CHAPTER IV.
The Drosky.--Salle des n.o.bles.--Russian Gaming.--Gastronomy.--Pedroski.--A Sunday in Moscow.--A Gipsy Belle.--Tea drinking.--The Emperor"s Garden.--Retrospective.
EARLY the next morning I mounted a drosky and rode to a celebrated garden or springs, furnished with every description of mineral water. I have several times spoken of the drosky. This may be called the Russian national vehicle, for it is found all over Russia, and nowhere else that I know of, except at Warsaw, where it was introduced by its Russian conquerors. It is on four wheels, with a long cushioned seat running lengthwise, on which the rider sits astride as on horseback, and so low that he can mount from the street. It is drawn by two horses; one in shafts, with a high arched bow over the neck called the douga, and the other, called "le furieux," in traces alongside, this last being trained to curb his neck and canter while the shaft-horse trots. The seat is long enough for two besides the driver, the riders sitting with their feet on different sides; or sometimes there is a cross-seat behind, on which the riders sit, with their faces to the horses, and the drosky boy, always dressed in a long surtout, with a bell-crowned hat turned up at the sides, sits on the end. But to return to the springs. The waters are prepared under the direction of medical men, who have the chymical a.n.a.lysis of all the princ.i.p.al mineral waters known, and manufacture them to order. As is universally the case in Russia, where there is any attempt at style, the establishment is upon a magnificent scale. The building contains a room perhaps one hundred and fifty feet long, with a clean and highly-polished floor, large looking-gla.s.ses, elegant sofas, and mahogany chairs and tables. The windows open upon a balcony extending along the whole front, which is furnished with tables and rustic chairs, and opens upon a large garden ornamented with gravel-walks, trees, and the most rare and valuable plants and flowers, at the time of my visit in full bloom. Every morning, from sunrise till noon, crowds of people, and particularly the n.o.bility and higher cla.s.ses, frequent this establishment, and that morning there was a larger collection than usual. Russian hospitality is conspicuous at a place like this. A stranger, instead of being avoided, is sought out; and after one or two promenades I was accosted by more than one gentleman, ready to show me every civility. In the long room and on the balconies, scattered about at the different tables, I saw the gourmand who had distended his stomach almost to bursting, and near him the gaunt and bilious dyspeptic, drinking their favourite waters; the dashing officer and the blooming girl, the lover and coquette, and, in short, all the style and fashion of Moscow, their eyes occasionally turning to the long mirrors, and then singly, in pairs and in groups, strolling gently through the gardens, enjoying the music that was poured forth from hidden arbours.
Returning through a street not far from my hotel, I saw a line of carriages, and gentlemen and ladies pa.s.sing under a light arcade, which formed the entrance to a large building. I joined the throng, and was put back by the doorkeeper because I was not in a dresscoat. I ran to my hotel and changed my frockcoat, but now I had no biglietto of entrance.
A few rubles obviated this difficulty and admitted me to the _Salle des n.o.bles_, a magnificent apartment surrounded by a colonnade, capable of containing more than three thousand persons, and said to be the finest ballroom in Europe. It belongs to a club of the n.o.bility, and none are admitted as members but n.o.bles. All games of hazard are forbidden; but, nevertheless, all games of hazard are played. Indeed, among the "on dits" which a traveller picks up, gambling is said to be the great vice of Russia. Young men who have not two rubles to rub together will bet thousands; and, when all other resources fail, the dishonourable will cheat, but the delicate-minded will kill themselves. It is not uncommon for a young man to say at the cardtable over night, "I must shoot myself to-morrow;" and he is as good as his word. The Salle was open for a few days, as a sort of fair, for the exhibition of specimens of Russian manufacture; and, besides tables, workboxes, &c., there were some of the finest living specimens of genuine Russian men and women that I had yet seen, though not to be compared, as a Russian officer said, to whom I made the remark, with the exhibition of the same specimens in the waltz and mazourka, when the Salle was lighted up and decorated for a ball.
I returned to my hotel, where I found my old friend the marquis waiting, according to appointment, to dine with me. He would have accompanied me everywhere, but I saw that he suffered from the exertion, and would not allow it. Meeting with me had struck a chord that had not been touched for years, and he was never tired of talking of his friends in America.
Every morning he breakfasted in my room, and we dined together every day. We went to the restaurant where I had supped with my friend of the theatre. The saloon was crowded, and at a table next us sat a seigneur, who was dining upon a delicacy that will surprise the reader, viz., one of his own female slaves, a very pretty girl, whom he had hired to the keeper of the restaurant for her maintenance and a dinner a volonte per annum for himself. This was the second time he had dined on her account, and she was then waiting upon him; a pretty, modest, delicate-looking girl, and the old n.o.ble seemed never to know when he had enough of her.
