The washstand problem was even more complicated. A small, tapering brass tank, holding about two quarts of water, with a faucet which dripped into a diminutive cup with an unstoppered waste-pipe, was screwed to the wall in our little corridor. We asked for a washstand, and this arrangement was introduced to our notice, the chambermaid being evidently surprised at the ignorance of barbarians who had never seen a washstand before. We objected that a mixed party of men and women could not use that decently, even if two quarts of water were sufficient for three women and a man. After much argument and insistence, we obtained, piecemeal: item, one low stool; item, one basin; item, one pitcher. There were no fastenings on the doors, except a hasp and staple to the door of the corridor, to which, after due entreaty, we secured an oblong padlock.
The next morning, the chambermaid came to the door of our room opening on the private corridor while we were dressing, and demanded the basin and pitcher. "Some one else wants them!" she shouted through the door. We had discovered her to be a person of so much decision of character, in the course of our dealings with her on the preceding day, that we were too wary to admit her, lest she should simply capture the utensils and march off with them. As I was the heaviest of the party, it fell to my lot to brace myself against the unfastened door and parley with her. Three times that woman returned to the attack; thrice we refused to surrender our hard-won trophies, and asked her pointedly, "What do you do for materials when the house is full, pray?" Afterwards, while we were drinking our coffee on the delightful half-covered veranda below, which had stuffed seats running round the walls, and a flower-crowned circular divan in the centre, a lively testimony to the dryness of the atmosphere, we learned that the person who had wanted the basin and pitcher was the man of our party. He begged us not to inquire into the mysteries of his toilet, and refused to help us solve the riddle of the guests' cleanliness when the hotel was full. I assume, on reflection, however, that they were expected to take Russian or plain baths every two or three days, to rid themselves of the odor of the kumys, which exudes copiously through the pores of the skin and scents the garments. On other days a "lick and a promise" were supposed to suffice, so that their journals must have resembled that of the man who wrote: "Monday, washed myself. Tuesday, washed hands and face. Wednesday, washed hands only." That explanation is not wholly satisfactory, either, because the Russians are clean people.
As coffee is one of the articles of food which are forbidden to kumys patients, though they may drink tea without lemon or milk, we had difficulty in getting it at all. It was long in coming; bad and high-priced when it did make its appearance. As we were waiting, an invalid lady and the novice nun who was in attendance upon her began to sing in a room near by. They had no instrument. What it was that they sang, I do not know. It was gentle as a breath, melting as a sigh, soft and slow like a conventional chant, and sweet as the songs of the Russian Church or of the angels. There are not many strains in this world upon which one hangs entranced, in breathless eagerness, and the memory of which haunts one ever after. But this song was one of that sort, and it lingers in my memory as a pure delight; in company with certain other fragments of church music heard in that land, as among the most beautiful upon earth.
I may as well tell at once the whole story of the food, so far as we explored its intricate mysteries. We were asked if we wished to take the table d'hôte breakfast in the establishment. We said "yes," and presented ourselves promptly. We were served with beefsteak, in small, round, thick pieces.
"What queer beefsteak!" said one of our Russian friends. "Is there no other meat?"
"No, madam."
We all looked at it for several minutes. We said it was natural, when invalids drank from three to five bottles of the nourishing kumys a day, that they should not require much extra food, and that the management provided what variety was healthy and advisable, no doubt; only we would have liked a choice; and-what queer steak!
The first sniff, the first glance at that steak, of peculiar grain and dark red hue, had revealed the truth to us. But we saw that our Russian friends were not initiated, and we knew that their stomachs were delicate. We exchanged signals, took a mouthful, declared it excellent, and ate bravely through our portions. The Russians followed our example. Well-it was much tenderer and better than the last horseflesh to which we had been treated surreptitiously; but I do not crave horseflesh as a regular diet. It really was not surprising at a kumys establishment, where the horse is worshiped, alive or dead, apparently, in Tatar fashion.
That afternoon we made it convenient to take our dinner in town, on the veranda of a restaurant which overlooked the busy Volga, with its mobile moods of sunset and thunderstorm, where we compensated ourselves for our unsatisfactory breakfast by a characteristically Russian dinner, of which I will omit details, except as regards the soup. This soup was botvinya. A Russian once obligingly furnished me with a description of a foreigner's probable views on this national delicacy: "a slimy pool with a rock in the middle, and creatures floating round about." The rock is a lump of ice (botvinya being a cold soup) in the tureen of strained kvas or sour cabbage. Kvas is the sour, fermented liquor made from black bread. In this liquid portion of the soup, which is colored with strained spinach, floated small cubes of fresh cucumber and bits of the green tops from young onions. The solid part of the soup, served on a platter, so that each person might mix the ingredients according to his taste, consisted of cold boiled sterlet, raw ham, more cubes of cucumber, more bits of green onion tops, lettuce, crayfish, grated horseradish, and granulated sugar. The first time I encountered this really delectable dish, it was served with salmon, the pale, insipid northern salmon. I supposed that the lazy waiter had brought the soup and fish courses together, to save himself trouble, and I ate them separately, while I meditated a rebuke to the waiter and a strong description of the weak soup. The tables were turned on me, however, when Mikhei appeared and grinned, as broadly as his not overstrict sense of propriety permitted, at my unparalleled ignorance, while he gave me a lesson in the composition of botvinya. That botvinya was not good, but this edition of it on the banks of the Volga, with sterlet, was delicious.
We shirked our meals at the establishment with great regularity, with the exception of morning coffee, which was unavoidable, but we did justice to its kumys, which was superb. Theoretically, the mares should have had the advantage of better pasturage, at a greater distance from town; but, as they cannot be driven far to milk without detriment, that plan involves making the kumys at a distance, and transporting it to the "cure." There is another famous establishment, situated a mile beyond ours, where this plan is pursued. Ten miles away the mares pasture, and the kumys is made at a subsidiary cure, where cheap quarters are provided for poorer patients. But, either on account of the transportation under the hot sun, or because the professional "taster" is lacking in delicacy of perception, we found the kumys at this rival establishment coarse in both flavor and smell, in comparison with that at our hostelry.
Our mares, on the contrary, were kept close by, and the kumys was prepared on the spot. It is the first article of faith in the creed of the kumys expert that no one can prepare this milk wine properly except Tatars. Hence, when any one wishes to drink it at home, a Tatar is sent for, the necessary mares are set aside for him, and he makes what is required. But the second article of faith is that kumys is much better when made in large quantities. The third is that a kumys specialist, or doctor, is as indispensable for the regulation of the cure as he is at mineral springs. The fourth article in the creed is that mares grazing on the rich plume-grass of the steppe produce milk which is particularly rich in sugar, very poor in fat, and similar to woman's milk in its proportion of albumen, though better furnished: all which facts combine to give kumys whose chemical proportions differ greatly from those of kumys prepared elsewhere. Moreover, on private estates it is not always possible to observe all the conditions regarding the choice and care of the mares.