There are gypsies and gypsies in the world, for there are the
wanderers on the roads and the secret dwellers in towns; but even among
the aficionados, or Romany ryes, by whom I mean those scholars
who are fond of studying life and language from the people themselves,
very few have dreamed that there exist communities of gentlemanly and
lady-like gypsies of art, like the Bohemians of Murger and George Sand,
but differing from them in being real “Bohemians” by race. I confess
that it had never occurred to me that there was anywhere in Europe, at
the present day, least of all in the heart of great and wealthy cities,
a class or caste devoted entirely to art, well-to-do or even rich,
refined in manners, living in comfortable homes, the women dressing
elegantly; and yet with all this obliged to live by law, as did the
Jews once, in Ghettos or in a certain street, and regarded as outcasts
and cagots. I had heard there were gypsies in Russian cities,
and expected to find them like the kerengri of England or
Germany,—house-dwellers somewhat reformed from vagabondage, but still
reckless semi-outlaws, full of tricks and lies; in a word, gypsies, as the world understands the term. And I certainly anticipated in
Russia something queer,—the gentleman who speaks Romany seldom
fails to achieve at least that, whenever he gets into an unbroken
haunt, an unhunted forest, where the Romany rye is unknown,—but
nothing like what I really found. A recent writer on Russia {26} speaks
with great contempt of these musical Romanys, their girls attired in
dresses by Worth, as compared with the free wild outlaws of the
steppes, who, with dark, ineffable glances, meaning nothing more than a
wild-cat's, steal poultry, and who, wrapped in dirty sheep-skins,
proudly call themselves Mi dvorane Polaivii, Lords of the Waste.
The gypsies of Moscow, who appeared to me the most interesting I have
ever met, because most remote from the Surrey ideal, seemed to Mr.
Johnstone to be a kind of second-rate Romanys or gypsies, gypsified for
exhibition, like Mr. Barnum's negro minstrel, who, though black as a
coal by nature, was requested to put on burnt cork and a wig, that the
audience might realize that they were getting a thoroughly good
imitation. Mr. Johnstone's own words are that a gypsy maiden in a long
queue, “which perhaps came from Worth,” is “horrible,” “
corruptio optimi pessima est;” and he further compares such a damsel
to a negro with a cocked hat and spurs. As the only negro thus arrayed
who presents himself to my memory was one who lay dead on the
battle-field in Tennessee, after one of the bravest resistances in
history, and in which he and his men, not having moved, were extended
in “stark, serried lines” (“ten cart-loads of dead niggers,” said a man
to me who helped to bury them), I may be excused for not seeing the wit
of the comparison. As for the gypsies of Moscow, I can only say that,
after meeting them in public, and penetrating to their homes, where I
was received as one of themselves, even as a Romany, I found that this
opinion of them was erroneous, and that they were altogether original
in spite of being clean, deeply interesting although honest, and a
quite attractive class in most respects, notwithstanding their ability
to read and write. Against Mr. Johnstone's impressions, I may set the
straightforward and simple result of the experiences of Mr. W. R.
Ralston. “The gypsies of Moscow,” he says, “are justly celebrated for
their picturesqueness and for their wonderful capacity for music. All
who have heard their women sing are enthusiastic about the weird
witchery of the performance.”
When I arrived in St. Petersburg, one of my first inquiries was for
gypsies. To my astonishment, they were hard to find. They are not
allowed to live in the city; and I was told that the correct and proper
way to see them would be to go at night to certain cafes, half
an hour's sleigh-ride from the town, and listen to their concerts. What
I wanted, however, was not a concert, but a conversation; not gypsies
on exhibition, but gypsies at home,—and everybody seemed to be of the
opinion that those of “Samarcand” and “Dorot” were entirely got up for
effect. In fact, I heard the opinion hazarded that, even if they spoke
Romany, I might depend upon it they had acquired it simply to deceive.
One gentleman, who had, however, been much with them in other days,
assured me that they were of pure blood, and had an inherited language
of their own. “But,” he added, “I am sure you will not understand it.
You may be able to talk with those in England, but not with ours,
because there is not a single word in their language which resembles
anything in English, German, French, Latin, Greek, or Italian. I can
only recall,” he added, “one phrase. I don't know what it means, and I
think it will puzzle you. It is me kamava tut.”
If I experienced internal laughter at hearing this it was for a good
reason, which I can illustrate by an anecdote: “I have often observed,
when I lived in China,” said Mr. Hoffman Atkinson, author of “A
Vocabulary of the Yokohama Dialect,” “that most young men, particularly
the gay and handsome ones, generally asked me, about the third day
after their arrival in the country, the meaning of the Pidgin-English
phrase, 'You makee too muchee lov-lov-pidgin.' Investigation always
established the fact that the inquirer had heard it from 'a pretty
China girl.' Now lov-pidgin means love, and me kamava tut
is perfectly good gypsy anywhere for 'I love you;' and a very soft
expression it is, recalling kama-deva, the Indian Cupid, whose
bow is strung with bees, and whose name has two strings to it, since it
means, both in gypsy and Sanskrit, Love-God, or the god of love. 'It's
kama-duvel, you know, rya, if you put it as it ought to be,'
said Old Windsor Froggie to me once; 'but I think that Kama-devil
would by rights come nearer to it, if Cupid is what you mean.'”
I referred the gypsy difficulty to a Russian gentleman of high
position, to whose kindness I had been greatly indebted while in St.
Petersburg. He laughed.
“Come with me to-morrow night to the cafes, and see the
gypsies; I know them well, and can promise that you shall talk with
them as much as you like. Once, in Moscow, I got together all in the
town—perhaps a hundred and fifty—to entertain the American minister,
Curtin. That was a very hard thing to do,—there was so much
professional jealousy among them, and so many quarrels. Would you have
believed it?”
I thought of the feuds between sundry sturdy Romanys in England, and
felt that I could suppose such a thing, without dangerously stretching
my faith, and I began to believe in Russian gypsies.
“Well, then, I shall call for you to-morrow night with a troika
; I will come early,—at ten. They never begin to sing before company
arrive at eleven, so that you will have half an hour to talk to them.”
It is on record that the day on which the general gave me this kind
invitation was the coldest known in St. Petersburg for thirty years,
the thermometer having stood, or rather having lain down and groveled
that morning at 40 degrees below zero, Fahr. At the appointed hour the
troika, or three-horse sleigh, was before the Hotel d'Europe. It
was, indeed, an arctic night, but, well wrapped in fur-lined shubas, with immense capes which fall to the elbow or rise far above the head,
as required, and wearing fur caps and fur-lined gloves, we felt no
cold. The beard of our istvostshik, or driver, was a great mass
of ice, giving him the appearance of an exceedingly hoary youth, and
his small horses, being very shaggy and thoroughly frosted, looked in
the darkness like immense polar bears. If the general and myself could
only have been considered as gifts of the slightest value to anybody, I
should have regarded our turn-out, with the driver in his sheep-skin
coat, as coming within a miracle of resemblance to that of Santa Claus,
the American Father Christmas.
On, at a tremendous pace, over the snow, which gave out under our
runners that crunching, iron sound only heard when the thermometer
touches zero. There is a peculiar fascination about the troika,
and the sweetest, saddest melody and most plaintive song of Russia
belong to it.