We left him gloating over still untasted dishes, and apparently mourning that human ability could hold out no longer. In going out my old friend, in homely but pithy phrase, said the only difference between a Russian seigneur and a Russian serf is, that the one wears his shirt inside his trousers and the other outside; but my friend spoke with the prejudices of a soldier of France aggravated by more than twenty years of exile. So far as my observation extended, the higher cla.s.ses are rather extraordinary for talent and acquirements. Their government is unfortunate for the development and exercise of abilities. They have none of the learned profession; merchandise is disgraceful, and the army is the only field. With an ardent love of country and an ambition to distinguish himself, every n.o.bleman becomes a soldier, and there is hardly an old or middle-aged individual of this cla.s.s who was not in arms to repel the invasion of Napoleon, and hardly a young man who did not serve lately in a less n.o.ble cause, the campaign in Poland. The consequence of service in the army seems to have been generally a pa.s.sion for display and expensive living, which sent them back to their estates, after their terms of service expired, over head and ears in debt. Unable to come often to the cities, and obliged to live at their chateaux, deprived of all society, surrounded only by slaves, and feeling the want of the excitement incident to a military life, many of them become great gourmands, or rather, as my French friend said, gluttons. They do not eat, said he, they swallow; and the manner in which, with the true spirit of a Frenchman who still remembered the cuisine of the Palais Royal, he commented upon their eating entremets, hors d"oeuvres, rotis, and desserts all pellmell, would have formed a proper episode to Major Hamilton"s chapter upon Americans eating eggs out of winegla.s.ses. The old marquis, although he retained all his French prejudices against the Russians, and always a.s.serted, as the Russians themselves admit, that, but for the early setting in of winter, Napoleon would have conquered Russia, allowed them the virtue of unbounded hospitality, and enumerated several princ.i.p.al families at whose tables he could at any time take a seat without any express invitation, and with whom he was always sure of being a welcome guest; and he mentioned the case of a compatriot who for years had a place regularly reserved for him at the table of a seigneur, which he took whenever he pleased without any questions being asked, until, having stayed away longer than usual, the seigneur sent to inquire for him, and learned that he was dead.
But to return. Toward evening I parted with the marquis, mounted a drosky, and rode to the country theatre at Pedroski. Pedroski is a place dear to the heart of every Russian, having been the favourite residence of Peter the Great, to whom Russia owes its existence among civilized nations. It is about three versts from the barrier, on the St.
Petersburgh road. The St. Petersburgh Gate is a very imposing piece of architecture. Six spirited horses rest lightly upon the top, like the brazen horses at St. Mark"s in Venice. A wide road, divided into avenues for carriages and pedestrians, gravelled and lined with trees, leads from the gate. The chateau is an old and singular, but interesting building of red brick, with a green dome and white cornices, and enclosed by a circular wall flanked with turrets. In the plain in front two regiments of Cossack cavalry were going through their exercises. The grounds around the chateau are very extensive, handsomely laid out for carriages and promenades, public and retired, to suit every taste. The princ.i.p.al promenade is about a mile in length, through a forest of majestic old trees. On each side is a handsome footpath of continual shade; and sometimes almost completely hidden by the luxuriant foliage are beautiful little summer-houses, abundantly supplied with all kinds of refreshments.
The theatre is at a little distance from the extreme end of the great promenade, a plain and unpretending building; and this and the grand operahouse are the only theatres I have seen built like ours, merely with continued rows of seats, and not part.i.tioned off into private boxes. The opera was some little Russian piece, and was followed by the grand ballet, the Revolt of the Seraglio. He who goes to Russia expecting to see a people just emerging from a state of barbarism, will often be astonished to find himself suddenly in a scene of Parisian elegance and refinement; and in no place will he feel this wonder more than in an operahouse at Moscow. The house was rather full, and contained more of the Russian n.o.bility than I had yet seen at any one time. They were well dressed, adorned with stars and ribands, and, as a cla.s.s of men, the "biggest in the round" I ever saw. Orders and t.i.tles of n.o.bility, by-the-way, are given with a liberality which makes them of no value; and all over Russia princes are as plenty as pickpockets in London.
The seigneurs of Russia have jumped over all intermediate grades of civilization, and plunged at once into the luxuries of metropolitan life. The ballet was, of course, inferior to that of Paris or London, but it is speaking in no mean praise of it to say that at this country theatre it might be made a subject of comparison. The dancers were the prettiest, the most interesting, and, what I was particularly struck with, the most modest looking I ever saw on the stage. It was melancholy to look at those beautiful girls, who, amid the glare and glitter of the stage, and in the graceful movements of the dance, were perfectly captivating and entrancing, and who, in the shades of domestic life, might fill the measure of man"s happiness on earth, and know them to be slaves. The whole troop belongs to the emperor. They are selected when young with reference to their beauty and talents, and are brought up with great care and expense for the stage. With light fairy figures, seeming rather spirits than corporeal substances, and trained to inspire admiration and love, they can never give way to these feelings themselves, for their affections and marriages are regulated entirely by the manager"s convenience. What though they are taken from the very poorest cla.s.s of life, leaving their parents, their brothers and sisters, the tenants of miserable cabins, oppressed and vilified, and cold and hungry, while they are rolling in luxuries. A chain does not gall the less because it is gilded. Raised from the lot to which they were born, taught ideas they would never have known, they but feel more sensibly the weight of their bonds; and the veriest sylph, whose graceful movements have brought down the loudest thunders of applause, and whose little heart flutters with the admiration she has excited, would probably give all her shortlived triumph for the privilege of bestowing that little flutterer where it would be loved and cherished.
