1864
MOSCOW
May 18.
“Is there anybody here who can speak English? Oh! IS there anybody here
who can speak English?” A piteous cry from a brother Briton in distress
must be attended to. It came from a first-class carriage in the train
for Moscow standing in the station at St. Petersburg. I found a young
man trying in vain to come to some understanding with the guard; he knew
neither French nor German nor Russian; indeed, his English was none of
the best, his aspirates being indiscriminately used or omitted.
When I had solved his difficulties for him he told me that he was
travelling for pleasure to see the world. He had been staying at
the boarding house chiefly used by “drummers”—travellers of English
commercial houses. Of the country, its institutions and customs he knew
absolutely nothing; but the drummers had stored his mind with all manner
of gruesome tales of the dangers and terrors threatening the unwary
traveller. Murray’s guide to him was all-sufficient, unless he found
himself in some position of alarming difficulty, when he would dismally
howl his “cuckoo-cry”—“Is there anybody,” etc. One night he had nearly
collapsed with fear. He had been to some place of entertainment and was
being driven home when, finding himself in a rather narrow, dark street,
he took into his head that his coachman was decoying him to some thieves’
den (Oh! those drummers!) where he would be robbed and murdered. He
stopped the astonished coachman, who must have thought him mad, and
began yelling for help. His shouts soon brought a good-natured polyglot
Russian, who assured him that all was well, and that he was simply being
taken to his destination by the nearest way. Two or three days later I
met him in Moscow in one of the churches, listening with rapt attention
to a very dirty monk extolling in Russian the miraculous powers of
certain relics. His journal, if he kept one, would have been interesting.
Prince Boris Galitzin, a very smart young officer in the
Chevalier-Gardes, a famous leader of cotillons in the great houses of St.
Petersburg, was going to Moscow with his wife at the same time as myself,
and so we had agreed to meet and lionize the famous old city together. It
was of course a great advantage to me, for not only had I very pleasant
friends, whose company was a joy, but I also benefited by certain special
permits with which they were armed. What treasures we saw!—gold, silver,
precious stones and pearls. What holy relics did Boris have to kiss!—not
that he, as an advanced Greek, had much faith in them or in their
miracles; his reverence for them was something like that of Naaman the
Syrian, when he prayed that if he should enter the house of Rimmon with
his master leaning upon his hand, he might be forgiven for bowing himself
down because it was a question of duty.
The French in 1812 looted as much as they could, but on their approach
the treasures and relics were sent off to Novgorod. They must, in spite
of all precautions, have found a great deal, for the wealth of the
churches is prodigious. One holy Saint stopped their robberies by a
miracle. The ruffians were about to rifle his tomb when the corpse slowly
lifted its hand in warning. They fled, terror-stricken at the sign, but
the dead hand remained raised, a threat for ever against sacrilege.
It is really no matter of surprise that there should be so few buildings
of great antiquity, so few ancient historical monuments in Russia. It is
true that at Kief, the old capital of the Grand Princes, Jaroslav built
the stone church of St. Sophia in the middle of the eleventh century,
about the same time as the Conqueror built the Tower of London, but it
was not until the middle of the seventeenth century that houses of stone
began to be the fashion. Till then the dwellings of rich and poor alike
were built of wood upon piles, much like the homes of their Scythian
forbears, described by Herodotus. As a consequence fire had freedom of
destruction, as it has in many great Oriental cities, where I have seen
whole quarters burned to ashes in a single night; and so it was that when
Ivan, the son of Daniel, established his capital at Moscow in 1330, it
was no more than a great aggregation of wooden houses, the only stone
building being the Church of Spas na Bory (the Saviour on the Cross),
which was said to be of immense antiquity.
It was not until the end of the fourteenth century that Dmitri Donski,
the conqueror of the Tartars on the Don, began building the famous
Kremlin.[49] By degrees came trade, and merchants from all parts of the
world, bartering their goods against Muscovite furs, cloth, linen and
leather, for which Russia had already become famous.
