Saima would brook no delay, however, so I had to hurry on. Immediately before us was the bastu—a wee wooden house like a small Swiss châlet, the outer room, where I undressed, containing a large oven. The inner room boasted only one small window, through which the departing day did not shine very brilliantly, luckily for my modesty. Its furniture was only a large-sized tin bath filled with cold water, opposite to which were seven very wide wooden steps like a staircase, twelve feet wide perhaps, the top step forming a kind of platform where there was just room to sit without one's head touching the tarred ceiling above. The steps and the platform were covered with straw—Finnish fashion—for the great occasion.
I wondered what next, but had not much time for speculation, for Saima—who only took off her outer dress—grasped me by the hand, her face aglow with the intense heat, led me up the wooden staircase, and signed her will that I should sit on the straw-strewn platform afore honourably mentioned.
Oh, the heat! Many of us know Turkish baths; but then we take them gradually, whereas in the bastu one plunges into volcanic fires at once. Blinking in the dim light, I found that beside us was a brick-built stove, for which the fire, as I had noticed while disrobing, is in the outer chamber, and when the washing-woman threw a pail of water upon the surface of the great heated stones, placed for the purpose inside the stove, the steam ascended in volumes, and the temperature went up, until I exclaimed, in one of the few Swedish sentences I knew, "Mycket hett" (very hot), at which agonised remark Saima laughed uproariously, and, nodding and smiling, fetched another pail of water from the cold bath, and threw its contents on the brick furnace in order that more steaming fumes might ascend. Almost stifled I blinked, and gasped, and groaned by turns, repeating again and again, "Mycket hett," "alltför hett" (too hot), "Tack så mycket" (thank you), in tones of anguish. Much amused, Saima—who, be it understood, was a Swedish-speaking Finn—stood smiling cheerfully at my discomfiture; but, happily, at last she seemed to think I might have had enough, for, after waving my hands hopelessly to the accompaniment of "Nej tack, nej tack" (no thank you), she apparently understood and desisted.
A moment later, through the steam, her smiling face ascended the stairs, with a pail of hot water in one hand, and a lump of soft soap in the other, on which was a large bundle of white fibre, something like hemp. Dipping this in the pail, she soon made a lather with the soap, and, taking up limb after limb, scrubbed hard and long—scrubbed until my skin tingled, and in the damp mysterious heat I began to wonder how much of my body would emerge from the ordeal. This scrubbing was a long process, and if the Finns wash one another as industriously as Saima washed me, no one in Finland should ever be dirty, although most of them must lose several skins a year. Pails of water were then thrown over me, over the straw, over everything, and I heard the soapy water gurgling away into the lake below, which was covered with yellow and white water-lilies. Lilies cannot object to soap, or they would never bloom in Finland as they do.
"Mycket bra" (very good), I called again and again, hoping that appreciation might perhaps make Saima desist, as the exclamations at the heat did not seem to alarm her. More water was thrown on to the steaming bricks, and Saima retired, returning immediately with a great bundle of birch leaves, tied up with a string, such as I had often seen her on former occasions sweeping the floors with. Dipping the branches of the birch into a pail of hot water she proceeded to beat her victim all over! Yes, beat me, beat me hard. She laughed, and I laughed; but the more I laughed the harder she thumped, till the sharp edges of the leaves left almost a sting, while the strong healthy Saima beat me harder and harder, dipping the leaves into hot water continually, and grinning cheerily all the time.
The peasantry in Finland are occasionally good enough to wash one another, and stories are told of a dozen of them sitting in rows on the wooden steps, each man vigorously beating his neighbour with birch boughs.
At harvest time, when the heat is very great, and the work very hard, labourers have a bath every night! Frequently, after our wonderful experience at Ilkeäsaari, we saw, while journeying farther into the country, shoals of human beings strolling off to enjoy their bastu or Sauna.
It was a weird and wonderful experience. I was really beginning to feel the heat dreadful after an hour, and was confident the blood must be galloping through my veins. Finally the good-tempered Finnish maid appeared to be of the same mind, for she fetched a pail of cold water, and, pouring a good drop on my head—which made me jump—she dipped her birch branches therein and switched them over me. Had I followed true Finnish fashion I should then have taken a midnight plunge straight into the lake outside—or in winter taken a roll in the snow—but, our bath being rather more aristocratic, I only descended the slippery steps, really gasping with the heat and treatment, and jumped into that bath of cold water previously mentioned; before—clad only in burning hot towels—returning to the outer room to dress.
I puffed and panted, and, quite exhausted, longed for a Turkish divan and quiet rest before, robed in fur coats and thick under-garments, I trotted home to bed.
The bath was taken, the mystery unravelled; I had been washed according to native ideas and customs, and understood what the whole thing meant. Some pleasures are too nearly allied to pain to be really pleasant.
Whether it was the heat, or exhaustion, or the loss of one skin or many, I know not; but after a glass of mjöd, that most delicious and refreshing of Finnish drinks, I slept splendidly—the first time after weeks of anxiety and grief—and felt fit next morning for any amount of hard work, even for a journey to Russia through Finland, though we did not speak or understand the language of either country. Adversity may develop character, but it is mighty unpleasant.
The Finnish peasant thinks nothing of being seen by his friends or his neighbours in a state of nature, apropos of which peculiarity a well-known general told us the following story—
He had been inspecting a district, and for his benefit parades, etc., were held. Some hours afterwards he went for a ride, and on returning to the village he passed a Sauna, where the folk were enjoying their primitive kind of Turkish bath. According to the usual custom one of the men came out to dress himself; but, having left his clothes in a little pile some twenty feet from the Sauna door, he had hardly looked out his things when he noticed that the general was upon him. Though not in the least confused by the fact of his nakedness, for which he made no apology, he nevertheless exclaimed in tones of horror, "The general! the general!" and began rummaging among the articles on the ground, till at last he pulled forth a wig, which, all in a hurry, he clapped on his head wrong side up, then standing proudly erect he saluted the general as he passed.
The poor fellow evidently considered his wig of much more importance than his shirt. Modesty is a matter of climate and custom, just as morals are a matter of geography.
Another amusing story is told of an elegant Englishman who had heard so much of Finnish baths that he determined to try one; having arrived at some small town, he told the Isvoschtschik to go to the bastu. Away they drove, and finally drew up at a very nice house, where he paid the twopence halfpenny fare for his cab, rang the bell, and was admitted by a woman servant. He only knew half a dozen words in Swedish, but repeated bastu to the smiling lass, being surprised at the elegance of the furniture in the