THROUGH THE WINTER
Happily our life at the Embassy was not all made up of political
miscarriages and diplomatic rebuffs. On the 6th (18th) of January we all
received a summons to attend the ceremony of the blessing of the waters.
For some days past a little shrine of green wood had been in process
of construction on the side of the Neva opposite the Winter Palace;
a picture of a saint surmounted it on each side, the place of honour
being assigned to the image of St. John the Baptist. As soon as daylight
broke on the 6th vast crowds of people of both sexes, soldiers in many
uniforms, and, of course, as at all public ceremonies, dogs, were
flocking to catch as near a sight as possible of the shrine.
We, the Corps Diplomatique, were bidden to the Winter Palace at noon.
The drive through the streets was fascinating. The weather was glorious
and the glistening city was at its brightest, the soldiers in all their
bravery giving a kaleidoscopic glamour to the surging mob, mostly clad in
sad-coloured sheepskins with the wool inside. The wild-looking Georgians
in their native dress, Cossacks of the Don, fierce, swarthy horsemen
from the Caucasus in their shirts of mail and shining armour, striking a
medieval note in the concert of men. The Kurnos regiment of the Emperor
Paul, every man with a snub nose, and wearing the old peaked brazen
shako of our Guards in Queen Anne’s reign, each shako showing a bullet
hole in it, a memorial of a bullet which, aimed at the Tsar, found its
billet in the tall cap of one of his faithful, snub-nosed guardsmen, who
dashed forward just in time to save the Tsar’s life at the expense of
his own; in contrast to these were the grenadiers, with heavy bearskin
caps and plumes. The _chevalier-gardes_ in white tunics, their helmets
and cuirasses dazzling in the winter sun—all the panoply of war set in
the flaming glory of ecclesiastical and imperial splendour. Could this be
Europe in the nineteenth century?
From the room in the Palace in which we had assembled we were ushered
off to a side entrance to see the priestly procession form to meet the
Tsar. It was an imposing ceremony. The air was heavy with the penetrating
fumes of incense, and in the distance we could hear the mysterious effect
of the deep bass voices of the priests and deacons—those wonderful bass
voices for which they are chosen—chanting the impressive litanies of the
Greek Church. Nearer and nearer they came, the music becoming clearer
and more distinct, but intensely reverential, until at last the great
procession of Church dignitaries passed before us; it was stirringly
solemn.
Priests in red, priests in purple, priests in white, and priests in
violet, all as resplendent as a profusion of gold embroidery and jewels
could make them—very imposing with their long white beards and hair. One
deacon, a giant in stature, with hair and beard reaching half-way down to
his waist, had a deep voice which, pealing through the corridors like the
rolling[42] notes of a bass trombone, made the windows rattle again. Last
of all came the Bishops and the Metropolitan, like the King’s daughter
“all glorious within,” clad in raiment that made them seem like a vision
out of the Apocalypse. Altogether a sight not to be forgotten.
We followed the procession through the great State apartments of the
Palace, each room with a guard of honour from a different regiment,
until the priests and bishops branched off to one of the principal
staircases to go round the Palace; and when next we saw them they were
accompanied by the Tsar, looking magnificent on a grey charger, followed
by his brothers and sons, and a brilliantly mounted staff of the chief
officials. Of the ceremony itself we could see nothing. It consists in
the dipping of a cross by the Tsar into the water, through a hole made in
the ice, and during the liturgy which follows, and lasts for a quarter
of an hour, all the people, including the soldiers, remain uncovered.
Even the Tsar must bare his head, so the late Emperor, who was bald,
used to wear a wig for the occasion. It was luckily not very cold, but
there was a keen wind blowing, and I am bound to say that the thermometer
is a bad judge of temperature at St. Petersburg, for the wind is man’s
worst enemy, and the days when the mercury is at its lowest are far more
tolerable than those on which there are a few degrees of frost and biting
blasts that race down the river. Happily we diplomatists had two stout
glass windows between us and the weather, so we had no cause to complain.
As soon as the waters had been duly blessed, and the service was over,
out burst a cannonade from the fortress and from guns placed at regular
intervals on the opposite bank of the Neva; then the Emperor and his
staff mounted their horses and wended their way back, the priests
carrying the blessed water and sprinkling the troops with it as they
passed in front of them. The Empress being ill and unable to attend the
ceremony, a golden goblet was filled with the water and carried to her
for her use.
We were all invited to luncheon, and after that there was a review of
the Imperial Guards, thirty-four thousand men and eighty-four pieces of
cannon; a quite magnificent display.
As soon as the blessing of the waters and the review were finished, the
mujiks were all allowed access to the consecrated hole in the ice. Into
this they dipped themselves, fully clothed, to the end that they might
purify themselves from the excesses of their holidays—more particularly
from the sin of wearing masks, which, being forbidden by their religion,
is one in which the orthodox take a special delight. Dripping icicles,
but pure, and of a contented conscience, the mujik rushes from his
freezing bath to his poor home, there to work, and, as soon as Lent
comes, starve, till Easter shall set him free once more.
If all that one hears be true, the Russia of to-day is very different
from what it was at the time of which I am writing. The great hospitable
houses are, so I am told, many of them shut up. The Winter Palace itself
is no longer the setting of pageants and festivities of which the
slaves of the ring and the lamp might have been the stage-managers and
chamberlains. Misfortune, sorrow and cruel anxieties have racked the
Imperial Family, and the gaiety of a nation has been eclipsed. One can
but hope that it may be only a passing eclipse, only a temporary cloud,
through which in years to come the sun may shine more brightly than
before.[43] It was radiant in my day.
It would be difficult to imagine anything more sumptuous than a great
Court ball. There were one thousand eight hundred guests, themselves all
as brilliant as the glory of diamonds and rubies and pearls and the most
magnificent uniforms could make them. The great white and gold ball-room,
with an orchestra at each end, flanked by arches leading into a winter
garden rich in palms and tree-ferns and flowers and all the wonders
of tropical vegetation, was lighted by twenty-seven thousand candles
arranged spirally round the pillars and in crystal chandeliers.
The Corps Diplomatique were ushered into the adjoining drawing-rooms,
where they were received by old Count Ribeaupierre, the _grand maître de
la Cour_, himself a notable link with the past, for he had been page of
honour to the Empress Catherine. Presently the doors were thrown open
and the Imperial family trooped in; the Emperor as usual very regal,
half a head taller than any man in the room, wearing a white hussar
uniform trimmed with gold and black sables; the Empress covered with
the spoils of Ophir and Golconda. They went round our circle, stopping
to speak to the chiefs of missions and their wives. It was a lesson to
watch that gracious Lady and the winning way in which she made her guests
welcome with a charm that could only come from the sweetest nature.
When the little reception was over we followed Their Majesties into the
ball-room. It really was a dazzling sight. At a given moment all the one
thousand eight hundred guests sat down to supper at the same time; only
the Emperor remained standing, himself looking after the comfort of his
guests.
An entertainment even more wonderful, on account of its exquisite
daintiness, was a smaller ball of only about three hundred and fifty
guests; it led, moreover, to some amusing incidents. The order from
the Court was that civilians were not to wear uniform, so with two
brilliant exceptions, the diplomatic body arrived as black as rooks.
The brilliant two were General Cassius Clay and the Duc d’Osuna, the
Spanish Ambassador, who, conceiving themselves to be soldiers, took it
for granted that the order did not apply to them; the General especially
was full of military ardour as regarded his clothes, so he came in a
nondescript blue coat, a yellow nankeen waistcoat, white trousers and
something in his hand which he said was a forage-cap. The Duc d’Osuna,
on the other hand, appeared in a gorgeous uniform, his breast plastered
all over with stars and decorations (the only wonder being that he did
not wear some on his back as well), his little legs incased in white
leather breeches and jack-boots. He was a great character and really a
very charming personality; fabulously rich, an ambassador without pay, he
hospitably kept open house for his staff, even when he was on leave. His
many châteaux were maintained in the same sumptuous way, whether he were
in Spain or abroad, ready to receive him at any moment, and so, while
his agents accumulated good fortunes, when his death came he was reputed
to have well-nigh run through everything. The ship had too many leaks.
He was several times over grandee of Spain, and so had the right to wear
any number of hats in the presence of his sovereign. He is alluded to
in Lord Beaconsfield’s letter to his sister, giving an account of Queen
Victoria’s coronation. “He is a great dandy, and looks like Philip the
Second, but though the only living descendant of the Borgias, he has the
reputation of being very amiable. When he was last at Paris he attended a
representation of Victor Hugo’s _Lucrezia Borgia_. She says in one of the
scenes: ‘_Great crimes are in our blood_.’ All his friends looked at him
with an expression of fear. ‘_But the blood has degenerated_,’ he said,
‘_for I have committed only weaknesses_.’”
The dear little man’s great foible was vanity, concentrated in the
admiration of his own tiny Spanish feet. “Oh! moi,” said a little French
actress one evening. “Quand j’ai besoin de deux ou trois cents roubles,
je m’en vais trouver le Duc d’Osuna; je lui fais un doigt de cour et je
lui dis, en regardant ses pieds: ‘Ah! comme ils sont jolis! Il n’y a que
Monsieur le Duc d’Osuna pour avoir ces pieds-là—sont-ils assez mignons!’
Cela ne rate jamais.”