In the middle of the sixteenth century, during the reign of Ivan the
Terrible, two great fires almost annihilated the city. The first broke
out in the merchants’ quarter and the second burned the Tsar’s palace to
cinders. The infuriated populace laid both these fires to the account
of the witchcraft of Princess Glinski, the widow of a man who had died
in prison, after his eyes had been put out as a punishment for having
rebuked Ivan’s mother, Helen, for her conduct with her lover, Ortchina.
One of the supposed witch’s sons was murdered with his followers at an
altar on which they had taken refuge for sanctuary, and the wretched
woman herself fled for her life with her other son. What an easy matter
revenge was in the days when men believed in witchcraft?
But in spite of fires and Poles and other misfortunes, Moscow continued
to flourish in ever-increasing beauty, until at the beginning of the
eighteenth century Peter the Great, in love with the sea and with ships,
must needs transfer the seat of government to his newly-founded seaport,
and so gave the death-blow to the political, or perhaps it would be more
true to say the official, importance of the old capital. But there was
more than the intoxication of the sea in his move. So long as Moscow
should remain unrivalled on a pinnacle of glory, so long would the old
faith and the glamour of old traditions remain as an obstacle to the
Germanizing reforms which he had at heart. These old feelings—which he
knew how to turn to profit at his need, while he affected to despise
them—must be swept away. As a stronghold of the Church the Sacred
City—Moscow and the Patriarchate—had even in the most savage days stood
between the Tsar and his will. Let them perish! So the Court and the
Government were gone, and the Patriarchate with them. But all these
changes—the plucking of beards literally and figuratively from men’s
chins, the wholesale attack upon all those customs which were dearest
to the Russian soul—were in one respect a failure. The dignity, the
sanctity of Moscow remained untouched. No spark of its sacred light
was extinguished. To every true child of Russia Moscow remained the
Holy Mother. Witness 1812. Napoleon would have met with a less fierce
opposition had he attacked St. Petersburg. That would have been warfare.
What Peter did was sacrilege. It was a pious Russian, Rostopchin, who
once more set fire to Moscow lest the sacred city with its stores of
provisions and necessaries should fall into the hands of the impious
invader. What a difference that fire made to the horrors of the terrible
retreat!
No Russian sees the towers of the holy city in the distance without
reverently baring his head and crossing himself, and even the guards
in the railway trains keep a sharp look-out lest they should fail to
make the prescribed obeisance at the first coming into sight of the
venerated towers and steeples. The Russian is sensitive, impressionable
and romantic above any people with which I have come in contact. The
religion, the poetry, the music and the traditions of his country are the
very essence of his nature, fibres interwoven round one centre, which is
to him as his own heart, and that centre is Moscow.
There was one man living in Moscow whom I was most anxious to see: M.
Gerebzoff, the author of “La Civilisation en Russie.” He was famous as
a man of letters, known, moreover, as a typical gentleman of the old
school, who had never bowed before the altars of St. Petersburg, but
had remained absolutely faithful to the traditions of what he conceived
to be the glorious past of his country. Prince Galitzin, who knew him,
very good-naturedly asked him to tea one evening to meet me. He came
with two or three others—men of the same kidney as himself—and we had a
most interesting talk. He had the appearance of a very old man, though
in truth he was hardly past middle-age; but his infirmities added long
years to his reckoning, and he was nearly stone blind; physically he was
weak, but mentally full of activity, enthusiasm and prejudices—just as
I had imagined him. What added to the interest of his conversation was
the fact that he had been writing a book on England, full of admiration
for our institutions and methods. But Boris Galitzin knew that I should
be eager to hear him talk about his own country, so he deftly turned the
conversation to the question of the capital.
