Page:Albert Rhys Williams - Through the Russian Revolution (1921).djvu/68

44 order of the dipping, but dipped at once. When the first bowl was empty, they brought a second, full of porridge (kasha). It was followed by a bowl of boiled raisins. Ivan presided at the samovar, dispensing tea, black bread and cucumbers. It was a special feast, for this was a special holiday in Spasskoye.

Even the crows seemed to be aware of it. Great flocks wheeling overhead threw swift cloud-shadows across the ground, or alighted on the church roof and covered it completely. The domes, all green or glistening gold, would in a minute be blackest jet.

I told Ivan that in America farmers killed crows because they ate the grain.

"Yes," said Ivan, "our crows eat the grain. But they eat the field-mice, too. And even if they are crows, they are like us and want to live."

Tatyana held a like attitude toward the flies that swarmed around the table. Descending on a piece of sugar they would turn it as black as the crowcovered church.

"Never mind the flies," said Tatyana. "Poor things, in a month or two they'll be dead, anyhow."

It was the Feast of Transfiguration, and from all the countryside around came the poor, the crippled and the aged. Again and again we heard the tapping of a cane and a plaintive voice asking alms radi Christa, for the Christ's sake.