IVAN AT HOME.* ENCOURAGED by the success—a success as great
as it was well deserved—of his former work, Russia in 1870, Mr. Barry has pro- duced a second volume which possesses all the good points of his first, and, we are sorry to add, some of its defects also. He says in his preface, "I must repeat that I do not pretend to any literary talent," but this assertion cannot be allowed to excuse faults of grammar and construction. In the arrangement of his subject- matter, moreover, he seems to have followed no fixed plan, but to have jotted down for a chapter, by mere caprice, whatever hap- pened to surge up first from his memory, or to catch his eye as he turned over the leaves of his note-book. Apart from these blemishes, the book is delightfully amusing, and, what is of more importance, the reader may feel confident that he has nothing put ;before him which the author has not himself heard and seen.
lean at Home is a title suggested, no doubt, by Mr. Sutherland Edwards' Russians at Home, a work which still retains the same
" Ivan at Hoak. By Herbert Barry. London : Publishing Company (Limited).
charming freshness and originality as when it first appeared. Ivan of course is the representative Russian peasant, upon whom the future of Russia must to a great extent depend, and "at home" is just the place where we desire to see him and study him. This is what the doctrinaires and learned pundits who scamper through Russia and then come home and fling a couple of ponder- ous volumes at our heads, crying, "There you will find it all ; I have investigated every subject, and found a solution for every problem ; politics, social questions, religion, commerce, they are all there," have never been able to do for us. But after perusing Mr. Barry's works, we have the impression that we have known Ivan intimately all our lives. We see him in all the simplicity of his nature, and in the curiously contradictory points of his cha- racter. His dog-like fidelity to and affection for his master, his fondness for cunning devices whereby he may overreach and cheat his master, and his utter want of shame when his tricks are found out ; his child-like docility in most matters, and his un- reasoning, invincible obstinacy in others where his prejudices are concerned ; his superstitious reverence for all religious objects, and his utter want of reverence for his priests ; his dogged fatalism and clinging to old precedents, and his wonderful quickness and imitative power when once he has been persuaded to do something or other in a way different from that in which his fathers did it ; his love of idleness and fondness for strong drink, are all set forth here with a fidelity and minuteness that photographs Ivan on our memory for ever.
Mr. Barry does not confine his attention to the peasant alone, but gives us some life-like sketches of other classes and individuals, such as that of the village priest who did not get an opportunity of playing cards often, but when he did, made the most of it by playing day and night, and only pausing in his game when the sacristan came to inform him that the actual moment had arrived for commencing the service in his church. The portrait of the Barrin or landed proprietor of the olden time is extremely good, the type of a class which, fortunately for Russia, is fast dying out of the land. Their luxury and extravagance in living were un- bounded, mutatis mutandis, like those of the Irish gentleman of the last century. They kept open house, and some of their entertain- ments were on the most magnificent scale. Mr. Barry mentions one instance in which a Barrin entertained at his country house for an entire month the whole of the regiment, officers and men, of which he was the colonel. The Barrins never troubled themselves about accounts, and so long as they were supplied with money, they never cared to inquire whence it came or how it was raised. They were robbed and cheated right and left by those about them, so that it was no wonder if, at the end of a few years, the Barrin, once the proprietor of an estate reckoning its acres by millions, found himself without a single kopek.
Of the higher aristocracy Mr. Barry has a very poor opinion, and says that it is a matter for rejoicing that under the new regime they must either mend their ways and become useful members of society or disappear altogether. He says they never read anything but the trashiest and worst French novels, and while giving them full credit for their politeness and hospitality, adds that their education is so superficial as to render them utterly unfit for the practical business of life. He gives the following anecdote of what he terms their ignorance, or rather their stupidity: A nobleman, well known to the author, who had run through a large estate, inherited a small estate, together with a legacy of £2,000. Meeting the Prince some time after, and finding him in his usual impecunious condition, Mr. Barry asked him what had become of his legacy. " Why " he replied, "you know I am very fond of lobsters, and having a river on my estate, I thought I would try and acclimatize that delicacy there ; but unfortunately I have spent all the legacy in the attempt without succeeding. I quite forgot the water was not salt."
Of the official class under the new system Mr. Barry speaks very favourably. They are carefully selected, in the first place, as men of known integrity ; and in the second place, they are paid salaries upon which they can live respectably. The consequence is that, to take the provincial magistrate as an instance, although he does not live so magnificently or give such extravagant enter- tainments on his salary of £500 a year as his predecessor contrived to do on a salary of £40, yet suitors have ample justice done them, and it no longer follows that he who has the longest purse must win. The universal corruption of the officials under the old rggime was one of the greatest curses of the country. Mr. Barry relates a capital anecdote on this subject. Two of the Ministers of the Emperor Nicholas were notorious for their peculations. The Tsar received many hints, but took no notice of them. At last another Minister, who was honest as well as clever, hit upon the following ingenious method of calling his master's attention to the subject. It is the custom among all the higher officials to place aportrait of the reigning sovereign in their principal reception-room. This portrait has the wall to itself, as it is not considered etiquette to hang any other pictures near it. The Emperor Nicholas having intimated to the honest minister his intention of honouring him with a visit on a certain day, the host hung portraits of the two dishonest ministers, one on each side of that of the Tsar. Nicholas came, and at once noticed what had been done, but said nothing, though he seemed ill at ease and uncomfortable. Other guests arrived, and also noticing the alteration, began to talk about it. At last the Emperor, taking his host aside, said, "I see you have been making some alteration in your picture-gallery." "Yes, Sire," replied the Minister, "I have been amusing myself to-day by arranging my idea of a tableau of the Crucifixion." The hint had the desired effect,—one, at least, of the guilty parties sent in his re- signation at once, and the clever contriver of their downfall retained the intimate friendship of the Emperor until his death. Another capi- tal anecdote of Nicholas may as well be given here, though it has nothing to do with the preceding one. The Emperor was exceed- ingly exacting in his demands upon his military couriers. They were required to travel twelve miles an hour, and no longer stoppage was allowed than three minutes for changing horses. No matter how great the distance, on they must go until they had reached their journey's end. One day a courier, the bearer of despatches from the Caucasus, dashed up to the Winter Palace at St. Peters- burg. The Emperor was immediately informed of this arrival, as he was accustomed to receive these despatches from the courier with his own hands. On entering the room where the courier was, he found him lying on the floor fast asleep. He had not slept since he set out on his journey, and now, overcome by fatigue, he seemed to have sunk into a helpless lethargy. He was pulled about and shaken vigorously, but all to no purpose. But this sort of thing would never do ; it was contrary to all etiquette to sleep in the presence of the Tsar under any circumstances whatsoever, and the Tsar himself solved the difficulty. Going up to the courier, he stooped down and whispered in his ear in the language of the post-house starosta, "The horses are ready, Excellency." "All right," shouted the now awakened courier, believing he was still on the road, "drive on and be—." His promotion was rapid from that day.