There was one among them whom I long remembered. I followed her with my eyes till the curtain fell and left a blank around me. I saw her go out, and afterward she pa.s.sed me in one of a long train of dark blue carriages belonging to the direction, in which they are carried about like merchandise from theatre to theatre, but, like many other bright visions that broke upon me for a moment, I never saw her again.
At about eleven I left the steps of the theatre to return home. It was a most magnificent night, or, rather, it is almost profanation to call it by so black a name, for in that bright northern climate the day seemed to linger, unwilling to give place before the shades of night. I strolled on alone, wrapped in lonely but not melancholy meditations; the carriages rolled rapidly by me, and I was almost the last of the throng that entered the gate of Moscow.
A Sunday at Moscow. To one who had for a long time been a stranger to the sound of the church-going bell, few things could be more interesting than a Sunday at Moscow. Any one who has rambled along the Maritime Alps, and has heard from some lofty eminence the convent bell ringing for matins, vespers, and midnight prayers, will long remember the sweet yet melancholy sounds. To me there is always something touching in the sound of the church-going bell; touching in its own notes, but far more so in its a.s.sociations. And these feelings were exceedingly fresh when I awoke on Sunday in the holy city of Moscow. In Greece and Turkey there are no bells; in Russia they are almost innumerable, but this was the first time I had happened to pa.s.s the Sabbath in a city. I lay and listened, almost fearing to move lest I should hush the sounds; thoughts of home came over me; of the day of rest, of the gathering for church, and the greeting of friends at the church door. But he who has never heard the ringing of bells at Moscow does not know its music. Imagine a city containing more than six hundred churches and innumerable convents, all with bells, and these all sounding together, from the sharp, quick hammer-note, to the loudest, deepest peals that ever broke and lingered on the ear, struck at long intervals, and swelling on the air as if unwilling to die away. I rose and threw open my window, dressed myself, and after breakfast, joining the throng called to their respective churches by their well-known bells, I went to what is called the English chapel, where, for the first time in many months, I joined in a regular church service, and listened to an orthodox sermon. I was surprised to see so large a congregation, though I remarked among them many English governesses with children, the English language being at that moment the rage among the Russians, and mult.i.tudes of cast-off chambermaids adventuring thither to teach the rising Russian n.o.bility the beauties of the English tongue.
All over the Continent Sunday is the great day for observing national manners and customs. I dined at an early hour with my friend the marquis, and, under his escort, mounting a drosky, rode to a great promenade of the people called _L"Allee des Peuples_. It lies outside the barrier, and beyond the state prisons, where the exiles for Siberia are confined, on the land of Count Schremetow, the richest n.o.bleman in Russia, having one hundred and thirty thousand slaves on his estate; the chateau is about eight versts from the city, and a n.o.ble road through his own land leads from the barrier to his door.
This promenade is the great rendezvous of the people; that is, of the merchants and shopkeepers of Moscow. The promenade is simply a large piece of ground ornamented with n.o.ble trees, and provided with everything necessary for the enjoyment of all the national amus.e.m.e.nts, among which the Russian mountain is the favourite; and refreshments were distributed in great abundance. Soldiers were stationed at different points to preserve order, and the people seemed all cheerful and happy; but the life and soul of the place were the Bohemian or gipsy girls.
Wherever they moved, a crowd gathered round them. They were the first I had seen of this extraordinary people. Coming no one knows whence, and living no one knows how, wanderers from their birth, and with a history enveloped in doubt, it was impossible to mistake the dark complexion and piercing coal-black eyes of the gipsy women. The men were nowhere to be seen, nor were there any old women with them; and these young girls, well dressed, though, in general, with nothing peculiar in their costume, moved about in parties of five or six, singing, playing, and dancing to admiring crowds. One of them, with a red silk cloak trimmed with gold, and a gold band round her hair, struck me as the very _beau ideal_ of a gipsy queen. Recognising me as a stranger, she stopped just in front of me, struck her castanets and danced, at the same time directing the movements of her companions, who formed a circle around me. There was a beauty in her face, combined with intelligence and spirit, that riveted my attention, and when she spoke her eyes seemed to read me through. I ought, perhaps, to be ashamed of it, but in all my wanderings I never regretted so much my ignorance of the language as when it denied me the pleasure of conversing with that gipsy girl. I would fain have known whether her soul did not soar above the scene and the employment in which I found her; whether she was not formed for better things than to display her beautiful person before crowds of boors; but I am sorry to add, that the character of my queen was not above reproach; and, as I had nothing but my character to stand upon in Moscow, I was obliged to withdraw from the observation which her attention fixed upon me.
