124 THROUGH RUSSIA ON A MUSTANG. 



forming a sort of indoor khorovod, while several of 

 the number take the middle of the floor, turning alter- 

 nately to one another their backs and faces, meanwhile 

 singing and stamping time with the feet. The songs 

 of the Posidyelki gatherings treat chiefly of the senti- 

 ments of love and marriage : 



Remember, dear, remember, 



My former love, 



How we two together, my own, would wander, 



Or sit through the dark autumn nights, 



And whisper sweet secret words. 



Thou, my own, must never marry. 



I, the maiden, will never wed ! 



Soon, very soon, my love has changed her mind: 



Marry, dear, marry ! I am going to wed. 



In Little Russia, more particularly, these social 

 gatherings last all night, the party breaking up at 

 dawn. People who have seen something of the flirta- 

 tions of the young burlaks and servant girls in St. 

 Petersburg, where after ten o'clock of an evening, 

 while walking the streets, you are constantly stumb- 

 ling up against young workmen hugging and kissing 

 their sweethearts in the untrusty shadows of porches 

 and doorways, need only to be told that flirtation is 

 one of the recognized privileges at the Posidyelki, and 

 that the village moujik's ideas of flirtation are even 

 more crude than the burlak's. 



In some districts it is customary, instead of holding 

 the Posidyelki at each house of the village in turn, to 

 select the largest and most suitable, and rent it for the 

 evenings of the entire winter. The young men pay a 

 couple of kopecks an evening, or a quarter of a ruble 



