CHAPTER LVII.

Mr. Palmer moves to the Priest Fortunatoff's.

MOND

ONDAY, Oct. 28 [o.s.].—In the afternoon I removed to the house of a young priest, Fortunatoff, No. 10 in the suburbs in the Offitserskaia, on the Viborg side, across the Neva. I found him through Count P., and was to live with him on pension. The house is some little distance from the Marine Hospital, and its Church of the Ascension, founded 17691772. The houses in that street, or rather road, are not contiguous to one another. They are mostly of one story, as mine is, and wooden, built of trunks of trees, each standing in its own yard. The road is flanked more by the wooden palings of the yards belonging to the houses than by the houses themselves. It has a planked way like a trottoir for foot passengers; one enters the yard, and turning to the left goes up some wooden steps to an outer platform, and from it into the house. The dwelling-rooms, thus raised some feet above the road with a cellar under them, and a small kitchen

near the entrance, are four; first a very small one, now mine; then two others, also very small and parallel with it, the one next to mine is the priest's, his wife's and a child's three years old: the other an old woman's, the nurse to a younger child. There is also in the house a Finnish girl, in height and make like an Esquimaux, without shoes or stockings, who is servant of all work; and every morning there comes a rough and stupid marine, a Lutheran Finn, who brings water, cuts the birch wood, and lights the stoves. Lastly, there is a fair-sized room with two windows, which serves for meals and to receive company. The Icon which is always in one of the corners of each room, is the head of St. John the Baptist. This room, which has a close, frowzy smell, has a piano in it. And there are some plants, ivy especially, in the windows. The furniture is scanty and poor in the extreme. From the windows we see

the empty road, with rare passengers, or carts upon it, and, at some distance opposite, the Medical Academy.

My room is about ten feet square. A long chest, between two and three feet high, lengthened out by a chair, is the bedstead; on this is a straw mattress; one very narrow sheet, and a light counterpane; my carpet bag serves for a pillow; and the scarceness of bedclothes is remedied by my wadded cloak. The window is very small, double of course, incapable of opening in winter; ventilation by opening the door, and by the stove,

which is heated every other day, and makes the room at first much too hot; fumes often from the charcoal causing headache, in consequence of the wood not being equally burned before the tube was closed.

The first night I slept not a wink; when I confessed this to the priest, he said, "I guess what it is ;" and, taking a lighted tallow candle, he examined the crevices. and corners of the room, and found long clusters of the vermin wedged in and hanging together like bees in a hive. They frizzled and fell into the candle, and almost put it out. This clearance is no doubt much, but still my nights are bad enough. There is a shallow round brass pan set on a chair for washing; a great bottle of water, a drinking-glass, a candlestick, and a small deal table at the window; a second chair, and an old cupboard complete the furniture. Cleaning of shoes or washing of linen there is here none; but as I went on Saturdays to the English lodging-house, and stayed there over Sunday, I used to take my linen there, and get my shoes cleaned, if that was needed.

In the morning, when it is not a fast, the Finnish girl used to bring me a tumbler of tea with sugar—or two, if I called for a second- and a piece of bread; on festivals, sweetbread, and there was always raw smoked or salted fish, and bread and Dutch cheese-the latter here a luxury, to be had if called for. We dined all together, the priest, his wife, and often a younger sister

of hers, and myself, at four o'clock.

After dinner they

take a cup of coffee, and sleep for an hour or two, being very early risers, and about 8 p.m. we again have a glass, never a cup, of tea. At dinner the priest always helped me and himself before his wife and her sister; and when I said that our custom was different, he replied, "Then your custom is wrong, and contrary to the Bible; for the man was made first, and then the woman."

The chief articles of food at table were these: soup, with which we always began, as in France; black rye bread, white bread also; red cabbage, slightly salted, cut into shreds; sweetmeats, made of a coarse berry of a dull red colour, and of other berries, which they eat with meat; meat and game, especially ptarmigans, and the largest kind of grouse, the capercailzie, which is very abundant; cakes of millet; a jelly made of potato flour and syrup of cranberries, eaten with sugar and milk. The only vegetable, besides the red cabbage and potatoes, was small salted cucumbers. On Wednesdays and Fridays and other fast days there was neither flesh meat, nor milk, butter, cheese, or eggs; but fishsoup and fish, caviare, almond milk, linseed or nut oil, mushrooms, and several kinds of the edible toadstools. Thin slices of lemon were often put into the tea instead of milk on fast days. To drink, there was the water of the Neva, not always over clear, and quass, and occa

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sionally on any special day, a bottle of port wine or of porter. Pirogi, a sort of sandwich-meat, fish, or sweetmeat between two sides of baked pastry-and an open tartlet, formed a second course. A favourite and most agreeable drink was infusion of cranberries sweetened, which is also thought to be a specific in cases of internal fever.