Leaving my swarthy princess with this melancholy reflection, and leaving the scene of humbler enjoyment, I mounted a drosky, and, depositing my old friend in the suburbs of the city, in half an hour was in another world, in the great promenade of Pedroski, the gathering-place of the n.o.bility, where all the rank and fashion of Moscow were vying with each other in style and magnificence. The extensive grounds around the old chateau are handsomely disposed and ornamented with trees, but the great carriage promenade is equal to anything I ever saw. It is a straight road, more than a mile in length, through a thick forest of n.o.ble trees.
For two hours before dark all the equipages in Moscow paraded up and down this promenade. These equipages were striking and showy without being handsome, and the Russian manner of driving four horses makes a very dashing appearance, the leaders being harnessed with long traces, perhaps twenty feet from the wheel horses, and guided by a lad riding the near leader, the coachman sitting as if nailed to the box, and merely holding the reins. All the rules of good taste, as understood in the capitals of Southern Europe, were set at defiance; and many a seigneur, who thought he was doing the thing in the very best style, had no idea how much his turnout would have shocked an English whip. But all this extravagance, in my eyes, added much to the effect of the scene; and the star-spangled Muscovite who dashed up and down the promenade on horseback, with two Calmuc Tartars at his heels, attracted more of my attention than the plain gentleman who paced along with his English jockey and quiet elegance of equipment. The stars and decorations of the seigneurs set them off to great advantage; and scores of officers, with their showy uniforms, added brilliancy to the scene, while the footmen made as good an appearance as their masters.
On either side of the grand promenade is a walk for foot pa.s.sengers, and behind this, almost hidden from view by the thick shade of trees, are little cottages, arbours, and tents, furnished with ices and all kinds of refreshments suited to the season. I should have mentioned long since that tea, the very pabulum of all domestic virtues, is the Russian"s favourite beverage. They say that they have better tea than can be obtained in Europe, which they ascribe to the circ.u.mstance of its being brought by caravans over land, and saved the exposure of a sea voyage.
Whether this be the cause or not, if I am any judge they are right as to the superiority of their article; and it was one of the most striking features in the animating scene at Pedroski to see family groups distributed about, all over the grounds, under the shade of n.o.ble trees, with their large bra.s.s urn hissing before them, and taking their tea under the pa.s.sing gaze of thousands of people with as much unconcern as if by their own firesides.
Leaving for a moment the thronged promenade, I turned into a thick forest and entered the old chateau of the great Peter. There all was solitude; the footman and I had the palace to ourselves. I followed him through the whole range of apartments, in which there was an appearance of staid respectability that quite won my heart, neither of them being any better furnished than one of our oldfashioned country houses. The pomp and show that I saw glittering through the openings in the trees were unknown in the days of the good old Peter; the chateau was silent and deserted; the hand that built it was stiff and cold, and the heart that loved it had ceased to beat; old Peter was in his grave, and his descendants loved better their splendid palaces on the banks of the Neva.
When Moscow was burning, Napoleon fled to this chateau for refuge. I stopped for a moment in the chamber where, by the blaze of the burning city, he dictated his despatches for the capital of France; gave the attendant a ruble, and again mixed with the throng, with whom I rambled up and down the princ.i.p.al promenade, and at eleven o"clock was at my hotel. I ought not to forget the Russian ladies; but, after the gay scene at Pedroski, it is no disparagement to them if I say that, in my quiet walk home, the dark-eyed gipsy girl was uppermost in my thoughts.
The reader may perhaps ask if such is indeed what the traveller finds in Russia; "Where are the eternal snows that cover the steppes and the immense wastes of that Northern empire? that chill the sources of enjoyment, and congeal the very fountains of life?" I answer, they have but just pa.s.sed by, and they will soon come again; the present is the season of enjoyment; the Russians know it to be brief and fleeting, and, like b.u.t.terflies, unfold themselves to the sun and flutter among the flowers.
Like them, I made the most of it at Moscow. Mounted in a drosky, I hurried from church to church, from convent to convent, and from quarter to quarter. But although it is the duty of a traveller to see everything that is to be seen, and although there is a kind of excitement in hurrying from place to place, which he is apt to mistake for pleasure, it is not in this that his real enjoyment is found. His true pleasure is in turning quietly to those things which are interesting to the imagination as well as to the eyes, and so I found myself often turning from the churches and palaces, specimens of architecture and art, to the sainted walls of the Kremlin. Here were the first and last of my visits; and whenever I sauntered forth without any specific object, perhaps to the neglect of many other places I ought to have seen, my footsteps involuntarily turned thitherward.