Another order that evening was, that there was to be no ceremony as
to going in to supper. We were to go as we pleased and with whom we
pleased. Precedence was abolished for the night. We danced in the white
drawing-room; towards midnight the heavy folding doors were thrown
open, and in what had been the great ball-room of a few nights before
was laid out quite the most artistically perfect banquet that could be
imagined—once more the Jins of the “Arabian Nights” had been at work. In
the great hall and the _jardin d’hiver_ were thirty-five supper-tables,
each to hold ten guests, each dressed round an orange tree in full
fruit. The illumination, with the usual fabulous number of candles, was
resplendent. It was an entrancing sight. As we went in everybody uttered
a little exclamation of surprise! “Mon Dieu! que c’est joli!” “Mais c’est
ravissant!” “Oui,” said Georges Du Luart, “c’est positivement féerique!”
“Ah!” said the Duc d’Osuna, in his Spanish French, “n’est-ce pas que
c’est zoli! C’est l’uniforme du réziment que zé commande.” The good Duke,
who was rather deaf, had taken all the enthusiasm as a well-merited
tribute to his own personal appearance.
Du Luart, now (1915) the Marquis du Luart, one of the greatest
authorities in France on sport and _vénerie_, and I had arranged to sit
together; but somehow we got separated and had to take our chance of
places. After wandering about I found myself at a table where I knew no
one, but as usual, the other guests were most kind and amiable in their
welcome to the stranger.
The gentleman next me began asking me all manner of questions about
England and English people; it turned out that he had known my father,
Charles Greville (of the memoirs), and his brother Henry, Lord Granville,
and many other people whom I knew well. He was Monsieur Jean Tolstoy,
Postmaster-General, a member of the Cabinet, and a personal friend
of the Emperor. Our acquaintance did not end there; for he took many
opportunities of showing me civilities during the remainder of my stay in
Russia. It was a curious accident, for I do not suppose that there was
another Russian in the crowd who knew my father.
During the whole time that the supper lasted the Emperor kept walking
round the different tables, with a kindly word of welcome for many of
his guests, and anxious to see that all were well served. There was not
a speck of condescension about him; just the anxiety and care of a most
courteous host. The Emperor Alexander was certainly one of the greatest
gentlemen that I ever saw in any rank of life.
A figure of mark at these Court functions was the Prussian Ambassador,
Count Redern, who, with the help of his Countess and a very charming
daughter, himself kept one of the pleasantest and best mounted houses in
the town. His appointment to St. Petersburg was said to have been made
for a unique reason. He had been named to one of the smallest European
Courts. Now he possessed a service of silver plate of which he was
passing proud, and it seemed to him to be utterly incongruous that its
glory should be thrown away upon a very tiny Scandinavian capital. “Ich!
Mit meiner Vaisselle!” he is said to have exclaimed with indignation
when the appointment was notified to him. The objection was held to be
unanswerable, so he and his service of plate were sent to cast lustre
upon the capital of the Tsar. If, following upon Bismarck, he did not
seem to be diplomatically an eagle, he was, at any rate, a great social
success, and everybody liked him.
It seems as if I had no story to write but what relates to feasts and
splendour and the glory of the Emperor. I may have been monotonous. But
all this magnificence cannot forbid the door to sorrow. Even yet my
readers are like the Queen of Sheba, “the half was not told them.” But
in this great stately home of the Tsars there is a chamber of grief, a
corner which no man can penetrate without emotion; it is the reverse of a
brilliant medal.
One day I was taken by one of my friends about the Court to see the
apartment which was occupied by the Emperor Nicholas. It was the
eve of the anniversary of his death, just nine years ago. There was
no magnificence, no luxury here; nothing but Spartan simplicity—the
heroic simplicity of the man whom he took as his ideal, the Duke of
Wellington—just two shabby little rooms on the ground floor of the
Winter Palace, which elsewhere glittered with all the treasures of
fairyland; the outer room was furnished with a wardrobe and decorated
with a few drawings of fortifications. Here the mightiest ministers and
generals waited for their audiences, which were granted in the Emperor’s
sanctum—a room no bigger than the quarters of a subaltern in Chatham
Barracks, which served as bedroom, dressing-room and study all in one.
The furniture was to match; on the walls hung a few French prints, a
portrait or two, and some bad sketches of reviews and sham fights; at
the head of his bed the likeness of his beautiful and favourite daughter
Olga, in the uniform of the regiment which he gave her. Books were
represented by a collection of caricatures; a narrow camp bedstead, the
mattress as hard as stone; spread upon the bed the military cloak which
had served him—so it was said—for fifty years, a simple grey cloak with
a red collar, no better than that of a common soldier; his tunic was
out ready to put on, his casque and sword handy. His solitary brush and
comb, his toothbrush and shaving tackle, were ready for use—it was as
if the man who had died nine years ago had only left that morning and
was expected back in the evening. At one side of the room stood the
writing-table, with drawers on each side. Here he used to sit with his
ministers facing him, and I fancy that some of our acquaintances could
tell of awkward moments passed at that table. On it lay his notepaper,
inkstand, pens, and the almanack for 1855!
[Illustration: THE DEAD EMPEROR NICHOLAS I
_February 18th, 1855._]
Everything just as he left it—every single thing save one only—a small
and beautiful pencil drawing of his head as it lay in death upon the
pillow. Altogether a pathetic sight! and it all seemed so intimate, as if
the handsome, dead giant might at any moment come stalking into the room,
and resent the intrusion.
It was the fashion among Russians in 1864 to talk of Nicholas as a
tyrant before whom in his lifetime they crouched in terror, and of
Alexander’s accession to power as a release from bondage. No doubt in a
measure that was true. At the same time it is no less true that those
who knew him best loved him dearly. The fierceness of his will, no less
than his personal beauty and his charm, appealed. Where he chose he was
irresistible. He was one of those magnetic men whose power over the
hearts and affections of others is almost superhuman—there are men, one
or two in a century, who walk upon the earth as Gods to be worshipped.
One night there was a small dinner at Lord Napier’s, just the members of
the Embassy and one Russian guest, Admiral Greig, the descendant of one
of the many Scots who came over to Russia and took service there in the
eighteenth century. His old Scottish connection put him on terms of very
friendly intercourse with Lord Napier. That evening he told us the story
of how he had carried the news of the battle of the Alma to the Emperor
Nicholas.
Being soldier as well as sailor, General as well as Admiral, he had been
aide-de-camp to Prince Gortchakoff (the brother of the Vice-Chancellor),
who was commander-in-chief of the army in the Crimea. At the end of the
day of the 20th of September, after the battle of the Alma, the Prince
sent him to convey the intelligence of the disaster to the Tsar, with
orders to tell no one what had happened till his Majesty should have
received him. It was not a pleasant mission. He posted night and day
till he reached the railroad, and at every halt for change of horses the
people crowded round him, eager for news from the front; but he uttered
not a word. At last, after a long, weary journey he reached the Palace,
and was ushered into the Tsar’s presence. The Tsar, anticipating glorious
news from the war, sprang forward smiling to embrace him. The Admiral
started aside and put out both hands with the palms outward as though to
push back the Emperor, saying: “No, your Majesty! no! I bring bad news.”
The Emperor’s whole face changed. Nicholas gave him one of those steady
looks with which he knew how to petrify the man who displeased him;
deeply angered, he demanded to know the worst.
At this moment the Empress came in. That the heights of the Alma should
have been stormed in the face of the Russian army was something that the
Tsar would not, could not, believe. He strode about the room, furious;
but the Empress pacified him and gave him comfort. At last, when he
had collected himself, he dismissed the Admiral, telling him to keep
strict silence, and to tell no human being what had happened. Admiral
Greig very humbly pointed out that the aide-de-camp in waiting and other
gentlemen were outside the door and would at once ply him with questions.
“Tell them nothing,” said the Emperor. Here the Empress very quietly
interposed: “On the contrary, tell them everything. There is no use in
concealing the truth. I will be responsible.”
It was an evil moment for a soldier. He was sent back posthaste to the
Crimea in disgrace; but when he was badly wounded afterwards, the Tsar
was appeased and sent him a message to say that he “kissed his wound.” He
was forgiven.
The reign of the Emperor Nicholas had not been a happy one. Indeed,
during all his life he had been brought face to face with the dangers
and troubles by which the kingly office is surrounded. He was but five
years old when his father, the Emperor Paul, was murdered; on the rather
mysterious death at Taganrog of his brother, Alexander the First—who had
been ailing and had gone to the Crimea for a rest, but whose condition
had not given rise to alarm—his next brother, Constantine, having
previously renounced his claims, he was called to the throne in the last
month of 1825.
As his very first act he was forced to put down the revolution of the
Dekabrists, the Men of December, officers of the guards regiments and
others, the chief of whom was one Pestel, who, under the pretence of
putting Constantine on the throne, were plotting for the annihilation of
the Imperial autocracy and the granting of a constitution—perhaps they
had even wider views. The rising was quelled after feeding the gallows
and Siberia. The moment was critical, and Nicholas was not the man to
treat rebellion with rose-water. The reign ended, as it began, with a
tragedy. Men said that the Emperor died of a broken heart; when the army
which he loved was beaten, the ambition of a lifetime faded into thin
air, and the proud spirit was humbled in despair.
In the country where no historian was at that time allowed to write that
the Emperor Paul was murdered, but only that he died suddenly, it was
obvious that the death of Nicholas could not openly be discussed. But
there were whispers. It was said in secret by many men that the Emperor
did not die a natural death. There was a story of a certain German
physician who was ordered by the Tsar to give him a sure and painless
poison. The physician of course refused and left St. Petersburg. On
the following day it was given out that his Majesty was ailing; he had
contracted a chill. Worse bulletins followed. After a few days, it was
announced that he was dangerously ill; in a few more days that the end
had come. Heart failure. The last ukase had been issued.