“St. Petersburg!” exclaimed M. Gerebzoff, “a mere marsh, just fit to
harbour frogs and wolves and Finns. You must not imagine”—turning to
me—“that in St. Petersburg you can come to any true opinion about
Russia,” and then he went off at score. Even Moscow he would not admit to
be the true capital for his country. Kief would be the most advantageous
metropolis. His argument was this. The theory of a capital is that every
native of the country should look upon it as _his_. Moscow is to Vladimir
and Kief what St. Petersburg is to Moscow—a modern imposition. Moscow
might be the official capital, but the native of Little Russia would
still look upon the ancient Kief as _his_ capital. But if Kief were the
seat of government, Petersburger, Muscovite, Volhynian, Podolian, White
Russian, and perhaps even at last Pole, would loyally rally round the old
mother-city. The spirit of separation would be exorcized, and there would
be one Russia with one language and one mind. This was no new idea of
which M. Gerebzoff held the patent. Many Russians had professed the same
faith, especially the violent nationalists.
At the same time it must be remembered that to an enormous majority of
their countrymen Moscow is so intimately bound up with the great crises
of their fatherland, such as the occupation by the Poles and their
expulsion, and the episode of 1812, and so venerated as the high altar
of their faith, that Kief as a capital, in spite of all its sanctity and
its remote antiquity, can never in their opinion be more than an academic
problem. I have given here a very brief _précis_ of M. Gerebzoff’s talk.
But I could wish that some of our statesmen who seem to advocate a return
to the Heptarchy could have heard his eloquent advocacy of a united
empire. As to that when I was in Russia there were no two schools, no two
opinions.
Of all the strangely quaint buildings in Moscow—perhaps of the world—the
most arresting is the Church of Vassili Blagennii, standing at the
entrance to the Kremlin; it was erected by Ivan the Terrible in honour
of Basil, the crazy monk of Moscow—the only man who ever dared to rebuke
him—and of the victory which wrested Kazan from the Tartars in 1554.
Designed by one madman at the command of a second and to the glory of
a third, it looks as if it had been planned in an ecstatic mood by the
capricious fantasy of King Oberon’s court architect. One can picture to
oneself his craftsmen, gnomes, trolls and Nibelungen, busily at work
sawing, planing, hammering; shaping stones, beating out iron and gold and
silver and copper; fashioning pinnacles and cupolas and towers into weird
forms and grotesque combinations; making up a structure unlike anything
in Heaven or upon earth, baffling description—something to make a man
rub his eyes in wonder and ask himself whether it can be reality or a
dream of ghost-land. Clearly the work of a man gay, happy, unrestrained,
laughing at all prescribed rule and convention. Strange to say, this
weird Saracenic conception was born in an Italian brain in the days of
the Rinascimento!
When it was finished, and men lifted their hands in wonder, the artist
in his folly bragged that this was not to be taken as the measure of
his powers, or as having dried up the wellspring of his imagination;
he could do better yet. An unwise boast which cost him dear; for lest
the eccentricities and beauties that he had fathered should ever, as
he threatened, be beaten, the Terrible Tsar promptly caused the poor
Italian’s eyes to be put out. Who can account for the wild whims of
fancy? Why should the thought of the savage beauty and fateful sadness of
this sacred building bring back to my mind without rhyme or reason the
memory of a beautiful mad girl who used to wander singing and dancing
in the craziest gyrations through the streets of a little country town
in France which I knew as a youngster? The thing would be impossible in
these days. She was very lovely, but in her loveliness, which had been
so cruel to her, there was something weird, something remote and mystic
and tragic, that seemed to belong to another sphere.
The fascination of this wonder-church must be of the same order.
Brilliant beauty, the sad gaiety of madness, the cloud of a cruel
tragedy—these make up its story. Memory is like a lute strung with all
manner of strange chords. The Church of St. Vassili touched one of them.
The Kremlin is the diadem of the river Moskva as Windsor Castle is
the diadem of the Thames. It has its psychological moment, like “fair
Melrose.” For the one it is the “pale moonlight,” for the other if you
would “see it aright,” crossing the river, you must go to the Sparrows’
Hill at sunset, and stand where Napoleon stood, waiting in vain for the
keys of the gates of the citadel to be brought to him; and if you have
the luck that I had, to hit upon a glorious setting sun, you will have a
sight that will remain with you till your dying day.