Outside and beneath the walls of the Kremlin, and running almost the whole extent of its circ.u.mference, are boulevards and a public garden, called the Emperor"s, made within a few years, and the handsomest thing of the kind in Moscow; I am not sure but that I may add anywhere else. I have compared it in my mind to the Gardens of the Luxembourg and Tuileries, and in many respects hold it to be more beautiful. It is more agreeably irregular and undulating in its surface, and has a more rural aspect, and the groves and plants are better arranged, although it has not the statues, lakes, and fountains of the pride of Paris. I loved to stroll through this garden, having on one side of me the magnificent buildings of the great Russian princes, seigneurs, and merchants, among the finest and most conspicuous of which is the former residence of the unhappy Queen of Georgia; and on the other side, visible through the foliage of the trees, the white walls of the Kremlin, and, towering above them, the domes of the palaces and churches within, and the lofty tower of Ivan Veliki. Thence I loved to stroll to the Holy Gate of the Kremlin. It is a vaulted portal, and over the entrance is a picture, with a lamp constantly burning; and a sentinel is always posted at the gate. I loved to stand by it and see the haughty seigneurs and the degraded serf alike humble themselves on crossing the sacred threshold, and then, with my hat in my hand, follow the footsteps of the venerating Russian. Once I attempted to brave the interdict, and go in with my head covered; but the soldier at the gate stopped me, and forbade my violating the sacred prohibition. Within the walls I wandered about, without any definite object, sometimes entering the great church and beholding for a moment the prostrate Russian praying before the image of some saint, or descending to look once more at the great bell, or at other times mounting the tower and gazing at the beautiful panorama of the city.
On the last day of my stay in Moscow a great crowd drew me to the door of the church, where some fete was in course of celebration, in honour of the birth, marriage, or some other incident in the life of the emperor or empress. The archbishop, a venerable-looking old man, was officiating, and when he came out a double line of men, women, and children was drawn up from the door of the church to his carriage, all pressing forward and struggling to kiss his hands. The crowd dispersed, and I strolled once more through the repository of heirlooms, and imperial reliques and trophies; but, pa.s.sing by the crowns loaded with jewels, the canopies and thrones adorned with velvet and gold, I paused before the throne of unhappy Poland! I have seen great cities desolate and in ruins, magnificent temples buried in the sands of the African desert, and places once teeming with fertility now lying waste and silent; but no monument of fallen greatness ever affected me more than this. It was covered with blue velvet and studded with golden stars. It had been the seat of Casimir, and Sobieski, and Stanislaus Augustus.
Brave men had gathered round it and sworn to defend it, and died in redeeming their pledge. Their oaths are registered in heaven, their bodies rest in b.l.o.o.d.y graves; Poland is blotted from the list of nations, and her throne, unspotted with dishonour, brilliant as the stars which glitter on its surface, is exhibited as a Russian trophy, before which the stoutest manhood need not blush to drop a tear.
Toward evening I returned to my favourite place, the porch of the palace of the Czars. I seated myself on the step, took out my tablets, and commenced a letter to my friends at home. What should I write? Above me was the lofty tower of Ivan Veliki; below, a solitary soldier, in his gray overcoat, was retiring to a sentry-box to avoid a drizzling rain.
His eyes were fixed upon me, and I closed my book. I am not given to musing, but I could not help it. Here was the theatre of one of the most extraordinary events in the history of the world. After sixty battles and a march of more than two thousand miles, the grand army of Napoleon entered Moscow, and found no smoke issuing from a single chimney, nor a Muscovite even to gaze upon them from the battlements or walls. Moscow was deserted, her magnificent palaces forsaken by their owners, her three hundred thousand inhabitants vanished as if they had never been.
Silent and amazed, the grand army filed through its desolate streets.
Approaching the Kremlin, a few miserable, ferocious, and intoxicated wretches, left behind as a savage token of the national hatred, poured a volley of musketry from the battlements. At midnight the flames broke out in the city; Napoleon, driven from his quarters in the suburbs, hurried to the Kremlin, ascended the steps, and entered the door at which I sat. For two days the French soldiers laboured to repress the fierce attempts to burn the city. Russian police-officers were seen stirring up the fire with tarred lances; hideous-looking men and women, covered with rags, were wandering like demons amid the flames, armed with torches, and striving to spread the conflagration. At midnight again the whole city was in a blaze; and while the roof of the Kremlin was on fire, and the panes of the window against which he leaned were burning to the touch, Napoleon watched the course of the flames and exclaimed, "What a tremendous spectacle! These are Scythians indeed."
Amid volumes of smoke and fire, his eyes blinded by the intense heat, and his hands burned in shielding his face from its fury, and traversing streets arched with fire, he escaped from the burning city.
Russia is not cla.s.sic ground. It does not stand before us covered with the shadow of great men"s deeds. A few centuries ago it was overrun by wandering tribes of barbarians; but what is there in those lands which stand forth on the pages of history, crowned with the glory of their ancient deeds, that, for extraordinary daring, for terrible sublimity, and undaunted patriotism, exceeds the burning of Moscow. Neither Marathon, nor Thermopylae, nor the battle of the Horatii, nor the defence of Cocles, nor the devotion of the Decii, can equal it; and when time shall cover with its dim and quiet glories that bold and extraordinary deed, the burning of Moscow will be regarded as outstripping all that we read of Grecian or Roman patriotism, and the name of the Russian governor (Rostopchin), if it be not too tough a name to hand down to posterity, will never be forgotten.