A Russian gentleman whom I knew well told me that as a youngster he was
one of the pages of honour in waiting on the day when the death of the
Emperor was made known to the public. It was his duty that night to watch
with others over the dead Tsar. “Figurez-vous,” he said, “que quoique
nous fussions en Février[44] le corps sentait déjà mauvais.” Taken in
connection with the whisper to which I have alluded, this seemed to me
not without significance. The mystery will in all probability never be
cleared up; but at this distance of time there can be no indiscretion in
alluding to a story which was widely believed, though it was only uttered
in hushed tones and with bated breath.
In any case, for the death of the great Tsar England was largely
responsible. When he paid his famous visit to Queen Victoria in the
year 1844—a visit still commemorated at Newmarket by the Cesarewitch
handicap—English statesmen were made thoroughly aware of what was his
policy in the Eastern Question. He made no secret of it. His ambition was
to drive the Turk, the “Sick Man” of Sir Hamilton’s Seymour’s despatches,
out of Europe and to _occupy_ Constantinople, not, as he asserted, to
_take_ it. In that, no doubt, he was speaking honestly as regarded his
intentions at that time, for he was essentially a truthful man and, as he
liked to say, using the English word which he loved, “a gentleman.”
He had another and, to him, a still higher and more cherished object—the
freeing of the sacred places of Palestine from the hated presence of the
Moslem. That, with him, was the pious dream of a devotee who carried
religion almost to fanaticism. No Crusader was ever fired by a holier
ardour. That shrines of such awe-inspiring sanctity as the Holy Sepulchre
and Bethlehem should be under the domination of Islam; that disputes
among the priests of the Christian creeds in the Holy Land should be
subjected to the arbitration of some petty Turkish official, were to
this chivalrous son of his Church—to this Christian gentleman—horrors
too hideous for contemplation. To Lord Aberdeen, in these matters, he
fully opened his heart, and though Lord Aberdeen was careful to avoid
definitely committing himself to any “hypothetical engagement,” the
Tsar believed firmly that he was receiving nothing but encouragement.
So convinced was he on the subject that when Lord Aberdeen became Prime
Minister he thought in his happiness that the tocsin of the Turk had
sounded. But when the crucial time came, England failed him, and cast in
her lot with Louis Napoléon, to whom an alliance with Great Britain gave
a much-needed addition of prestige.
The “Sick Man” was once more bolstered up, and Nicholas, deceived as
he believed himself to be—at any rate foiled in his hopes and crushed
in his darling ambition—prostrated by the failure of the army whose
invincibility was with him a creed, saw nothing in front of him but what,
to his proud heart, seemed ruin and despair. Broken in spirit, the great
Tsar laid himself down to die. That was the tragedy of the little camp
bed.
* * * * *
Here is a wrinkle for the Criminal Investigation Department. Towards the
end of December, 1863 (Old Style) St. Petersburg was stirred by a crime
which touched all Russians to the quick. Murder and sacrilege. On the
opposite bank of the Neva stands the little wooden house of Peter the
Great, together with a boat built by his hands. To this is attached a
small church of great sanctity; indeed, even to me, a stranger belonging
to another school of faith, this humble shrine, for some mysterious
reason felt but not explained, even to myself, seemed more an object of
reverence than many a gorgeous place of worship decked out in all the
lavish trappings furnished by the orthodox, who never grudge the spending
of their treasure for the adornment of their temples. To this sacred
place the pious have been in the habit of bringing votive offerings,
reliquaries and jewels of great price.
When on the twenty-first of the month (Old Style) the church was broken
into and robbed, and the two guardians murdered, their skulls being
battered in, as it was thought, with iron or leaden weights, great indeed
was the consternation amongst the faithful from the highest to the
lowest. The Tsar himself went to visit the scene of the tragedy. To the
_mujik_, intensely religious, not to say superstitious, the effect was
stupefying. An ordinary murder leaves him calm and cold, and the death
of the watchers was an affair of small account. What mattered a _mujik_
or two more or less? The violation of the holy shrine was quite another
matter.
After long and painstaking inquiries, circumstantial evidence showed that
one Gudzevitch, a soldier, was the murderer. As to that there could be
no doubt. But the man’s confession was necessary, and this could not be
obtained. Not all the cunning of judge and lawyers, not all the pious
exhortations of the arch-priest, Polissador, of the Church of St. Peter
and St. Paul, who visited him several times a day, were able to extract
a word from him. He remained as hard as a flint, stiffly protesting his
innocence in the face of every proof. Of repentance not a hint. As the
_Journal de St. Pétersbourg_ put it, “There was nothing for it but to
proceed to extreme measures.” There was at that time in prison another
soldier named Baouschkin, belonging to the Kharkov regiment. It was
determined to shut this man up in the same cell with Gudzevitch in the
hope that he might be able to worm something out of him.
On the seventh (nineteenth) of January, Baouschkin made his report. He
declared that Gudzevitch asked him for what crime he was in prison, and
that, on hearing that it was for murder, theft and arson Gudzevitch tried
to induce him to confess that he was the murderer of the two watchmen at
Peter the Great’s house; he argued that, as he must suffer, it would put
him in no worse position, and what a kindness he would be doing!
By degrees, playing upon the wretched man’s hopes and fears, Baouschkin
obtained all the details—the instrument with which the murder was
committed (an axe, with the hammer end of which the men had been brained,
and not a heavy weight, as had been supposed) was found, together with a
box in which the stolen offertory had been contained, and the prisoner
was condemned to death. Penitent he was at the last, moved thereto by
the contemplation of the photograph of one of the murdered men which had
been placed in his cell, that the sight might haunt him into confession
and repentance. For civilians the death penalty was abolished, except
for high treason; for them flogging with rods and Siberia were the
punishment; but Gudzevitch, being a soldier, must die. The night of his
execution I met the officer who commanded the parade. He was shot, twelve
conical bullets riddling his body, and even so he was not dead; it was a
gruesome sight when the poor wretch fell and lifted himself slowly up—six
more bullets and he was dead.
The criminal procedure, if successful, struck me as peculiar. It had
something of the flavour of the Herodotean stories of the methods of
ancient kings.
I do not believe that there was more crime in St. Petersburg fifty years
ago than in any other city. The _mujik_ is good-natured, easy-going,
rather dull and childish, and his tastes are distinctly bacchanalian.
But one could not fancy so simple a creature vicious or criminal. In old
days there were frequently, if reports be true, murders of a peculiarly
ugly kind. In the dark winter nights robbers used to infest the frozen
river, waylaying the unwary footpad who ventured across alone. A stunning
blow on the head was quickly given, and a hole in the ice was ready to
receive a victim, stripped of his clothes and valuables; the body would
be carried down the river under the ice, past Kronstadt, into the Baltic,
and all trace of the crime would be lost for ever.
In my time the river was well policed, and the brilliant lighting not
only shed over the city the joy of beauty, but gave safety in place
of danger. But stories used still to be told of a certain wicked old
watchman (_Budotchnik_) who, posted near the Blue Bridge, was supposed
to have sent out to sea in this way upwards of thirty of the very people
over whose lives and property it was his duty to keep guard. _Quis
custodiet custodes!_
Since man has fallen, wickedness there must be in all nations. Satan is
ubiquitous. But in Russia the doctrines of the Faith are so infused into
the blood of the people that even the criminals are religious—at any rate
so far as the outer observances are concerned. It is said that a Russian
thief will cross himself with one hand while he picks your pocket with
the other, and I have no doubt that even that murderous old Budotchnik
would have sacrificed his own life rather than take down the _ikon_, the
sacred image of his patron saint, from its place of honour in the corner
of his room.
The piety of the people is very real, very sincere. Of that there can be
no doubt; the greatest proof lies in the spirit of self-sacrifice and in
the submission to privations which are serious and often injurious to
health. Take the great festivals of their Church. Christmas Day, Easter
and the feast of the Trinity are observed in all Christian lands, but
the fourth holy day, the day of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin,
is, so far as I know, mostly passed over with inattention. Here it is
different. So sacred is the occasion that no man who can possibly help it
will do a turn of work, indeed, there is a popular saying that “even the
birds rest from building their nests on that day.” The very _isvostchik_
(cabman) deserts the streets, unless it be for bread’s sake—the children
must be fed, coin is scarce and food dear.
Lent, above all, is a sore trial to these poor people, but they bear it
cheerfully. During those six cruel weeks they taste nothing but the poor
and sordid food which is all that the Church allows them—an ugly soup
made up of dried toad-stools, collected in summer and sold by the string,
onions, pickled cucumbers, coarse cabbage, dry radishes, horse-radish and
black bread; these ingredients are mixed up with an evil-smelling black
oil made from hemp. The untempting mess of pottage is washed down by
draughts of cheap _kvass_, a poor sort of beer brewed of rye and a little
malt—a drink scarcely less nasty then the food. Upon this scanty diet the
_mujik_ grows thin, but he tightens his belt and goes about his work,
kept in heart by visions of drunken happiness as soon as the last stroke
of twelve on Easter Eve shall have rung the knell of his misery.
During one whole week of Lent every man gives himself up entirely to his
devotions. At four in the morning he goes fasting to his church. There
he stays without bite or sup until noon, when he leaves, and breaks his
long fast with a dish of the revolting food which I have described. At
four, if he can manage it, he returns to his prayers, which last till
six, and yet not satisfied, he must again go to church in the evening.
Whatever may be the motive power of all this devotion and abnegation—be
it superstition or be it religion—it is quite impossible not to respect
it, for it is as honest as truth itself.