But to return to the mnjik or peasant, who is the principal figure in Mr. Barry's work. And first as to his superstition and wondrous faith in precedent. No man will start on a journey either on Monday or Friday. No fisherman will cast his net, no fowler will start in pursuit of blackcock, however early they may have made their appearance, before certain fixed days in the calendar. If a lamb be born before one particular date, its owner believes that it will never make mutton. No one will touch an apple before the feast of the Transfiguration on the 6th of August, however ripe and tempting it may be. No woman will bathe before a fixed day in June, however early the season and warm the weather may have been. On this particular day, however, she will bathe even if the water be icy cold, for she believes that the cold has no power to harm her. Another curious belief of hers is that there are only two days of the year on which she can wean her baby ; one in January and one in July. The peasant is a fatalist, and if a fire break out in his village he will certainly remove his goods, taking care to begin with the Holy picture, but he will not make any attempt to extinguish or prevent the spread of the conflagration. Akin to this feeling is his strange disregard for the value of human life. A man reeling drank was seen by numbers of people returning from church to walk deliberately into a lake where he was speedily drowned. No one made any attempt to save him, and when the body was recovered and found to be without a saint's medal round the neck, the only comment was, " Ah 1 no wonder he was drowned!"
On another occasion a man was drowned one dark night in a sluice connected with a lake. At the inquiry held by the mayor as to the cause of death, the watchman at the sluice-house was asked if he had not heard any cries, "Oh yes, I went to the sluice, and asked who it was crying out. The man said he should be drowned. I shouted to him that I could not see him. He cried out again, when I replied, What is the use of your crying out when I cannot, see you, you Mg be a fool!' and so I went into my box and warmed myself, for I was almost frozen standing outside so long."
The mujik's great enemy is the vodka shop, from whence springs nearly all the crime in rural Russia. It is also the receiv- ing-shop for all the stolen goods in the neighbourhood, of which Mr. Barry gives one amusing instance. He fancied the candles supplied to his miners burnt out very quickly, and by way of a teat he buried some pins in the next quantity he served out,—then going to the village vodka shop, he found a large number of his candles with the pins sticking in them. The mujik having made up his mind to get drunk, goes to the proprietor of the vodka shop, and pays beforehand for the number of glasses he thinks will accomplish this desirable object. Mr. Barry mentions as an odd instance of the landlord's idea of fair dealing, that he once saw a peasant who had succumbed before he had drunk the quantity of liquor he had paid for held up by the vodka-seller with one arm, while with the other he poured down his customer's throat the remaining glass which was still due to him. Ivan is fond of drink, and will drink anything ; but he is never quarrelsome in his cups, only oppressively affectionate. It was a charge very generally brought against the Russian soldiers during the occupation of Paris by the Allies that they drank the oil in the street lamps, and Mr. Barry tells an amusing story of a man who had contracted to light a suburb of a large city with petroleum, but who came to the Director of Contracts one morning, and said he must give up his contract and forfeit the " hand-money " paid, since as fast as he filled his lamps with petroleum the mujiks drank it all up.
But our space forbids our quoting any more from the inex- haustible fund of anecdote to be found in this volume. There are many other topics of interest touched upon besides those we have mentioned. Mr. Barry tells us how he went at one time bear- hunting, and at another blackcock shooting when those beautiful birds assembled to show off their love-antics before the females, and how he steamed down the Oka to Nijni Novgorod, and up the Kama,—where he banqueted on sterlet, that daintiest of Russian fish. But this particular sterlet deserves a paragraph to himself. He weighed 28 lb., coat 208.—at St. Petersburg he would have fetched £30—and was supposed by the knowing ones in such matters to be a hundred years old. Mr. Barry journeyed over the Oural Mountains, and saw at one point of the road a plain white marble obelisk with the suggestive words "Europe," "Asia," on different sides. He was very much struck by the superiority of the peasants in Siberia over those in the rest of Russia, and attributes it to the fact that the political exiles have, for a great many years past, found an occupation and amusement in teaching the children of the lower classes.
In taking leave of Mr. Barry, we must compliment him on the handsome manner in which his book is got up. The illustrations are capitally done, extremely life-like, and add much to the value of his work. But we must protest against the cavalier fashion in which he speaks of the way in which he obtained some of them.
"I was anxious to have a few pictures in my book therefore availed myself of the offer of some little girls who pro- posed to attempt to sketch for me scenes so well known to them, and it is to their efforts that I am indebted for the majority of my pictures."
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