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106 Spring Scenes in Samara.
99
" Drink! Drink ! And when he gets his spells, oh ! And
he is fearful when he gets drunk. Then he fights and
carries on like a mad dog. One night, not long ago, when the
village had harelj gone to rest, the large church bell began to
ring. The whole village ’ rolled out’ to see where the fire
had broken out. We all looked round, and could see nothing.
We ran to the church steeple, and there we saw the batuschka
standing, with only his shirt on, banging away with the clapper
of the large bell. ’ Little father, what is the matter ? ’ we
cried. ’ I—liic—have—hie—been fighting—hie—with the
old woman—hie—and—hie—I want you—hie—to help me
lick her.’"
General laughter among the peasants.
Sometimes the priests take revenge on peasants for low
payment or any other cause, by refusing to give children the names
selected, and substituting others frequently of an insulting
kind.
* * * *
Coming out of the church I wander off to the steppe to get
a little fresh air. On my return I see at a distance a group of
people slowly coming up the village street, and recognise a
scene enacted every day. It is a funeral procession—not of
Dives, with silver-covered coffin, heaped with flowers and
carried on a catafalque by eight or ten bearers, preceded by
priests in flowing, ornate vestments, singers and
picture-bearers ; no, it consists only of four men bearing on their
shoulders a coffin of rough, unpainted boards. As it
approaches I recognise in one of the bearers a strongly-built
muxhik with regular and beautiful though now emaciated
features, who called on the Count last night and got two
roubles to buy a coffin. Often these poor people had no means
even to procure a coffin for a dead relative.
It is not merely the custom of the country that makes me
uncover my head as these men, bowed by want and sorrow,
slowly pass on their way to the dismal cemetery on the steppe
outside the village with the remains of their brother whom
death has delivered from nameless misery.
Even in the midst of starvation and disease thei’e occur
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