No skill of painter could convey the faintest idea of its strange beauty,
varying as it does from minute to minute; bathed in a flood of golden
sunshine, the flame-coloured walls and towers and grotesquely-shaped
steeples and belfries of the Kremlin are a blaze of burnished metal,
like the crown of some huge Gargantuan hero; then, as the sun lowers on
the horizon, they begin, like the dying dolphins of fable, to flash out
chameleon tints of all the colours of the rainbow; gradually the rosy
pink steals over them, just as it does over the snowy points of the high
Alps, fading into the cold violet—not the darkness—of a night almost as
luminous as day, against which the sharp lines stand out with a severity
altogether foreign to their fantastic beauty. The chill serenity of a
nightless night gives a new aspect to the barbaric splendour of the
mighty citadel. For the moment the stilly peace casts a holy spell even
over the memory of Ivan the Terrible.
Only for the moment; for the devilish spirit of the Tsar seems to haunt
all Moscow. Wherever you may go, you are reminded of him and of his
horrors. You are taken to see the Romanoff House, the home of Mikhail
Feodorovitch, the founder of the present dynasty, a perfect specimen of
a great Boyarin’s house at the beginning of the seventeenth century,
instinct with the spirit of the Orient; low, vaulted rooms, the ceilings
and walls covered with frescoes and arabesques of curious designs. The
doors are very low, for cunning old Nikita Romanoff, grandfather of the
first Tsar of his race, was determined that those who entered his house
or his presence should do proper obeisance; even the lady of the party,
not a tall woman, had to bend nearly double as she crept in. Everything
is kept in religious order: all the furniture, down to the very toys
with which the future Tsar used to play. One hardly expected to see a
relic of Ivan here. Yet even in this Romanoff family shrine is preserved
his staff, an ingeniously cruel weapon, the top fashioned as a huge
bird, with which in playful moods he would fell an unfortunate courtier
or two, and the ferrule a sharpened point of iron, with which, leaning
upon it with all his weight, he would pierce the foot of some wretch
whom he called up for a close and familiar conversation, pinning him to
the floor. Strange caresses! The barbarities to which great nobles and
courtiers were submitted pass all belief. There is a little tower in
the Kremlin from which Ivan would look down upon the great square below
and feast his eyes upon the tortures of his victims, tortures ordered
by himself and in which he would sometimes lend a hand. The treacheries
of some of his towns—Novgorod, Volkof, Pleskof, Tver and Moscow itself,
accused of intriguing with the Poles—gave him a fine opportunity for
indulging in his favourite pastimes.
As for the guilty traitors of Novgorod, they were driven into a huge
inclosed pen, and Ivan, with his eldest son, rode in and speared them
like wild boars till they were tired of the sport! And yet, in spite
of all that is true in these stories, and perhaps of much more that is
legendary, he does not seem to have left an unpopular memory behind
him—indeed, I have heard Russians speak kindly and almost affectionately
of this fiend as a sort of jovial _viveur_ rather than as a tyrant to be
execrated. As for Peter the Great, he frankly admired him and, making
allowance for the difference in centuries, imitated him; no doubt he
would have gone further had he dared, but times had changed, and there
was a limit even to his audacity.
There is a new dynasty and a new capital, but the memory of Ivan the
Fourth is yet green and, strange to say, it is not hideous. There was,
no doubt, a certain picturesqueness about him, as there was about our
own Henry the Eighth, who dealt out death with no niggard hand, and who
still, in story and legend, lives as a sort of hero. A strong man of arms
always awakens a certain admiration, and no doubt it was a fine sight
for the citizens of Moscow to see the fierce Tsar ride out bare-headed
through the Saviour’s Gates at the head of his splendidly caparisoned
_strelzi_ and _spritchniki_ (archers and bodyguard). Tailors and saddlers
and armourers are rare makers of fame.