His religion, his country, and the Tsar. Those, fifty years ago, were the
three sacred objects of the Russian’s worship, and their influence was
so interwoven that it would be difficult to say which should be placed
first. In no people could the feeling of nationality be more strongly
developed; it was fed by a feeling of proprietorship absolutely unique.
Every man, however humble his position in the world might be, conceived
himself as having a share in the soil equal to that of the richest: it
was a relic of the old nomad habits of the Aryan people, who wandered
over Europe from the Pamirs: where they pitched their tent, there they
were free to dwell, and from the ground which they tilled theirs was the
harvest.
With the march of time the custom had long since faded away, but the
idea, handed down by the remote ancestors, was still dimly alive in their
posterity, and it was, moreover, a flicker which the recent emancipation
of the serfs had in a measure rekindled. The Russian loves his country
as something peculiarly his own, and he loves it, moreover, believing it
to be the home of God and of the true religion. There is a country adage
which says, “Our kingdom is invincible for God is in the midst of it.”
It must not be supposed that this high and patriotic feeling is confined
to the peasants. The mighty in the land are just as ardent in this
passionate devotion to the fatherland as their humbler fellow-countrymen,
nor are they less strict in their religious observances.
A very false impression is created abroad by a certain class of Russians
who haunt the boulevards and any places where dissipation and gambling
are fast and furious—only going home from time to time to collect more
roubles to throw into the swine-yards of Europe. These are the men who
cast a cloud upon their country and tarnish the good name of their
fellows. So strong is the inborn love of home among the Slavonic races
that it is a hard matter to persuade the _mujik_ to emigrate: and this is
no misfortune, for in Russia the population has never been adequate to
the vast area of its territory or to the wants of the country.
Emigration, as we understand it—this is to say, forming an establishment
and founding a family in some new land for prosperity’s sake—must be an
idea utterly foreign to the Russian character, which has been moulded
for centuries in the idea that only one home is possible.
There is one form of superstition which the Russians share with the
ancient Greeks. They delight in euphemisms and altogether object to the
use of unlucky words. Brutally to announce the death even of a dog, a
horse, a cow, or some favourite animal would be intolerable. The awkward
corner is turned by a pretty phrase: “Sir, your dog bids you live a long
life”—that is the orthodox announcement.
The strangest of all was told me by Prince Vassiltchikoff, an
aide-de-camp attached to the War Office. He had been sent to Siberia on
a special mission to report upon the prisons in that land of woe. Among
other criminals he came upon a handsome woman, evidently of a superior
class. Struck by her appearance, he asked her why she was there. Without
hesitation the woman answered: “I made the sign of the cross upon my
father.” She had murdered him! It appeared that her father had illtreated
her child; mad with rage, she stabbed him in the back. She expressed
neither sorrow nor repentance for what she had done, and to all further
questions her only answer was: “I have done wrong and I suffer for it—the
rest is with myself.” Could Æschylus himself have put more poignantly
tragic words into that unhappy daughter’s mouth? What a saying to express
parricide! “I made the sign of the cross upon him.”
Duels in Russia were very rare; all the more did they create a sensation
when they did occur. There was a double duel which took place while I
was there and which was much talked about. A young Polish officer of the
Grodno Hussar regiment insulted two Russian officers. I never heard the
rights of the story or what was the occasion of the quarrel. At any rate,
the Pole had to fight both the men whom he had affronted. In the first
duel, possibly from nervous excitement, he fired before the seconds gave
the signal and broke his adversary’s leg. The second duel took place the
next day, and this time it was _à la barrière_. The Pole immediately
on the signal to advance being given fired in the air. His adversary
let him come forward to the extreme limit allowed by the agreement—five
paces—took deliberate aim and shot him in the head; he died a few hours
afterwards. The officer who killed him was a rich man of good family, but
none the less we were told that he would be broken, reduced to the ranks,
and have to serve as a common soldier.
Duelling was strictly forbidden both by military and civil law. I
suppose it is a crime, but none the less it does seem to me that there
are certain cases in which it is a safeguard to society and more than
permissible. The absurd journalistic duels of which we hear so much on
the Continent are quite another matter.
The most famous duel in the history of Russian society was that in which
the great poet Puschkin lost his life in the winter of 1837. The story is
a curious one.
The poet had a very beautiful wife, whom he married at Moscow in 1831. He
was very much in love with her, and proportionately jealous, especially
of the attentions paid to her by an _attaché_ of the Dutch Legation, a
certain Monsieur Dantès-Heckeren. Puschkin, who suspected his wife of
being too much inclined to listen to this gentleman’s blandishments,
was infuriated. Coming home one evening, he found the Dutchman as usual
sitting at tea with his wife; as it was the fashion to pay visits after
dinner, there was nothing to take umbrage at in that. Puschkin made no
remark, but presently he turned out the lamp, throwing the room into
darkness, and going to the fireplace, smeared some soot on his mouth,
kissed his wife and went out of the room to get a fresh light. When he
came back he found, as he expected, not only his wife’s lips but the
Dutchman’s black with soot. Denial and excuses were out of the question,
and Puschkin kicked the man out of the house. The next day they fought,
and the poet received a mortal wound. He only lived three days and died
in torture; he was but thirty-eight years old. The man who killed him
married his widow. So much for the inexorable justice of the ordeal by
battle.
Puschkin was the glory of Russian poetry. His was a chequered career, for
he lived in a chronic state of being banished for treason and forgiven;
he was the chartered libertine of politics, and a very signal example of
the generosity of the Emperor Nicholas. Over and over again his violent
principles, or no principles, brought him into disgrace; over and over
again the Tsar forgave. The Tsar, meeting him one foggy day in the
street, recognized him, and bade him, since he was a poet, to improvise
something. With consummate audacity, pointing to a street lamp, he at
once spouted this quatrain:
In the place of that lamp
Which shines in the gloomy weather,
I’d hang the head of the Tsar
And shout out Freedom![45]
In spite of his many escapades he died in high favour with the generous
Tsar, who made him _Gentilhomme de la Chambre_ and gave him twenty
thousand roubles towards publishing his last poem. And yet there were
people who spoke of Nicholas as a cruel, unforgiving tyrant! I think that
if I were a Russian, I should be at least as proud of the memory of the
Emperor Nicholas as of that of the poet Puschkin. He was indeed a great
“gentleman.”
The emancipation of the serfs in the month of March, 1861, was the
greatest act of Alexander the Second’s life. Whether looked at from
the point of view of its intrinsic difficulties, or from that of its
consequences, it was one of the broadest social reforms ever undertaken
by any monarch. There are perhaps few people in this country who
understand what serfdom really meant; it is usually thought that the
serfs were all of them poor, ignorant peasants, leading squalid and
hungry lives in the tillage of the lands of their owners. In the vast
majority of cases this, no doubt, was so, but there were many exceptions.
There were not a few of these men who possessed better natural gifts
than the rest, had more or less contrived to educate themselves, and had
been allowed to push their fortunes in various capacities as tradesmen,
domestic servants, etc., in the great towns. One man of whom I was told
on undoubted authority throve in his trade and became the fashionable
hatter of Moscow. None the less, he was a slave—the property, the
chattel, of a certain landlord, to whom a portion of his profits was
yearly due.
[Illustration: THE EMPEROR ALEXANDER II., 1864.
_From a sketch by Zichy._]
That such a state of things should endure through more than the half
of the nineteenth century is at this time unthinkable, yet it was
so; and perhaps it would be necessary to have lived in Russia in the
pre-liberation days in order to realize how little public opinion was
shocked thereby. It is only fair to say that, in spite of the strong
opposition which inevitably meets a great social upheaval, the Tsar
was loyally helped by the more enlightened members of the aristocracy,
men who were ready to do what they knew to be right, even though their
properties were seriously affected. He was, moreover, ably seconded by
his Minister of the Interior, Monsieur Valouieff, to whom must be given
the credit of initiating all those measures of reform which were rendered
necessary by the great change—especially the creation of the Semstvos,
elective bodies something like our county councils, to which was
delegated the management of local affairs. The nobles who so generously
accepted what was a great sacrifice were rewarded by the Tsar with a
special commemorative decoration.
On the anniversary of his accession to the throne, February 18 (March
2), 1864, the Emperor published an ukase extending the liberation of
the serfs to Poland. The measure provided for the handing over to
the peasants in fee simple the land which up to that time they had
cultivated on behalf of their lords. The scheme was in all respects
save one the same as that which had been propounded by the so-called
National Government; but whereas the latter had proposed to indemnify
the proprietor from the general revenues of the country, the Russian
Government undertook to buy the land at sixteen and two-thirds years’
purchase, and to recoup themselves by special taxation. The landlord
was to retain his own domain, always the most fertile part of the
property—corresponding to a sort of home farm on a gigantic scale, with
its houses, farm buildings, etc. The Polish landlords were, of course,
furious and declared that they would all be ruined. There were in rough
numbers some five thousand principal owners, and there were in addition
thirty Russian _majorats_ (properties entailed upon the eldest son)
which were equally concerned in the change. One of the representatives
of the latter properties said to me cynically: “Nous sommes tous ruinés.
Eh bien! tant mieux, puisqu’il y aura plus de cinq mille de ces sacrés
Polonais qui le seront bien plus que nous.” These Russian _majorats_ were
the rewards of services rendered against the Poles.
One main principle which the Government had in view was to reward those
peasants who did not join in the insurrection, at the expense of the
landlords and the middle-class who were its heart and soul. The Polish
peasant looked upon the landlord as his natural enemy—a tyrant of whom to
be rid would be Paradise. He therefore was entirely pro-Russian, though
he might not dare to declare himself. Keeping in mind this spirit, there
were not lacking pessimists who declared that so soon as the ex-serf
should find himself his own master, with nothing over him but the Russian
Government, his views would be altered. With rebellion born in his blood,
he would join the other camp, and be as bitter in enmity as he had been
warm in a friendship which for him spelt hope. In time the benefactor
would degenerate into the tax-gatherer, and the metamorphosis would be
hateful and of ill omen.