CHAPTER V.
Getting a Pa.s.sport.--Parting with the Marquis.--The Language of Signs.--A Loquacious Traveller.--From Moscow to St.
Petersburgh.--The Wolga.--Novogorod.--Newski Perspective.--An unfortunate Mistake.--Northern Twilight.
UNABLE to remain longer in Moscow, I prepared for my journey for St.
Petersburgh. Several diligences run regularly between these two great cities; one of which, the Velocifere, is superior to any public conveyance on the Continent of Europe. I took my place in that, and two days beforehand sent my pa.s.sport to be _vised_. I sent for it the next day, and it was not ready. I went myself, and could not get it. I knew that nothing could be done at the Russian offices without paying for it, and was ready and willing to do so, and time after time I called the attention of the officer to my pa.s.sport. He replied coolly, "_Dans un instant_," and, turning to something else, kept me waiting two hours; and when at length he took it up and arranged it, he led me down stairs out of sight to receive the expected _douceur_. He was a well-dressed man, with the large government b.u.t.ton on his coat, and rather distingue in his appearance and manners. I took the pa.s.sport, folded it up, and put it in my pocket with a coolness equal to his own, and with malicious pleasure put into his hand a single ruble, equal to twenty cents of our money; he expected at least twenty-five rubles, or about five dollars, and his look of rage and disappointment amply repaid me for all the vexation he had caused by his delay. I bade him farewell with a smile that almost drove him mad.
Bribery is said to be almost universal among the inferior officers of government, and there is a story of a Frenchman in Russia which ill.u.s.trates the system. He had an office, of which the salary was so small that he could not live upon it. At first he would not take bribes, but stern necessity drove him to it, and while he was about it he did the thing handsomely. Having overreached the mark, and been guilty of being detected, he was brought before the proper tribunal; and when asked, "Why did you take a bribe?" his answer was original and conclusive, "I take, thou takest, he takes, we take, you take, they take!"
I told the marquis the story of my parting interview at the police-office, which he said was capital, but startled me by suggesting that, if there should happen to be any irregularity, I would have great trouble in getting it rectified; even this, however, did not disturb my immediate satisfaction, and, fortunately, all was right.
The morning of my departure, before I was out of bed, the marquis was in my room. Meeting with me had revived in him feelings long since dead; and at the moment of parting he told me, what his pride had till that moment concealed, that his heart yearned once more to his kindred; and that, if he had the means, old as he was, he would go to America. And yet, though his frame trembled and his voice was broken, and his lamp was almost burned out, his spirit was as high as when he fought the battles of the empire; and he told me to say to them that he would not come to be a dependant upon their bounty; that he could repay all they should do for him by teaching their children. He gave me his last painting, which he regarded with the pride of an artist, as a souvenir for his sister; but having no means of carrying it safely, I was obliged to return it to him. He remained with me till the moment of my departure, clung to my hand after I had taken my place in the drosky, and when we had started I looked back and saw him still standing in the road. It seemed as if the last link that bound him to earth was broken.
He gave me a letter, which I forwarded to his friends at home; his sister was still living, and had not forgotten her long-lost brother; she had not heard from him in twenty years, and had long believed him dead. Pecuniary a.s.sistance was immediately sent to him, and, unhappily, since my return home, intelligence has been received that it arrived only at the last moment when human aid could avail him; in time to smooth the pillow of death by the a.s.surance that his friends had not forgotten him. And perhaps, in his dying moments, he remembered me. At all events, it is some satisfaction, amid the recollections of an unprofitable life, to think that, when his checkered career was drawing to its close, I had been the means of gladdening for a moment the old exile"s heart.
I must not forget my host, the quondam exile to Siberia. In his old days his spirit too was chafed at living under despotism, and, like the marquis, he also hoped, before he died, to visit America. I gave him my address, with the hope, but with very little expectation, of seeing him again. A travelling companion once remarked, that if every vagabond to whom I gave my address should find his way to America, I would have a precious set to present to my friends. Be it so; there is not a vagabond among them whom I would not be glad to see.
My English companion and myself had seen but little of each other at Moscow. He intended to remain longer than I did, but changed his mind, and took a place in the same diligence for St. Petersburgh. This diligence was the best I ever rode in; and, for a journey of nearly five hundred miles, we could not have been more comfortably arranged. It started at the hour punctually, as from the Messagere in Paris. We rolled for the last time through the streets of Moscow, and in a few minutes pa.s.sed out at the St. Petersburgh Gate. Our companions were a man about thirty-five, a cattle-driver, with his trousers torn, and his linen hanging out ostentatiously in different places, and an old man about sixty-five, just so far civilized as to have cut off the long beard and put on broadcloth clothes. It was the first time the old man had ever been on a journey from home; everything was new to him, and he seemed puzzled to know what to make of us; he could not comprehend how we could look, and walk, and eat like Russians, and not talk like them.