With what wise judgment and loving care the Russians preserve their old
monuments! Where any restoration is needed it is carried out with such
discreet skill that it is almost impossible to detect the new from the
old, and so the approach to the Kremlin through the Spasskia Vorotui
(the Saviour’s Gates), with their beautiful tower, leads to a succession
of pictures which are not fragments of the old world clumsily pieced
together, but the sixteenth century itself, whole, sound and without a
blemish. Bare your head as you go through these mystic gates, for even
the Emperor of all the Russias dare not pass them covered. Inside the
court of the Palace of the Tsars stands the ancient Church of the Saviour
on the Cross, and here were gathered quite a little crowd of pilgrims—for
this is a very holy place—listening with intense devoutness to the words
of one of their number, who, with all the fervour of an ancient Hebrew
prophet, was telling, in language so picturesque that it seemed almost
inspired, the story of a miracle which had befallen him on his travels.
As he was tramping, weary and footsore, from some distant province to
worship at the shrines of Moscow, the Blessed Virgin appeared to him on
the road, and bidding him to be of good cheer, encouraged him to march
on to the end of his pious journey. What was hunger, what was fatigue in
comparison with the holy joy which awaited him? One envies the simple,
unreasoning faith of these humble folk; it would be still more enviable
if it possessed a stronger moral influence upon character; but, alas!
I have already shown how much too often it comes to a dead halt in the
realm of superstition. A little while later in the afternoon I saw a
pious pilgrim—pious he must have been, or he would not have faced the
hardships and cost of the journey—staggering dead drunk on his return
from the shrines; but even so he did not forget to remove his cap as he
passed through the sacred Gates of the Saviour. Explain it who will, the
_mujik_ honestly and reverently offers himself body and soul to his God,
and yet it never occurs to him that he is defiling and degrading the
gift. Fancy a man dragging through the mud a rose which he is to lay at
the feet of his beloved!
“Tchto vam ugodno? Tchto vam ugodno?” (“What d’ye lack? What d’ye
lack?”). The very cry of the madcap city ’prentices in the “Fortunes
of Nigel.” What a picture Sir Walter Scott would have painted of the
Gastinnii Dvor (the Strangers’ Bazaar)! Such a collection of wares of all
sorts, from a worn-out hearth-brush of which the last bristle has long
since departed, to a diamond brooch which, perhaps, a few nights before
was glittering on some fair lady’s breast; from the dirty, worn-out
kaftan of a _mujik_ to a ball-dress of silk and satin. Such bargainings,
such fights for the last odd kopeck. And then the cajoleries of these
Muscovite hucksters! There is something truly touching in being appealed
to as “_Golubtchik_” (“My little dove”) in the hope of softening the
hardness of one’s heart.
Altogether a wonderful place, in which were to be found all manner of
commodities, some good, some bad, some mere trash, with here and there
a really valuable thing, probably stolen, of the worth of which the
dealer is profoundly ignorant, and which he will sell for a song. In one
tray you may see a whole jumble of odds and ends—keys without locks,
locks without keys, brass-headed nails, knife handles, glass beads—and
with them, perhaps, an old enamel, a rare coin, a costly jewel, rather
astonished to find themselves in such out-at-elbows company. As a rule
the meaner the rubbish, the shabbier the article, the longer the battle
over the pence.
If the “little dove” is firm he may often fly away with some really
precious bargain. That, of course, is a rare chance, but at any rate
he will have had a good deal of fun for his money, and a sight of
trade in one of its most picturesque shapes. Petticoat Lane is clean
by comparison, but an artist would find more to draw here. There are
plentiful opportunities for the etching-needle of a Rembrandt, for the
brush of a Hogarth.
However fascinating may be the street scenes in this kaleidoscope of a
city, there comes a moment when one must eat. Prince Galitzin had ordered
luncheon at the Loskutnii Traktir (the Rubbish-shop Restaurant), in spite
of its name a very famous eating-house (the name, by the bye, was well in
tune with the market which I have just described) and the perfection of
luxury.
The waiters were models; they were dressed from head to foot in spotless
white linen, changed twice a day. The shirt was worn Russian fashion,
outside the trousers and bound in at the waist by a girdle. They
themselves were as clean as soap and hot water and steam baths could
make them; so spick and span and so welcoming that it was a pleasure to
be served by them. They most persuasively pressed each dish upon us, and
seemed quite hurt if our appetites could not be of a size with our eyes
and their wishes.