The measure was framed upon a report by General Miliutin, who was sent
on a special mission to gather information upon the spot; and the
pamphleteering defence of the plan was entrusted to that very able penman
and special pleader, M. Katakazy, to whom I have already alluded as the
writer of Prince Gortchakoff’s three answers to Lord Russell. His work on
this occasion was a masterpiece both in what it said and in what it held
back.
However people might carp and cavil at a piece of legislation which was
distasteful to them, there can be no doubt that there was joy in the poor
hovels of Poland. Still there were many shoals ahead needing a skilful
pilot. It was easy enough to decree the broad principle of the ukase,
but the working out of the details was quite another matter. Neither
the Emperor nor his ministers had the power of creating light out of
darkness. There were many difficulties to be mastered, many riddles to be
solved, taxing the acutest ingenuity of the Russian statesmen. Three of
the chief of the puzzles were the right of succession, the power of the
peasant to sell his land, and the eternal labour question.
As regarded the right of succession, the Government professed to attach
great importance to the principle of large peasant holdings, but inasmuch
as Poland was under the law of the Code Napoléon, it was obvious that at
the death of a man with a family his property must be divided, and by
degrees the holdings must become infinitesimally small. Crux No. 2.—If
the peasant were allowed to sell or mortgage his land, the Jew usurer
would soon be the owner of half Poland. Crux No. 3.—Where was labour to
be found for the land left in the hands of the proprietors—as I have said
before, the richest portion of the cultivated area? The freed peasant
would have his hands full with the management of his own holding, and the
class who formerly cultivated no land on their own account, and therefore
did not come under the scope of the new law, would not suffice to till
the domains of the nobles. Each of these three puzzles itself bristled
with minor perplexities and embarrassments enough to break the heads of
General Miliutin and his crew of experts.
A compensation at the rate of sixteen and two-thirds years’ purchase may
seem to us very inadequate. But the conditions of land in Poland were not
what they are in France or in England. It is needful to remember the vast
tracts of land lying far away from all communication, the scarcity of
labour, the difficulty of transport, the expense of exporting produce and
importing agricultural implements and other necessaries, and then it will
be plain that the value of land in Russia and in Poland did not stand in
the same relation to money as it did in England, France or Belgium. I
feel sure that, having regard to all the circumstances of the case, the
ukase was an honest attempt to benefit the peasant on the one hand, and
fairly to recoup the landed proprietor on the other.
On the 17th of April a deputation of seventy-three Polish peasants from
the government of Warsaw and Radom arrived in St. Petersburg to convey to
the Emperor the thanks of the agricultural labourers in Poland for the
benefits conferred upon them by the decree. The authorities made a great
fuss with them; they were lionized over the town in great cross-seated
brakes, and it was good to see their happiness and their unconcealed
wonder at all the great sights of St. Petersburg. Most of them had
probably never been outside the circuit of their own lonely villages.
They created a great sensation, some dressed in Polish costume, but
all wearing the square national cap—wild-looking fellows enough, but
obviously quite tame and trustworthy, for only ten policemen were told
off to look after them. The crowning point of their joy was reached when
the Tsar received them in person, and gave them a dinner at the Winter
Palace. What fairy tales they would have to tell when they should arrive
at their farms and cottages hidden among the desolate swamps and forests
of Poland!
The outing lasted for several days, and on the 23rd I went with Lord
Napier to the banquet given to the deputation and to an equal number of
specially selected Russian peasants from the district round the capital,
who were told off to entertain the strangers and do the honours of the
city. As they did not understand one word of one another’s language,
their comradeship must have lacked gaiety. But the meeting symbolized the
union of the two nations, and in spite of the dearth of conversation, it
made a good appearance of fraternization, and that was held to be much.
The banquet took place in the Gorodskaia Duma, a sort of extraordinarily
shabby town hall, something like a second-class waiting-room at a railway
station. However, the frame was a secondary consideration so long as the
picture was all right.
Presently there was a great stir outside and we were told that the
Emperor was arriving. On hearing this joyful news, an enthusiastic Pole
near me spat freely into his hands and proceeded to plaster down his hair
and wash his face like a cat. _Un petit bout de toilette!_ as Wigan, the
great actor, used to say in _The First Night_.
The loyal joy with which the Emperor was received was very touching. As
usual, he played his part most nobly, was very gracious and kingly, and
as he walked round the hall had a smile and a kind word for almost every
one of the men. When he had finished his round one of the men shouted in
a stentorian voice: “Let us drink to the Tsar.” This raised a thunder of
applause and cheering, after which the Emperor, standing in the midst
of the hall, was served with a glass of wine and said: “I drink to the
indissoluble union of the two nations!” This, of course, was received
with yells of joy, the men cheering like Eton boys on the Fourth of June.
The Grand Duke Constantine was with the Tsar, and as he had recently
returned from governing Poland, he was recognized and received a special
ovation, upon which the Emperor drank to him and kissed him—he was his
favourite brother, to whom he was deeply attached; the Grand Duke kissed
him in return on the left breast—a pretty token of love and duty.
The Poles looked very picturesque and quaint in their national costume,
but it was impossible not to be struck by the far finer appearance of
their Russian compeers (of course both parties were made up more or less
of picked men). Then the Russians wore beards, which so well befit the
kaftan and northern dress, besides covering a multitude of sins against
beauty, while the Poles were shaven, showing all their imperfections
of feature. I was well pleased to have the opportunity of seeing this
historic banquet. Lord Napier was the only foreigner invited, and I went
in attendance upon him.
The Emperor’s staff were always worthy of his own imposing appearance.
The Imperial family who surrounded him were all men of great stature
and good carriage, while old Prince Suvoroff, Monsieur Valouieff,
the Minister of the Interior, and many of the general officers and
aides-de-camp were fine, strikingly tall men. It was a goodly company of
Anakim. Monsieur Valouieff, although in civilian dress, was so handsome a
figure as to be always conspicuous, even among the brilliantly accoutred
warriors; perhaps, like Lord Castlereagh at Vienna, he was only the more
distinguished!
It seemed a pity that in so beautiful a city, where there is a wealth
of magnificent buildings, there should have been no worthier place for
a really memorable feast than this mean semblance of a town hall, which
certainly did not beseem the occasion.
* * * * *
Well may the Russians call the sennight that goes before Lent “the mad
week.” Another name for it is _maslianitza_, or “butter week,” but I
prefer the first, for indeed Bedlam is let loose and plays the wildest
pranks, and no one can say that the _mujik_ takes his pleasures sadly.
At the beginning of the week my coachman came to me and, according to
treaty, asked leave to go and get drunk. These coachmen are really great
characters. They are out in all weather, and never grumble at being
kept waiting for hours when the mercury in the thermometer has almost
fallen out of sight. They show no signs of boredom or weariness. My man,
Mikhail, for want of better company would conjure away the tedium by
talking out loud to himself. I sometimes watched him out of my window
enjoying his own conversation, shaking his head, cracking jokes and
laughing his heart out at them, or telling himself some tear-compelling
tale of woe. He was the ugliest man in the town and as true as steel—on
one condition: every now and then he must get drunk; so we entered into a
solemn compact which he never broke.
He would come to me from time to time, perhaps twice in a month, and say
that it was long since he had been happy—would my Excellency be pleased
to name a day when it would be convenient for him to be absent—_anglice_,
“get drunk.” I would look at my engagement book and see what I had to do.
Monday, the French Embassy—Tuesday, a big ball—Wednesday, a ceremony at
Court—should we say Thursday? “Slava Bogu” (“Glory be to God”), he would
answer, “it shall be Thursday with your Excellency’s forgiveness.” On the
Friday he would reappear with clockwork punctuality—a little pale and
rather heavy-lidded, but perfectly cheerful. Without such an arrangement
one was never safe. I had to dismiss four coachmen before I found this
one, who was a treasure, and never played me false. The bargain was part
of a system before which all foreigners, at any rate, had to bow lest
worse befall them.
To see the saturnalia of the week at their maddest one had to go to the
great Admiralty Place, the huge area of which was entirely taken up
by booths, circuses, giants and dwarfs, cheap pantomimes and ballets,
boneless contortionists and the inevitable Hercules of the Fair, with
his weights and clubs. There was one very droll and quite national
exhibition consisting of a representation of the creation of the world
from chaos to the fall of man, in which the marionettes, worked by
springs into all sorts of comicalities, were the actors. Of course
there were ice-mountains for tobogganing, but by far the most popular
entertainments were the merry-go-rounds, which swarmed, filling every
vacant place and making the days and nights hideous with the braying of
discordant brass bands. But the noise and the riot were a pure delight
to man, woman and child, whose shrieks of joy added pepper and salt to
the great charivari. All the riff-raff of the town was gathered together,
those happy ones who had a few kopecks rushing eagerly to spend them; the
unfortunates who could not muster a copper quite as keen, some standing
for hours knee-deep in the melting snow—for it was a dirty thaw—peering
into the chinks between the boards of the theatres to try and get a
peep at the glories within; others encouraging the patrons of the
ice-mountains and wooden horses with approving shouts and wild applause.
Making their way slowly, tortuously and with much splashing of icy slush
through the seething crowd, were carriages full of middle-class folk who
had come to see “all the fun of the fair,” while numbers of policemen,
mounted and on foot, bawling and swearing at nothing, and for nothing,
added to the din of the inferno.
