Page:Ivan the Terrible - Kazimierz Waliszewski - tr. Mary Loyd (1904).djvu/122

 98 spells! … What is a woman? A viper's nest! The Eve of the Byzantine world is a being 'twelve times impure,' and always dangerous. On certain days no man must sit at table with her, and the meat she has killed is poison. Wherefore, in the country parts of Russia, in the sixteenth century, housekeepers might have been seen running through the village to find a man to wring the neck of the chicken they wanted to boil. The younger and fairer the woman was, the more she was pernicious and accursed. And only old women were allowed to prepare the sacred wafers.

To lessen the mischief and diminish the peril, the woman must be shut up. 'She sits behind twenty-seven locks—she sits locked in with twenty-seven keys, so that the wind may not blow on her, so that the sun may not burn her, so that bold comrades may not see her. …' In the case of women of high rank, the precautions thus enumerated in the popular song are literally applied. The boïarina's apartments, at the back of the house, with a special entrance of their own, constitute a prison of which the boïarine keeps the key. No other man, not even a near relation, can enter. The windows all look on to an inner court, protected from indiscreet curiosity by a tall fence. This is the gaol-yard, where the prisoners take their exercise. Generally there is a chapel or oratory, where the woman is allowed to perform her devotions, only going to church on great occasions, and surrounded then by the various precautions which attend all her rare excursions out of doors. The carriage which transports her, when this happens, is a sort of cellular vehicle, with bladder-skins instead of glass in its windows, so that the occupant can see out without being seen, and it is attended by a whole escort of serving-men, half-spies, half-guards. Most of these will spend the whole of their lives without ever beholding their closely-watched mistress, and even their master's own friends may not be more highly favoured. As a matter of principle, the wife does not appear before her husband's guests. But an exception is made on the occasion of banquets given to persons to whom the entertainer desires to do special honour. In the course of such repasts, a ceremony is performed which would seem to show some glimmer of the chivalrous ideas of the West. At a signal given by her lord, the boïarina descends the staircase of the gynæceum, dressed in her most gorgeous attire, and bearing in her hand a golden cup. Having touched this with her lips, she offers it to every guest, and then, standing upright at the place of honour, permits each to greet her with a respectful kiss.

All this was possible, evidently, in the aristocratic class; but outside it, such cloistered retirement seemed less indispensable, and the danger slighter. The woman of humble