The Drosky.--Salle des Nobles.--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
analysis of all the principal 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-glasses, 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 nobility and higher
classes, 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 passing 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
Nobles_, 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 nobility, and none are
admitted as members but nobles. 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 noble 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 classes 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 nobleman becomes a soldier, and there is
hardly an old or middle-aged individual of this class who was not in
arms to repel the invasion of Napoleon, and hardly a young man who did
not serve lately in a less noble cause, the campaign in Poland. The
consequence of service in the army seems to have been generally a
passion 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 wineglasses. The old marquis, although he retained all his French
prejudices against the Russians, and always asserted, 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 principal 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
principal 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 partitioned 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 nobility than I had yet seen at any one
time. They were well dressed, adorned with stars and ribands, and, as a
class of men, the "biggest in the round" I ever saw. Orders and titles
of nobility, 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 class 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 passed 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 associations. 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 pass 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 multitudes of cast-off
chambermaids adventuring thither to teach the rising Russian nobility
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 nobleman in
Russia, having one hundred and thirty thousand slaves on his estate; the
chateau is about eight versts from the city, and a noble 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 noble trees, and provided with
everything necessary for the enjoyment of all the national amusements,
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
nobility, 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 noble 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 passengers, 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 circumstance 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 noble trees,
with their large brass urn hissing before them, and taking their tea
under the passing 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 principal 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 passed 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 butterflies, 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 circumference, 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, passing 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 bloody 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 classic 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.