Here was indeed King Carnival supreme in state. But all this was but the
prelude; the crowning glory of the festival was yet to come. For what is
joy without _vodka_, and what is _vodka_ unless it be drunk in sufficient
quantities to drown memory and consciousness? The _mujik_ would probably
endorse the five classical reasons for drinking—1. The advent of a
friend. 2. You are thirsty. 3. You may be thirsty some time hence. 4. The
good quality of the liquor. 5. Any other reason!
I am reminded as I write these lines that in a few days the mad week of
1915 will take place, and there will be no _vodka_! What will happen?
What will my poor Mikhail do if he be yet alive?
And we! How were we spending the mad week, while the proletariat were
playing high jinks on the Admiralty Place? The great folk were in what
Shakespeare calls “holiday humour,” no less than the small, and they too
were bent on making the most of the last merriment that the Church would
allow till the long spell of Lenten sadness should be past; and this they
achieved by turning day into night. By one o’clock in the afternoon we
had to array ourselves in evening dress to go and eat _blinni_ at one or
another of our kind friends’ hospitable houses. _Blinni_ are a sort of
scone, a cross between a pancake and a crumpet, eaten with fresh butter
and caviare, a very tempting form of food. After feasting upon _blinni_
comes dancing, generally a regular ball, with cotillon and mazurka
complete. Then dressing for dinner, two or three parties and at least one
ball. All business at a standstill, nothing but pleasure, more pleasure
and yet again pleasure. By the end of the week the world seemed a little
limp, and I think we all realized that “surfeit is the father of much
fast.”[46]
It was not very often that the men of letters made an appearance in the
society of St. Petersburg. I was all the more interested when one evening
Lord Napier invited a few of them to dinner at the Embassy; amongst them
was Turgenieff, the famous author—a tall, strikingly handsome man with
grey hair—altogether a commanding figure. I was much disappointed at not
being able to hear him talk, but I was placed a long way from him, and as
he left immediately after dinner, I had no opportunity of speaking with
him. I sat next to M. Novikoff, an official of high position, who was
very communicative.
The conversation round us turned upon the colonizing policy of the old
Romans, with whom M. Novikoff found great fault, saying how foolish it
was of them to punish as a crime any attempt on the part of the conquered
tribes to regain their liberty. Such attempts, according to him, might
be treated as acts of war, but not visited with the severity merited by
treason. I could not help hinting to M. Novikoff that the policy which
he so strongly condemned in the Romans was something uncommonly like, or
even identical with, that of Russia in Poland. M. Novikoff became very
much confused and changed the subject to that of the liberation of the
serfs. In this connection he talked of M. Valouieff, the responsible
minister, in terms of contempt, which quite took me by surprise. I
ventured to ask whether M. Valouieff was not held to be a man of great
talent. His answer was characteristic: “Mon Dieu, oui! puisque l’Empereur
l’a voulu.”
The chronicling of the small beer of parties is but poor stuff; and yet
there was one party which to me meant very strong ale indeed, and so
I am fain to write of it even after fifty years. One evening M. Jean
Tolstoy sent out about thirty invitations for a very small gathering,
myself among the number, to meet the Tsar, and listen to music. As the
Emperor was expected, I of course retired into the background, deeming
that he would only wish to speak to the _gros bonnets_; however, when M.
Tolstoy led him into the room he gave a look round, and seeing me, to the
amazement, not to say petrifaction, of the mighty, he came striding up to
me, shook hands and began talking in Russian, saying that he heard that I
was learning his language. I bowed—and he went on speaking.
[Illustration: THE EMPEROR ALEXANDER II. AT CLOSE QUARTERS WITH A BEAR
(_February, 1864_).
_From a sketch by Zichy._]
For a few minutes we conversed in Russian, and then, after paying me
many compliments, to my relief he changed to French. He asked me a great
many questions in connection with my new study—did I not find it very
difficult? What language did I think it most resembled? I told him that
I thought there was similarity with none so far as I knew, except as
regarded Aryan roots, but that there were more grammatical analogies
with Greek than with any other language of which I had any knowledge.
He agreed, and that led him to speak of Latin, reminding me of what I
had said to him at my presentation about the public orator’s speech at
Oxford, at whose expense he once more laughed heartily. He spoke for some
little time about life at the University and the beauty of Oxford, which
seemed to have interested him greatly, and after a very pleasant talk,
went on to speak to some of the other guests. Any mark of the Emperor’s
condescension was sure to make a great sensation at St. Petersburg, and
for twenty-four hours I was quite a hero. “On dit que l’Empereur a causé
avec vous en Russe—vous devez en être joliment fier!” That was the gist
of what everyone whom I met the next day said to me. I should have been
even less or more than human if I had not felt flattered and proud.
One evening Lady Napier, who had rather broken down after the trials of
the winter and was soon going to Germany for a rest and change, invited a
few of the diplomats and other friends to a small farewell rout. Belloli,
the painter, had just sent home a portrait of her which was much praised.
General Cassius Clay, after looking at it thoughtfully for a few moments
and then at her, said: “I guess, Ma’am, you was ruddier when that was
done.” Our much-loved ambassadress certainly was looking a little pale,
and tired; but the good General probably never heard the old saying,
“Toute vérité n’est pas bonne à dire.” The Duc d’Osuna was even more
droll. His criticism of the portrait was: “Oui, c’est zoli—c’est même
très bien; mais le portrait qu’il a fait de moi est bien plus zoli!” He
was such a dear little man, and so kindly, that one loved him just as he
was with his weaknesses and small vanities, which hurt nobody; everyone
laughed, and nobody would have wished him otherwise.
At Prince Gortchakoff’s on the 18th we heard the news of the storming
and capture of Düppel. The Prince’s remark to the Prussian _chargé
d’affaires_ on getting the telegram was, “J’espère enfin que c’est la
paix!” He did not seem to think that the united forces of Austria and
Prussia combined had much to boast of in having beaten unassisted Denmark.
Baron Plessen, the Danish Minister at St. Petersburg, was a man of great
ability, calm, just and moderate in his views. One day he talked to me
for a long time about the war and the causes which led to it. The pith of
his remarks is worth transcribing. “If France and England had been able
to agree upon this affair the war might have been prevented. Russia would
not have remained idle, and it is known to which side her sympathies
lean. But France and England could not agree. Meanwhile England has been
perpetually making apparent advances towards action which have encouraged
the Danes to prolong their obstinate resistance. The Danes at Copenhagen
see matters far differently from us, who, calmly and at a distance, can
weigh the truth of reports and judge of the exact bearing of protests and
propositions. At Copenhagen the public mind is so inflamed that a mere
piece of newspaper tittle-tattle is enough to convince men that England
and France will actually send a fleet to the Baltic, and this it is which
caused the Danes so stubbornly to refuse an armistice which would have
saved Düppel and spared thousands of lives. But with the best intentions,
England has been a bad friend to Denmark, for she has raised expectations
which she could not realize. Even if she had determined upon helping
Denmark, she could not have spared an adequate land force.
“As for Sweden, she promised her twenty thousand men and did not send
them; but if she had performed her promises, the Germans would have
called in forty thousand troops, and she would have been of no use.
Besides, it must be admitted that the dismemberment of Denmark would
never be really displeasing to Sweden, who has always had an eye upon
the islands.... England has throughout treated Germany with too little
respect—she thought that she had only to speak to be obeyed. But the
Germans are strong, and too proud to bear dictation.”
Obviously Baron Plessen disapproved of the action of his Government in
“prolonging their obstinate resistance” at the bidding of the Copenhagen
mob, whom they feared; and much as I admired the gallant defence of
Düppel, I could not help sharing his view. But the important point for
us in what he said lay in his remarks about the fast-and-loose policy
for which Lord Russell was responsible, and the wavering encouragement
without which the Danes might “have saved Düppel and spared thousands
of lives.” That unstable swinging of the pendulum was a blame which no
special pleading could remove. And what it cost! And what it is costing
now, fifty-one years later!
April 22nd (10th).—Until this morning there was no sign of the breaking
up of the Neva. The weather for some days had been beautiful, the nights
lovely, and nowhere can the entrancing splendour of moonlight and
starlight be seen to greater advantage than in this city of gold and
silver spires. How poor Whistler would have revelled in it! One night, in
addition to the usual glories of the darkness, there was a perfect lunar
rainbow bent by the fairies over the Isaac’s Cathedral. But of spring no
faintest message. All at once my servant came running in with the news
that the river was moving. I hurried out to the embankment, and found all
the world and his wife there, watching the welcome wonder. It seemed as
if no one could stay at home and miss the great sight of the year.
For many days the ice of the solid river had been quite black, but
now it had turned white again, and was slowly, almost imperceptibly,
drifting seaward. Gradually yawning clefts showed themselves and the
huge mass was split into great blocks. Then the rush of the river began
in earnest; deserted hayboats, looking picturesquely gloomy against the
dazzling ice and sky, came floating down the stream, to be dashed into
a thousand splinters against the permanent bridges. A few unhappy dogs
which had been unwarily disporting themselves upon the river while it
was yet unbroken were unable to make their escape, and were carried away
to the Baltic on the iceblocks, howling piteously. It was impossible to
leave the crowded quay while the sight lasted, and at night the effect
was even more fascinating; the moonlit steeples and towers, reflected a
myriad-fold on the facets of the ice, made the strange beauty of a scene
which, even upon the Russians, does not pall.