My place was directly opposite his, and, as soon as we were seated, he began to talk to me. I looked at him and made no answer; he began again, and went on in an uninterrupted strain for several minutes, more and more surprised that I did not answer, or answered only in unintelligible sounds. After a while he seemed to come to the conclusion that I was deaf and dumb and turned to my companion as to my keeper for an explanation. Finding he could do nothing there, he appeared alarmed, and it was some time before he could get a clear idea of the matter. When he did, however, he pulled off an amazingly white glove, took my hand and shook it, pointed to his head, shook it, and touched my head, then put his hand to his heart, then to my heart; all which was to say, that though our heads did not understand each other, our hearts did. But though he saw we did not understand him, he did not on that account stop talking; indeed, he talked incessantly, and the only way of stopping him was to look directly in his face and talk back again; and I read him long lectures, particularly upon the snares and temptations of the world into which he was about to plunge, and wound up with stanzas of poetry and sc.r.a.ps of Greek and Latin, all which the old man listened to without ever interrupting me, bending his ear as if he expected every moment to catch something he understood; and when I had finished, after a moment"s blank expression he whipped off his white glove, took my hand, and touched significantly his head and heart. Indeed, a dozen times a day he did this; and particularly whenever we got out, on resuming our seats, as a sort of renewal of the compact of good fellowship, the glove invariably came off, and the significant movement between the hand, head, and heart was repeated. The second day a young seigneur named Chickoff, who spoke French, joined the diligence, and through him we had full explanations with the old Russian. He always called me the American graff or n.o.ble, and said that, after being presented to the emperor, I should go down with him into the country.
My worthy comrade appeared at first to be not a little bored by the old man"s garrulous humour; but at length, seized by a sudden whim, began, as he said, to teach him English. But such English! He taught him, after a fashion peculiarly his own, the manner of addressing a lady and gentleman in English; and very soon, with the remarkable facility of the Russians in acquiring languages, the old man, utterly unconscious of their meaning, repeated the words with extraordinary distinctness; and regularly, when he took his place in the diligence, he accompanied the significant movements of his hand, head, and heart to me with the not very elegant address taught him by my companion. Though compelled to smile inwardly at the absurdity of the thing, I could not but feel the inherent impropriety of the conduct of my eccentric fellow-traveller; and ventured to suggest to him that, though he had an undoubted right to do as he pleased in matters that could not implicate me, yet, independent of the very questionable character of the joke itself (for the words savoured more of Wapping than of St. James"s), as we were known to have travelled together, a portion of the credit of having taught the old Russian English might fall upon me--an honour of which I was not covetous, and, therefore, should tell the old man never to repeat the words he had been taught, which I did without a.s.signing any reason for it, and before we arrived at St. Petersburgh he had forgotten them.
The road from Moscow to St. Petersburgh is now one of the best in Europe. It is Macadamized nearly the whole way, and a great part is bordered with trees; the posthouses are generally large and handsome, under the direction of government, where soup, cutlets, &c., are always ready at a moment"s notice, at prices regulated by a tariff hanging up in the room, which, however, being written in Russian, was of no particular use to us. The country is comparatively thickly settled, and villages are numerous. Even on this road, however, the villages are forlorn things, being generally the property and occupied by the serfs of the seigneurs, and consisting of a single long street, with houses on both sides built of logs, the better sort squared, with the gable end to the street, the roofs projecting two or three feet from the houses, and sometimes ornamented with rude carving and small holes for windows. We pa.s.sed several chateaux, large, imposing buildings, with parks and gardens, and a large church, painted white, with a green dome surmounted by a cross.
In many places on the road are chapels with figures of the Panagia, or all holy Virgin, or some of the saints; and our old Russian, constantly on the lookout for them, never pa.s.sed one without taking off his hat and going through the whole formula of crosses; sometimes, in entering a town, they came upon us in such quick succession, first on one side, then on the other, that, if he had not been engaged in, to him, a sacred ceremony, his hurry and perplexity would have been ludicrous. During the night we saw fires ahead, and a little off the road were the bivouacs of teamsters or wayfarers, who could not pay for lodging in a miserable Russian hut. All the way we met the great caravan teams carrying tallow, hides, hemp, and other merchandise to the cities, and bringing back wrought fabrics, groceries, &c., into the interior. They were generally thirty or forty together, one man or woman attending to three or four carts, or, rather, neglecting them, as the driver was generally asleep on the top of his load. The horses, however, seemed to know what they were about; for as the diligence came rolling toward them, before the postillion could reach them with his whip, they intuitively hurried out of the way. The bridges over the streams and rivers are strong, substantial structures, built of heavy hewn granite, with iron bal.u.s.trades, and ornamented in the centre with the double-headed eagle, the arms of Russia.
