The south is provided for by Odessa and Taganrog, but north and central Russia through the northern ports. The golden cargoes are generally landed at Libau or Reval at the latter end of February or in March, and are transported from St. Petersburg as far south as IvJiarkofi^, where the itinerant dealers proclaim the pyramids of oranges and lemons piled up on their head?, as the genuine produce of St. Petersburg
Ices are to be had, of course, tlie -whole year through at the foreign confectioners, but they are first sold in the public places and streets at Easter. The custom of selling ices in the streets is unknown in Germany, but is favoured here by the cheapness of ice and preserved fruits. Like butterflies fluttering from the chrysales, a number of young fellows, who a few days before, wrapped in greasy sheepskins, were vending their oily grilshniviki (hot cakes), noAv flaunt away in red flowered cotton blouses over black velvet trowsers, with long white and red embroidered cloth slung over their breasts and shoulders like the ribbon of an order. The ends serve to wipe their glasses in which they ofler their ices ; and thus equipped, they may be met with at Easter in St. Petersburg, Moscow, Odessa, and indeed throughout Russia. They cany their ices in great cans filled up to the neck with rough ice, and thus hawk about their delicate mouth-cooling merchandise under the hottest sun.
The business which we are employed in, affects, it is well-known, our whole being and character in a high degree, and so it is with these people. The same men whom I saw so taciturn and monotonous over their oil cakes in the fast days, are now all alive in their gay cottons, and full of jest and good-humour, while presenting their pink, snow-white or coffee-coloured ices. One of them, who had his stand by the swhigs, was my particular friend 5 near him I often loitered to divert myself with his acting. I took the trouble one morning of writing down some of the eloquence with which he sought to allure his customers.
" Moye potshtenie I" (Your most obedient servant, sir), he called out to a gentleman at a little distance who was not thinking of him and liis ice, " What is your pleasure! how hot it is to-day; one wants something to cool one I How! you will take vanilla? What — nothing! I am very, very sorry I Moroshniye, moioshniye! sami svasheye! ice, ice, the freshest, the coolest. Chocolate, vanilla, coffee, rose ice, all of the very best. Wlio tastes my exquisite ice — my flower-bloom (so he called one particular ice). My ice is like a poppy, come my loveliest girl, will you taste my poppy ice?" ( The girls of Little Russia wear in spring a number of showy poppies in their hair). " Taste it only! It is sweeter than the kiss of your bridegroom. You like it best mixed, perhaps? Good, dearest, mixed it shall be like your cheeks, red and white — will you please to taste?"
And hereupon he hands the ice temptingly mingled in a graceful tapering mass of red and white. The girl looks embarrassed, but ends by taking the wooden spoon he flourishes in his right hand, and eating the offered delicacy. " Zviitui zvetot." " Blooming flower, poppy bloom, vanilla blossom, coffee blossom. Who will take my most delicious ice. See here my good old father, red, red as a rose, and yellow as gold. Ah ! you simpleton, give your copper for my gold." (Here he puts a little In a glass and holds it up to the sun). " Ah ! how superb ! How I should like to eat it myself! But I am not rich enough. I can't afford it. Come, father, buy some of it, and then I can have a taste. There, take it father, and nmch good may it do you. For your little son as well ? Moroshniye ! Ugh, how hot it is ! I am half-melted. I must have some ice." (At the beginning of the Easter hoUdays in Russia, this is a tolerably strong poetical exaggeration, as may well be supposed.) He then tastes a little,
turns up his eyes, and raises his shoulders as if it were pure ambrosia. Ha ! good mother, what are you gaping at ? Does it make your mouth water. Truly, I cannot bear to see you there melting in the sun before my eyes. There, try it." And he holds out his wooden spoon with a sample. The old woman laughs, must taste, and cannot get off under eight kopeks. And then the tempter begins his strain again, which is scarcely ended when the sun has already ended his course for the day.