The following morning at a little before ten o’clock the thunder peals
from the guns of the fortress announced that the ceremony of crossing the
water had begun. Every year, as soon as the river is free of the danger
of the larger masses of what are miniature icebergs, the Commandant of
the Fortress is rowed over in state to the Winter Palace to carry to the
Emperor a goblet of Neva water. His Majesty in return fills the cup with
gold pieces—a perquisite of the Commandant. These cunning officers used
to take care to procure the largest vessel that could be found, until at
last the abuse was stopped and a fixed measure adopted for the ceremony.
No boat may cross the river before the Commandant, but he is followed
by quite a little fleet of river craft manned by _mujiks_ in their
different-coloured shirts, on a bright morning a picturesquely quaint
sight. Salvos of artillery; curiously-shaped and many-coloured boats;
guards presenting arms; the rays of the sun turning the ice-blocks into
gigantic opals; the crowds watching on the quays; the golden steeples all
ablaze with light; drums rattling and trumpets blaring; flags flying from
every window! After this fashion Russia celebrates the funeral rites of
the winter, the baptism of the spring.
* * * * *
When the Almighty first set his bow in the cloud it was not more welcome
than the arrival of Palm Sunday to the starving Russian. It does not
make an end of the sorrows of Lent, but it comes laden with hope: the
austere and hungry days are numbered, and the beginning of a series of
sublime ceremonials brings with it the buds of a new joy which will burst
into life with the dawn of the paschal feast.
Very solemn are the observances of the Holy Week in the Greek Church. The
liturgies are grand, imposing, soul-stirring; their music so compelling
and emotional that they bring home to one the strength of Tolstoy’s great
saying, “Le sentiment religieux est après tout indispensable.”
As a race, judging by the way in which we face our religion, we Britons
are, I suppose, an unemotional people. With us ritual is a question of
the individual; to one man a stimulus, to his neighbour a horror. In
Russia, on the contrary, it seems to be a national necessity, satisfying
an endemic craving; to the lower orders, indeed, the be-all and end-all
of religion: not, as I think I have already shown, a religion necessarily
acting as a high moral force or even as a deterrent, but in some mystic
way a spiritual comfort in the present, as it is in the future the
promise of the wiping out of all crime and salvation by virtue of the
great Sacrifice. For the Slav the call to the soul must be through the
imagination, and that is where the imagery of the Greek Church triumphs.
A highly symbolical ritual is of the very essence of the orthodox faith,
and since ritual there must be, where could you find it more reverent,
more devotional, more suggestive of the Divine Mystery, than in the
services of these last days of Lent? The music breathes tragedy; the
swelling voices of the choristers rise from the lowest depth of sorrow to
the sublimest heights of ecstatic adoration; the canticles and antiphons
are so entirely one with the rites of the Passion that I imagined that
this heaven-born music must be as old as the liturgies themselves,
foreshadowing Wagner’s theory of the twin-birth of music and poetry. But
that is not so. I was informed that it is no older than the eighteenth
century. Could it, I wonder, have been based upon some much more ancient
model? It is difficult to conceive these services without the solemn
chanting of the priests which is of their very essence.
Palm Sunday Eve is one of the holiest of the anniversaries observed
by the Greek Church; none is more pregnant with symbolism. Prince
Gortchakoff, always kind, invited me to attend the evening service in his
chapel. It was a singularly impressive ceremonial, not, of course, so
steeped in tragic emotion as those which would follow later in the week,
for symbolically we were celebrating a joy, not a death—the triumphant
procession when the people shouted, Hosanna to the Son of David,
welcoming with loud acclaim the entry of their King into His capital,
“coming in the name of the Lord.”
The first striking feature of the holy rite was the bringing in of a
small table upon which were set out vessels containing oil, wine, grain
and five loaves typifying the five barley loaves with which the Saviour
fed the five thousand in the desert place near Bethsaida. Very reverently
these were blessed by the priest, who at the same time offered up a
prayer to God that oil and wine and grain might not fail His people
during the ensuing year.
The great moment was when the palm branches were produced, carried in a
huge pot to be blessed, sprinkled with holy water, and incensed with the
fumes of consecrated spices and gums. To each of the congregation a taper
was given by an attendant, and one of the newly-blessed palm branches was
handed by the officiating priest to each of us. The priest then entered
the Holy of Holies, _Sviataia Sviatuich_, by the Doors of the Lord, and
we symbolically followed the Son of David on his royal progress. The
Gospel was read, the blessing delivered, and the service, which had
lasted two hours, during which we remained standing, was at an end.
None but a consecrated priest may cross the threshold of the Doors of
the Lord or enter the _Sviataia Sviatuich_. The crazy Emperor Paul once
received a just rebuke from the Metropolitan for wishing to break this
law. The Emperor stands much in the same relation to the Orthodox Church
in Russia as the King of England does to our Church. He is the Head,
that is, the eldest son, of the Church, but he cannot officiate or even
vote in the Synod. The Emperor Paul, however, wished, as Head of the
Church, himself to conduct the service. Full of religious ardour, he
arrived one day by the side door of the altar, and was received by the
Metropolitan. The Tsar called for priest’s robes, announced his intention
of celebrating the Mass, and prepared to enter the Holy of Holies, when,
just as he was about to pass the threshold of the Doors of the Lord, the
prelate stood before him, barring the way, and said,“Kneel, sire! This
is your place. You may go no further.” The Emperor, to do him justice,
took the reprimand well, and the Metropolitan did not suffer for his bold
speech. This story is not recorded in history—it is not likely to be; but
it was told me by a Russian gentleman of high position, and is a matter
of common knowledge.
On the Thursday in Passion Week there is a very interesting ceremony: the
washing of the feet of twelve priests in the Isaac’s Cathedral. I had
been misinformed as to the time, and so unfortunately missed it.
In a Church in whose offices emotion plays so intense—if it did not
savour of impiety one would be tempted to say so dramatic—a part, Good
Friday must inevitably be celebrated by ceremonies imaging the blackest
woe. Nowhere is the tragedy of the Cross represented with so much
realism—a realism that might easily have degenerated into something
shocking, were it not so hallowed by a veneration born of the Divine
Love which said, “This do in remembrance of Me.” It is hardly too much
to say that on this day the orthodox Christian lives through the whole
awful tragedy now nearly two thousand years old. No other man sees it so
vividly before his eyes.
In the morning, torn by sorrow, he takes down the Body of the Saviour
from the Cross, and with as much reverence as if it were a real corpse,
lays it in a lighted funeral chapel to await the burial service of the
evening. This I was allowed to witness in the Imperial Chapel of the
Winter Palace. The service began with a Mass. The priests, of whom there
were four besides the arch-priest, the deacons, readers and choir, were
all in deep mourning; the latter in a sort of Court dress, with swords,
the clergy in vestments of black velvet and silver. The Mass was, as I
was told, performed after the traditions of the worship of the early
Christians in the catacombs. In the centre of the church was the bier,
covered with a cloth representing an effigy of the dead Saviour, with the
Gospel on the breast as at a funeral.
Indeed, the whole ceremony is a solemn funeral service. During the Mass
every person present was presented with a lighted wax taper, and the bier
was surrounded by magnificent candelabra carrying wax lights. As soon
as the Mass was over, the choir drew themselves up in triple row behind
the priests, who stood on each side of the bier, the arch-priest in the
centre, with two deacons supporting him, facing the altar. Then arose
the funeral dirge, sung by about fifty fine voices, very soft and still,
the basses especially making a fine effect—all the music unaccompanied.
At the end of the funeral chant the key changed, and there followed a
louder canticle. The priests, one at each corner, and the chief priest
in the middle, raised the bier upon their heads and carried it round the
church, the whole congregation kneeling and touching the ground with
their foreheads while they devoutly crossed themselves. The bier having
been replaced and the choir having taken up their former position, the
deacon thundered out the _Ektenia_, a litany in which the choir made the
responses “Gospodi pomilui” (“Lord, have mercy!”).
After this the deacon read a short passage from one of the epistles, and
went into the Holy of Holies to fetch the Gospel, which he presented with
a reverence to the chief priest, who read a portion of the Scripture and
delivered a blessing.
The Gospel having been taken back into the _Sviataia Sviatuich_, the
chief priest fell upon his knees and made two low obeisances, each time
touching the floor with his forehead; drawing near to the bier, he kissed
the head and feet of the image and the book of the Gospels which lay
upon the breast, and retired with a third obeisance. Two by two, the
other priests followed his example, each, as he retired, bowing to the
chief priest and to his colleague. Next the deacons, and after them the
congregation, beginning with the ladies present, went through the same
reverent formalities, and the ceremony was at an end.
No description, at least none of which I am the master, can convey an
adequate idea of the solemnity and impressive grandeur of this rite. I
can but set down what I saw. Let each man fill in the colouring for
himself; the trappings of woe; the hushed voices of the dirge; the
thunder-peals of the deacon in the _Ektenia_; the choking emotion of the
celebrants; the burial of the dead Christ!
More precious than all the gold and jewels and ornaments with which the
piety of potentates has enriched the Imperial chapels are two relics
which are held in great veneration: the hand of St. John the Baptist,
and the portrait of the Blessed Virgin painted by St. Luke. The hand of
the Baptist was a present given by the Head of the Order of the Knights
of Malta to the Emperor Paul. Of the picture by St. Luke I had but a
very hazy sight. I should have liked to have held it in my hand, or at
any rate, to have been allowed a close inspection of it. No doubt I
might have obtained that favour for the asking, but I did not like to
risk being considered indiscreet. As it was, I could see nothing but a
gorgeous frame with a golden crown and precious stones such as adorn all
the sacred pictures of the Church. Dim with age, the picture itself at
the distance at which I saw it was a cloud.
