Naturally, in a city which lies on a level with the southern point of Greenland, the most characteristic season to select for our observations of the life is winter.
The Prospekt wakes late. It has been up nearly all night, and there is but little inducement to early rising when the sun itself sets such a fashion as nine o'clock for its appearance on the horizon, like a pewter disk, with a well-defined hard rim, when he makes his appearance at all. If we take the Prospekt at different hours, we may gain a fairly comprehensive view of many Russian ways and people, cosmopolitan as the city is.
At half-past seven in the morning, the horse-cars, which have been resting since ten o'clock in the evening, make a start, running always in groups of three, stopping only at turnouts. The dvorniki retire from the entrance to the courtyards, where they have been sleeping all night with one eye open, wrapped in their sheepskin coats. A few shabby izvostchiks make their appearance somewhat later, in company with small schoolboys, in their soldierly uniforms, knapsacks of books on back, and convoyed by servants. Earliest of all are the closed carriages of officials, evidently the most lofty in grade, since it was decided, two or three years ago, by one of this class, that his subordinates could not reasonably be expected to arrive at business before ten or eleven o'clock after they had sat up until daylight over their indispensable club vint--which is Russian whist.
Boots (muzhiki) in scarlet cotton blouses, and full trousers of black velveteen, tucked into tall wrinkled boots, dart about to bakery and dairy shop, preparing for their masters' morning "tea." Venders of newspapers congregate at certain spots, and charge for their wares in inverse ratio to the experience of their customers; for regular subscribers receive their papers through the post-office, and, if we are in such unseemly haste as to care for the news before the ten o'clock delivery--or the eleven o'clock, if the postman has not found it convenient otherwise--we must buy on the street, though we live but half a block from the newspaper office, which opens at ten. By noon, every one is awake. The restaurants are full of breakfasters, and Dominique's, which chances to stand on the most crowded stretch of the street, on the sunny north side beloved of promenaders, is dense with officers, cigarette smoke, and characteristic national viands judiciously mingled with those of foreign lands.
Mass is over, and a funeral passes down the Nevsky Prospekt, on its way to the fashionable Alexander Nevsky monastery or Novo-Dyevitche convent cemeteries. The deceased may have been a minister of state, or a great officer of the Court, or a military man who is accompanied by warlike pageant. The choir chants a dirge. The priests, clad in vestments of black velvet and silver, seem to find their long thick hair sufficient protection to their bare heads. The professional mutes, with their silver-trimmed black baldrics and cocked hats, appear to have plucked up the street lanterns by their roots to serve as candles, out of respect to the deceased's greatness, and to illustrate how the city has been cast into darkness by the withdrawal of the light of his countenance. The dead man's orders and decorations are borne in imposing state, on velvet cushions, before the gorgeous funeral car, where the pall, of cloth of gold, which will be made into a priest's vestment once the funeral is over, droops low among artistic wreaths and palms, of natural flowers, or beautifully executed in silver. Behind come the mourners on foot, a few women, many men, a Grand Duke or two among them, it may be; the carriages follow; the devout of the lower classes, catching sight of the train, cross themselves broadly, mutter a prayer, and find time to turn from their own affairs and follow for a little way, out of respect to the stranger corpse. More touching are the funerals which pass up the Prospekt on their way to the unfashionable cemetery across the Neva, on Vasily Ostroff; a tiny pink coffin resting on the knees of the bereaved parents in a sledge, or borne by a couple of bareheaded men, with one or two mourners walking slowly behind.
From noon onward, the scene on the Prospekt increases constantly in vivacity. The sidewalks are crowded, especially on Sundays and holidays, with a dense and varied throng, of so many nationalities and types that it is a valuable lesson in ethnography to sort them, and that a secret uttered is absolutely safe in no tongue,--unless, possibly, it be that of Patagonia. But the universal language of the eye conquers all difficulties, even for the remarkably fair Tatar women, whose national garb includes only the baldest and gauziest apology for the obligatory veil.