At Tver we pa.s.sed the Wolga on a bridge of boats. This n.o.ble river, the longest in Europe, navigable almost from its source for an extent of four thousand versts, dividing, for a great part of its course, Europe and Asia, runs majestically through the city, and rolls on, bathing the walls of the city of Astrachan, till it reaches the distant Caspian; its banks still inhabited by the same tribes of warlike Cossacks who hovered on the skirts of the French army during their invasion of Russia. By its junction with the Tverza, a communication is made between the Wolga and Neva, or, in other words, between the Caspian and Baltic. The impetus of internal improvements has extended even to the north of Europe, and the Emperor Nicolas is now actively engaged in directing surveys of the great rivers of Russia for the purpose of connecting them by ca.n.a.ls and railroads, and opening steam communications throughout the whole interior of his empire. A great number of boats of all sizes, for carrying grain to the capital, were lying off the city. These boats are generally provided with one mast, which, in the largest, may equal a frigate"s mainmast. "The weight of the matsail," an English officer remarks, "must be prodigious, having no fewer than one hundred breadths in it; yet the facility with which it is managed bears comparison with that of the Yankees with their boom mainsail in their fore-and-aft clippers." The rudder is a ponderous machine, being a broad piece of timber floating astern twelve or fifteen feet, and fastened to the tiller by a pole, which descends perpendicularly into the water; the tiller is from thirty to forty feet long, and the pilot who turns it stands upon a scaffold at that distance from the stern. Down the stream a group of Cossacks were bathing, and I could not resist the temptation to throw myself for a moment into this king of rivers. The diligence hurried me, and, as it came along, I gathered up my clothes and dressed myself inside.
About eighty versts from St. Petersburgh we came to the ancient city of Novogorod. In the words of an old traveller, "Next unto Moscow, the city of Novogorod is reputed the chiefest in Russia; for although it be in majestie inferior to it, yet in greatness it goeth beyond it. It is the chiefest and greatest mart-town of all Muscovy; and albeit the emperor"s seat is not there, but at Moscow, yet the commodiousness of the river, falling into that gulf which is called Sinus Finnicus, whereby it is well frequented by merchants, makes it more famous than Moscow itself."
Few of the ruined cities of the Old World present so striking an appearance of fallen greatness as this comparatively unknown place.
There is an ancient saying, "Who can resist the G.o.ds and Novogorod the Great?" Three centuries ago it covered an area of sixty-three versts in circ.u.mference, and contained a population of more than four hundred thousand inhabitants. Some parts of it are still in good condition, but the larger portion has fallen to decay. Its streets present marks of desolation, mouldering walls, and ruined churches, and its population has dwindled to little more than seven thousand inhabitants. The steeples in this ancient city bear the cross, unaccompanied by the crescent, the proud token showing that the Tartars, in all their invasions, never conquered it, while in the reconquered cities the steeples all exhibit the crescent surmounted by the cross.
Late in the afternoon of the fourth day we were approaching St.
Petersburgh. The ground is low and flat, and I was disappointed in the first view of the capital of Russia; but pa.s.sing the barrier, and riding up the Newski Perspective, the most magnificent street in that magnificent city, I felt that the stories of its splendour were not exaggerated, and that this was, indeed, ent.i.tled to the proud appellation of the "Palmyra of the North." My English companion again stopped at a house kept by an Englishwoman and frequented by his countrymen, and I took an apartment at a hotel in a broad street with an unp.r.o.nounceable Russian name, a little off the Newski Perspective. I was worn and fatigued with my journey, but I could not resist the inclination to take a gentle promenade along the Newski Perspective.
While in the coffee-room refreshing myself with a cup of the best Russian tea, I heard some one outside the door giving directions to a tailor, and presently a man entered, whom, without looking at him, I told he was just the person I wanted to see, as I had a pair of pantaloons to be mended. He made no answer, and, without being able to see distinctly, I told him to wait till I could go up stairs and change them, and that he must mend them strongly and bring them back in the morning. In all probability, the next moment I should have been sprawling on the floor; but the landlady, a clever Frenchwoman, who saw my error stepped up, and crying out, "Ah, Monsieur Colonel, attendez, attendez," explained my mistake as clearly as I could have done myself, and I followed closely with an apology, adding that my remark could not be intended as disrespectful to him, inasmuch as even then, with the windows closed, I could scarcely distinguish his person. He understood the thing at once, accepted my apology with great frankness, and, instead of knocking me down, or challenging me to fight with sabre or some other diabolical thing, finding I was a stranger just arrived from Moscow, sat down at the table, and before we rose offered to accompany me in my walk.
There could be no mistake as to the caste of my new friend. The landlady had called him colonel, and, in repelling the imputation of his being a tailor, had spoken of him as a rich seigneur, who for ten years had occupied the front apartments _au premier_ in her hotel. We walked out into the Newski Perspective, and strolled along that magnificent street down to the Admiralty, and along the n.o.ble quays of the Neva. I had reached the terminus of my journey; for many months I had been moving farther and farther away, and the next step I took would carry me toward home. It was the eve of the fourth of July; and as I strolled through the broad streets and looked up at the long ranges of magnificent buildings, I poured into the ear of my companion the recollections connected with this moment at home: in boyhood, crackers and fireworks in readiness for the great jubilee of the morrow; and, latterly, the excursion into the country to avoid the bustle and confusion of "the glorious fourth."