I wonder how much money was spent in St. Petersburg on Saturday, April
18th (30th), being Easter Eve. It is a great day for buying and selling,
and the market is so beset by crowds of eager customers, keenly bent on
buying the wherewithal to break the long fast which ends at midnight,
that the mounted police have to muster in force in order to preserve some
semblance of order. Shortly before midnight on Easter Eve the town was
illuminated by candles placed at intervals along the pavement, the guns
of the fortress began to crash out their joy-signals, and the pious folk
flocked to the churches to hear the priest give out the glorious news of
the resurrection of the Saviour.
The celebration of Easter at the Isaac’s Cathedral is said to be quite
magnificent; but I did not see it, for I was bidden to keep the feast at
Princess Kotchoubey’s and I could not refuse, as she had always been so
kind to me. The service of a chapel in a private house, however grand it
may be, can never come up to the gorgeous spectacle such as that of the
great procession which thrice marches round the colossal building. Still
the ceremony was very imposing, and the entertainment afterwards, as
always where the Princess is hostess, sumptuous in the extreme.
In the streets the night which heralds Easter is a mad jubilee. Everybody
salutes everybody else with the joyful cry, first uttered by the priest
in church, “Christos Voskres” (“Christ has arisen”), and everybody
answers “Dieistvelno on Voskres” (“Of a truth He has arisen”). By four
o’clock in the morning the proletariat is very drunk and very happy. The
noise and the shouting and the merriment might be in honour of a great
victory, as indeed it is—the Divine victory over death!
By dawn the booths and merry-go-rounds of the Butter Week have sprung
up like mushrooms in an August night, and all through Easter Sunday
the cry of “Christos Voskres” will be dinning in our ears. As for the
poor Emperor, the twenty-four hours were enough to tire him out. Think
of having to kiss from seven to eight hundred people directly after
midnight; and then to begin again with deputations from each of the
regiments of the Guards after breakfast! The Empress had to plead her
poor health in order to escape from the fatigue of these receptions. I
sometimes thought that it must need the strength of a Samson to bear the
weight of duty that is laid upon a Russian Emperor. Alexander the Second
carried himself nobly and equably through the weary rites and ceremonies
that are the heritage of Tsardom’s woe; but what a strain it must often
have been!
* * * * *
After the long weeks of fasting and the ten wild days of feast and
revelry, St. Petersburg began to calm down and the world, high and low,
was at peace.
* * * * *
May 4.—A storm of indignation was raised by the arrival of the
_Indépendance Belge_ with the report of a speech delivered by Pope Pius
IX. in the Consistory upon the occasion of a canonization. His Holiness,
while in the same breath disclaiming any intention of fomenting revolt
or of encouraging treason, made a furious attack upon the Tsar for his
policy in Poland. He accused him of endeavouring to uproot the Roman
Catholic religion, of exciting rebellion under the pretence of quelling
it, of transporting whole populations to frozen and desolate regions, and
of removing bishops from the functions to which the Church had called
them. There is nothing so dangerous, nothing so misleading as falsehood
with a thin veneer of truth. No one can deny that great numbers of Poles
had been deported; but many, if not most, of them had been sent to
Samara, a province in the south-east of European Russia, rich in that
famous black earth which makes a farmers’ paradise, in which numbers
of prosperous German colonists were doing a thriving trade in wheat,
tobacco, cattle and horses, while even those who were sent to Siberia
were described to me by an Englishman who had just come from there as
quite happy and comfortably established with their families. Siberia is
by no means the cruel country about which such terrible tales have been
served up for European consumption, dressed with all the condiments of
fanatic hatred.
Even Dostoievski—no friend to the Russian Government—when writing against
the prison system of Siberia, to which he was sent for political reasons,
speaks almost with affection of the country itself. It was the life of
the criminal convict in Siberia which was such a nightmare, and with
that the transported Poles had nothing to do. But Siberia was always a
good name of terror, and as such the Pope made rhetorical capital of
it. As regards the question of uprooting the Roman Catholic Church in
Poland, there can be no doubt that the Greek Church has always been
very intolerant. There was indeed a time—in the Middle Ages—when the
followers of other creeds were not looked upon as Christians; the Russian
chroniclers called the Roman Catholics “unbaptized Latins,” holding that
there could be no baptism without total immersion; and when the Tsar
received ambassadors it was customary for him to give them his hand, but
in the audience hall there was kept a golden vessel in which the autocrat
might wash off the contamination.
Though these prejudices were dead and matters of history, the hatred
which inspired them was very much alive, and the fighting in Poland was
in a great measure a war of religion. Still it was simply an invention
of the priests, wishful to keep up the spirit of rebellion, to say that
there was any desire on the part of the Government to extirpate their
faith.
The Polish peasants, who were as ignorant as their own cattle, were told
by the priests that the worship of God according to the Catholic creed
was forbidden in Russia, and that persons who died in that communion were
refused Christian burial, and thrown out into the forests and wastes
to rot or be devoured by the wolves. In order to disabuse the Poles of
these ideas, the deputation of peasants of whom I have already spoken
were taken to Mass in the great Romish church and also to visit the Roman
Catholic burial ground. Seeing, it was hoped, would be believing.
In official life both Roman Catholics and Lutherans have held high
places. Curiously enough Count Nesselrode, the famous Chancellor, was a
member of the Church of England, having been baptized on board a British
man-of-war, and till his death he remained a faithful son of our creed.
Count Creptovitch, who was formerly Minister in England, and whom I
knew well, was a Roman Catholic, and held a great position. Many others
could be named. But would Count Creptovitch, a devout Roman Catholic,
have given the support of his great name to a Government pledged to the
extirpation of his communion from any part of the Empire? The thing was
absurd and incredible on the face of it.
Of the third accusation brought by Pope Pius—that of the removal of the
bishops—it was not difficult to dispose. The Archbishop of Warsaw and
the Bishop of Vilna had been politically very troublesome—not a matter
of infrequent occurrence among the soldiers of a very militant Church.
They were requested to leave their sees until matters should have settled
down, and they had not much to complain of. They were extricated without
any loss of dignity from a very difficult position and were allowed to
retain all their honours, titles and emoluments, a slight deduction being
made from the latter to cover certain expenses which were a liability
of their offices; and there seemed no reason to preclude their return
in happier and more peaceful times once more to take possession of the
charge of their flocks.
The Pope’s speech was certainly injudicious and ill-timed. His Holiness
had evidently been misinformed; zeal had, not for the first time in the
world’s history, outrun truth.
* * * * *
May the 9th.—I suppose that there could hardly be a more magnificent
military spectacle than that of the Spring Parade held on the Champ
de Mars. The Empress and all the great people of St. Petersburg were
present in a grand stand, by which a little ragged cur had taken up his
position and, sitting upright on his tail, watched the proceedings as a
rather captious critic from beginning to end, moving his head from side
to side with unflagging interest. When the Emperor rode on to the ground
surrounded by his brilliant staff of generals and aides-de-camp, he
passed in front of each corps and to each he addressed the question, “Are
you well, my children?” and the men thundered out, “We wish you health!”
When the march past began, the Tsar signified his approbation of each
squadron or battalion, and the men roared with one voice, “Glad to do our
best.” There were thirty-two thousand men in all, under the orders of the
Grand Duke Nicholas[47]—a noble-looking host, as gorgeous as glittering
uniforms could make them. At the head of the other troops, the mail-clad
Circassian body-guard, dashing past at a gallop, some of them throwing
down their scimitars in front of them and heeling over to pick them up
again at the saluting-point, made a gallant and fantastic show, with just
a touch of Asian mystery to add a glamour of the East to the picture.
The cavalry of the Guard, splendidly mounted, with their cuirasses
and helmets flaming in the sunshine; the pennons of the lancers; the
infantry; the artillery; all spick and span, showed off the panoply of
war in its most attractive shape—altogether a dazzling pageant. Whether
it was anything more than that one witness seemed to doubt, for when the
last man had marched past and the Emperor turned to leave the ground, the
little dog got up, stretched himself, yawned and proceeded to mark his
contempt of the whole proceedings in the most accentuated fashion. One
Russian gentleman, a statesman in a very high position, told me that it
had been his custom for years to attend this annual review, wondering at
its stateliness, and that his pride used to rise in hero-worship when he
thought of the invincibility of these glorious warriors.
The Alma and Inkermann shook him in his faith, and since then he had left
off his yearly visit to the Champ de Mars; there was “trop de clinquant
et trop peu de réalité.” He agreed with the little dog.
One thing struck even my unskilled civilian eye: as the artillery came
rattling under a window in the British Embassy, which looked on to the
parade ground, I noticed that no two batteries were armed with the same
pattern of gun. I could not help wondering what would be the effect of
this in action; whether there was not great risk of mistakes in the
serving out of ammunition, and other conceivable causes of confusion.
That evening at dinner at the Club Anglais[48] I chanced to sit next to a
general officer with whom I was acquainted, and I asked him what was the
reason of this difference in the equipment of the various batteries. His
answer was that the great authorities on artillery had not yet come to a
conclusion as to what was the best service gun, so Russia was biding her
time and allowing the other armies to make experiments for her benefit.
It so happened, however, that I knew of six or more agents for different
gun factories in England, France, and Germany, who were staying in St.
Petersburg with well-filled pouches touting for their several firms; and
this had been going on for months; so the Russian gunners had to deal
with weapons of many patterns, the efficiency of the army being made of
no account so long as those pouches continued to empty themselves and
bulge once more. This was a point upon which the Embassies were better
informed than the ministers of the Emperor.