The plain façades of the older buildings on this part of the Prospekt, which are but three or four stories in height,--elevators are rare luxuries in Petersburg, and few buildings exceed five stories,--are adorned, here and there, with gayly-colored pictorial representations of the wares for sale within. But little variety in architecture is furnished by the inconspicuous Armenian, and the uncharacteristic Dutch Reformed and Lutheran churches which break the severe line of this "Tolerance Street," as it has been called. Most fascinating of all the shops are those of the furriers and goldsmiths, with their surprises and fresh lessons for foreigners; the treasures of Caucasian and Asian art in the Eastern bazaars; the "Colonial wares" establishments, with their delicious game cheeses, and odd studena (fishes in jelly), their pineapples at five and ten dollars, their tiny oysters from the Black Sea at twelve and a half cents apiece.
Enthralling as are the shop windows, the crowd on the sidewalk is more enthralling still. There are Kazaks, dragoons, cadets of the military schools, students, so varied, though their gay uniforms are hidden by their coats, that their heads resemble a bed of verbenas in the sun. There are officers of every sort: officers with rough gray overcoats and round lambskin caps; officers in large, flat, peaked caps, and smooth-surfaced voluminous cape-coats, wadded with eider-down and lined with gray silk, which trail on their spurs, and with collars of costly beaver or striped American raccoon, and long sleeves forever dangling unused. A snippet of orange and black ribbon worn in the buttonhole shows us that the wearer belongs to the much-coveted military Order of St. George. There are civilians in black cape-coats of the military pattern, topped off with cold, uncomfortable, but fashionable chimneypot hats, or, more sensibly, with high caps of beaver.
It is curious to observe how many opinions exist as to the weather. The officers leave their ears unprotected; a passing troop of soldiers--fine, large, hardy fellows--wear the strip of black woolen over their ears, but leave their bashlyks hanging unused on their backs, with tabs tacked neatly under shoulder-straps and belts, for use on the Balkans or some other really cold spot. Most of the ladies, on foot or in sledges, wear bashlyks or Orenburg shawls, over wadded fur caps, well pulled down to the brows. We may be sure that the pretty woman who trusts to her bonnet only has also neglected to put on the necessary warm galoshes, and that when she reaches home, sympathizing friends will rub her vain little ears, feet, and brow with spirits of wine, to rescue her from the results of her folly. Only officers and soldiers possess the secret of going about in simple leather boots, or protected merely by a pair of stiff, slapping leather galoshes, accommodated to the spurs.
For some mysterious reason, the picturesque nurses, with their pearl-embroidered, diadem-shaped caps, like the kokoshniki of the Empress and Court ladies, their silver-trimmed petticoats and jackets patterned after the ancient Russian "soul-warmers," and made of pink or blue cashmere, never have any children in their charge in winter. Indeed, if we were to go by the evidence offered by the Nevsky Prospekt, especially in cold weather, we should assert that there are no children in the city, and that the nurses are used as "sheep-dogs" by ladies long past the dangerous bloom of youth and beauty.
The more fashionable people are driving, however, and that portion of the one hundred and fourteen feet of the Prospekt's width which is devoted to the roadway is, if possible, even more varied and entertaining in its kaleidoscopic features than the sidewalks. It is admirably kept at all seasons. With the exception of the cobblestone roadbed for the tramway in the centre, it is laid with hexagonal wooden blocks, well spiked together and tarred, resting upon tarred beams and planks, and forming a pavement which is both elastic and fairly resistant to the volcanic action of the frost. The snow is maintained at such a level that, while sledging is perfect, the closed carriages which are used for evening entertainments, calls, and shopping are never incommoded. Street sweepers, in red cotton blouses and clean white linen aprons, sweep on calmly in the icy chill. The police, with their bashlyks wrapped round their heads in a manner peculiar to themselves, stand always in the middle of the street and regulate the traffic.
We will hire an izvostchik and join the throng. The process is simple; it consists in setting ourselves up at auction on the curbstone, among the numerous cabbies waiting for a job, and knocking ourselves down to the lowest bidder. If our Vanka (Johnny, the generic name for cabby) drives too slowly, obviously with the object of loitering away our money, a policeman will give him a hint to whip up, or we may effect the desired result by threatening to speak to the next guardian of the peace. If Vanka attempts to intrude upon the...
