Russian Fairy Tales | Page 6

of the greatest interest to a foreigner they never touch. There is very
little information to be gleaned from them, for instance, with regard to
the religious views of the people, none with respect to the relations
which, during the times of serfdom, existed between the lord and the
thrall. But from the casual references to actual scenes and ordinary
occupations which every here and there occur in the descriptions of
fairy-land and the narratives of heroic adventure--from the realistic
vignettes which are sometimes inserted between the idealized portraits
of invincible princes and irresistible princesses--some idea may be
obtained of the usual aspect of a Russian village, and of the ordinary
behavior of its inhabitants. Turning from one to another of these
accidental illustrations, we by degrees create a mental picture which is
not without its peculiar charm. We see the wide sweep of the level
corn-land, the gloom of the interminable forest, the gleam of the slowly
winding river. We pass along the single street of the village, and glance
at its wooden barn-like huts,[14] so different from the ideal English
cottage with its windows set deep in ivy and its porch smiling with
roses. We see the land around a Slough of Despond in the spring, an
unbroken sea of green in the early summer, a blaze of gold at

harvest-time, in the winter one vast sheet of all but untrodden snow. On
Sundays and holidays we accompany the villagers to their white-walled,
green-domed church, and afterwards listen to the songs which the girls
sing in the summer choral dances, or take part in the merriment of the
social gatherings, which enliven the long nights of winter. Sometimes
the quaint lyric drama of a peasant wedding is performed before our
eyes, sometimes we follow a funeral party to one of those dismal and
desolate nooks in which the Russian villagers deposit their dead. On
working days we see the peasants driving afield in the early morn with
their long lines of carts, to till the soil, or ply the scythe or sickle or axe,
till the day is done and their rude carts come creaking back. We hear
the songs and laughter of the girls beside the stream or pool which
ripples pleasantly against its banks in the summer time, but in the
winter shows no sign of life, except at the spot, much frequented by the
wives and daughters of the village, where an "ice-hole" has been cut in
its massive pall. And at night we see the homely dwellings of the
villagers assume a picturesque aspect to which they are strangers by the
tell-tale light of day, their rough lines softened by the mellow splendor
of a summer moon, or their unshapely forms looming forth
mysteriously against the starlit snow of winter. Above all we become
familiar with those cottage interiors to which the stories contain so
many references. Sometimes we see the better class of homestead,
surrounded by its fence through which we pass between the
often-mentioned gates. After a glance at the barns and cattle-sheds, and
at the garden which supplies the family with fruits and vegetables (on
flowers, alas! but little store is set in the northern provinces), we cross
the threshold, a spot hallowed by many traditions, and pass, through
what in more pretentious houses may be called the vestibule, into the
"living room." We become well acquainted with its arrangements, with
the cellar beneath its wooden floor, with the "corner of honor" in which
are placed the "holy pictures," and with the stove which occupies so
large a share of space, within which daily beats, as it were the heart of
the house, above which is nightly taken the repose of the family.
Sometimes we visit the hut of the poverty-stricken peasant, more like a
shed for cattle than a human habitation, with a mud-floor and a tattered
roof, through which the smoke makes its devious way. In these poorer
dwellings we witness much suffering; but we learn to respect the

patience and resignation with which it is generally borne, and in the
greater part of the humble homes we visit we become aware of the
existence of many domestic virtues, we see numerous tokens of family
affection, of filial reverence, of parental love. And when, as we pass
along the village street at night, we see gleaming through the utter
darkness the faint rays which tell that even in many a poverty-stricken
home a lamp is burning before the "holy pictures," we feel that these
poor tillers of the soil, ignorant and uncouth though they too often are,
may be raised at times by lofty thoughts and noble aspirations far above
the low level of the dull and hard lives which they are forced to lead.
From among the stories which contain