The Shadow of Great Britain

Capítulo 1407: Chapter 211: The Kind of Luck Where Even Drinking Cold Water Chips Your Teeth

The winter in St. Petersburg was as cold as ever. Though the sun occasionally peeked out, everyone knew it was just for show, merely a reminder that spring hadn’t frozen to death yet.

However, no matter how cold the weather was, it couldn’t dampen people’s enthusiasm for the Maslenitsa festival.

Although Maslenitsa is usually held in the week before the Eastern Orthodox Lent (40 days before Easter), in reality, it’s not an Eastern Orthodox holiday but a traditional Slavic festival, one of Russia’s oldest folk festivals.

Before the arrival of Eastern Orthodoxy, Maslenitsa was an agricultural celebration in pagan Russia, marking the natural cycle of the end of winter and the arrival of spring, so you could also consider it as Russia’s version of the Spring Festival.

Nevsky Prospekt in St. Petersburg, Palace Square, and various markets and squares around the city were all filled with temporary stalls, where vendors enthusiastically hawked their goods in the cold wind, calling out to passersby.

Among them, the most popular stalls with the citizens were almost all selling pancakes.

Pancakes are the signature food of Maslenitsa, golden pancakes exuding the aroma of butter and honey. If you’re willing to add a couple more kopecks, you can add a few slices of cheese and smoked salmon to the pancakes.

Many people were lined up around the pancake stalls, just waiting to buy a stack of hot pancakes to enjoy while strolling the streets.

Besides this, there were also many stalls selling cheese, pickled fish, and mead. The areas where women gathered mostly sold handicrafts, embroidered scarves, or colorful pottery.

On the frozen surface of the Neva River, you could see temporary ice rinks and ice slides, with young people screaming as they slid down the ice slides, their laughter ringing out one after another.

Clowns dressed comically wove through the crowd, performing acrobatics, their little quips always drawing bursts of laughter.

Near Palace Square, carriages decorated with ribbons and garlands passed through the streets. The coachmen, dressed in fur coats, waved their whips, while inside the carriages, nobles in splendid attire waved to the onlooking citizens.

Following the carriages was a procession of farmers in traditional costumes, holding up several lavishly decorated straw figures as they paraded through the square.

Though these straw figures looked beautiful, unfortunately, according to Russian tradition, they symbolized winter and had to be burnt on the final day of the Maslenitsa ritual.

Beside the large bonfire in the center of the square, the music of the balalaika mixed with singing and the sound of footsteps as young people, hand in hand, formed a large circle, singing and dancing traditional Russian dances.

The young balalaika player was playing a lively tune.

His fingertips danced across the strings like rabbits, and the spectating girls couldn’t help but clap in delight.

The musician squinted his eyes, with a smug grin, started singing a traditional folk song teasing winter: “Oh! Winter, winter, quickly hide your claws, don’t block us from drinking, eating butter, and caviar!”

The lively young lads were naturally unwilling to let the musician steal their limelight.

A few lads broke away from the large circle dance and began to perform the Cossack dance in the center of the square.

With the fast tempo of the balalaika, they repeatedly squatted and stood, effortlessly executing high kicks, squat claps, or goat jumps, whatever challenging moves they could think of, attracting cheers from the crowd for their spectacular dance-off.

But in this festive atmosphere, one British gentleman seemed out of place.

Arthur’s face was even paler than the ice and snow of St. Petersburg’s winter.

He tightly gripped a cane in one hand, supporting his waist with the other, limping past the young dancers, looking very much like a penguin trying to maintain balance on ice.

With every step, Arthur’s face twitched as if reminding himself that the joy of the Maslenitsa festival wasn’t meant for him.

And atop his high hat, the Red Devil leisurely sat cross-legged, his tail gently tapping the brim of the hat.

His small eyes, burning with playful flames, were fixated on the young people still performing the Cossack dance in the center of the square, with a very smug smile on his lips.

“Oh! Arthur~ Arthur~ does it still hurt?”

Agares opened with an exaggerated lament, but there wasn’t a hint of sympathy in his tone: “You were once such a respectable gentleman. The lightness of the waltz, the elegance of the quadrille, those were all your fortes. Even the ballrooms of Vienna might not find a dancer like you, but…”

Arthur ignored him, biting his teeth and persevering with his faltering steps, as if the physical pain he endured was easier to bear than the devil’s taunts.

Seeing no progress this way, Agares took another route: “Arthur, my dear, seeing you in such pain, let me tell you a joke. One day, a British gentleman decided to try the Cossack dance. He squatted, clapped his thighs, even tried a high kick. Everything seemed perfect, but on his seventh attempt to get up, he suddenly stopped…”

Agares deliberately paused, then continued with a composed tone: “He elegantly stood still, adjusted his bow tie, and told the onlookers— it seems, my performance was so splendid, my knees decided to stay here alone for the finale.”

Arthur finally couldn’t help but speak, his tone tinged with suppressed anger: “Agares, if you say another word, I swear, I’ll pull you off my hat and throw you into the Neva River.”