By stream and sea: A book for wanderers and anglers by William Senior

Author:William Senior
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Chatto and Windus, 1877

Digitized by VjOOQ IC

CHAPTER XII.

MEMORIES OF THE NEVA,

|NE of the new sensations a stranger visiting St. Petersburg for the first time experiences, is a difficulty in reckoning time. In chronology, if in nothing else, Western Europe is a fortnight ahead of the great Russian Empire. It thus falls to my lot for the first time to celebrate two New Year's Days within the space of a month. It is New Year's Day in St Petersburg, and the people are blithe and merry, as is their custom on the occasion. Thirteen days ago—^although in these strange smroundings it seems as many years—I " saw in " the New Year amongst my own English kith and kin, and now I have a second time watched the departure of one year and the advent of another, not under mistletoe and holly, but in a sledge. We Hterally rang out the Old and rang in the New, but it was with the musical tinkle of sledge bells as we bounded over the snow.

Three individuals make a very comfortable party for sleighing, that is to say, comfortable, if the three are of the same sex, and there is no necessity to remember that a

third person is frequently an undesirable institution; and our New Year's Eve party was of the right composition. We stepped into the sledge just as the Russian Old Year had entered into its last hour, and was approaching its dissolution amidst a moaning and sobbing of bells from many a dome, the deep musical boom of St. Isaac's rising grandly above them all, as if to bid them take heart of grace for the good time coming.

All the gay city was astir. During the afternoon I had spent some time in that wonderful conglomerate of curiosity shops, the Grand Bazaar, and had been amused by the Russian juveniles, waddling about in their furs. The scene brought to mind other similar wanderings of a recent date through our smaller home bazaars, where English children laughed and chattered, clapped their hands at the toys, and looked wonderingly at the Christmas trees. That is precisely what the Russian children were doing yesterday, with the difference, however, that though children are pretty much of a pattern all the world over, the Muscovite youngsters, as I saw them making the round of the huge mart with their parents and guardians, seemed pretematurally grave and silent.

Towards evening, the weather, which had been strangely "green" for the time and place, became colder. Light snow flakes drifted crosswise in the air, and there was frost in the breeze. Unfortunately the streets were not in the best of order for sleighing, nor would they be until there were several inches more of snow. With frost, even when it amounts to the three or four degrees which we then had, a little snow certainly goes a long way, but if it is not soon replenished it wears out, so to speak, with constant traffic, and lays bare the palpable ruts and hollows of this city on a swamp.

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