthy of her merits. But on the day following the ceremony the lady excited the greatest wonder and admiration by returning herself to her accustomed place in the forest. It was in vain they led her back three times in a grand procession to the city; for the repeated miracle of her return just as often clearly indicated her will and pleasure. Since the lady would not go to a church, a church was obliged to come to the lady, and one accordingly came, or rather rose, on this privileged spot, and then followed in its wake a monastery which became, after that of Troïtsa, one of the richest in Russia. Then later habitations of the devoted began to cluster around, and now the Virgin of Kazan, whether she likes it or not, is shut up in a city.
This wonderful virgin, the reader will understand, is a little picture, pretty well executed in the Byzantine style and of great antiquity.
As I wished to see this treasure, we went there