The fare was excellent. A _zakuska_ of raw salted salmon and the greyest
of caviare—such caviare as you cannot procure even at St. Petersburg,
for it loses quality with every hour’s journey from the Volga—a baby
radish or two and a glass of liqueur—that much for an _apéritif_; then
the serious business of luncheon. First little patties of fish, jelly
and eggs, chopped very fine, served with water in which the fish had
been boiled for a sauce; then a stew of sturgeon, crayfish, olives,
cucumbers and red toadstools, quite delicious; and for the last a very
fine sterlet _à la Russe_, as dainty a dish as could be laid before a
king. Our drink was _lompopo_, a cup made of beer, lemon, spices and a
huge toast of black bread, burned almost to charcoal, lying at the bottom
of the tankard. A glass of Château Yquem and a cup of the finest yellow
tea (caravan tea) to top up with. That was an excellent luncheon, and
moreover, honestly Muscovite, quite in the picture.
Rested and refreshed, we betook ourselves once more to the Kremlin, to
feast our eyes upon all those marvels which have been so well catalogued
by Murray and by Baedeker that the mere wanderer may look without feeling
compelled to undergo the torments of description. One thing struck me.
Of Napoleon there are many memories, none more significant, none more
poignant, here or elsewhere than the placing by the Emperor Nicholas
of the statue of the beaten Emperor opposite to that of his conqueror,
Alexander the First.
Gladly would I have spent many days in the old city—days, aye, and
weeks—for it has a singular fascination; moreover, I would have given
much to have had some dealings with its society, a society, by all
accounts, quite different from that of Peter’s capital, which, charming,
kindly and hospitable as it is, must always be, from its official
position, more or less cosmopolitan. Moscow, on the other hand, is, or
was at that time, an atmosphere—absolutely itself, untinged by any modern
desecration of conventional foreign manners and customs.
I know not whether it be so still, but in the days of which I am writing
one felt that one was seeing the Russian _boyarin_ in his own home,
just as in Scotland sixty years ago, before the invasion of Americans
and stockbrokers, it was a joy to visit a Highland chieftain in his
unimproved ancestral castle. There, again, was an atmosphere. But my
stay in Moscow—indeed, in Russia—was drawing to a close; the hours of
one of the holidays of my life were numbered; but before going back to
the workaday world I, too, must make a pilgrimage. Should I take scrip
and staff and bottle, sew cockle-shells on my coat—which would be very
un-Russian—and start off on my sandalled feet? The train leaving Moscow
at 6.30 a.m. would be better; commonplace and modern, but convenient.
* * * * *
One of the greatest of Russia’s saints, held in repute higher than most,
is St. Sergius. Many are the wonders and miracles that are recorded of
him. Before he was born, when his mother received the sacrament his
shouts of joy could be heard all over the church. At his birth he could
recite the Ten Commandments and the Lord’s Prayer by heart. As wise as
he was pious, in the early part of the fourteenth century, he drew to
himself a great following, and was even an adviser of the famous Dmitri
of the Don, whose victory over the Tartars in the expedition undertaken
by his advice he announced to his monks on the day and at the hour of its
occurrence. It was in the year 1330 that he founded his great monastery,
the Troitzkaia Lavra (the Monastery of the Trinity), about forty miles
from Moscow, and when, to the sorrow of all men, he died and was
canonized, his own name was added to that of his foundation, it became
known as the Troitzkaia Sergiefskaia Lavra, and the fame of St. Sergius
was established for all time.
The Monks of the Trinity played a great and a noble part in the history
of their country, especially during the Polish war at the beginning of
the seventeenth century. Frocked heroes they were, against whom all the
craft, the valour and the money of their enemies were of no avail. The
siege had to be raised; and when after three years the Russians rose
against the Poles, who were in possession of Moscow, after a time of
tribulation and misery untold, the monks joined the forces of Minin and
Pojarski, and even sold their treasures to help in driving the hated Pole
from Russian soil. Once more they were in vain besieged in 1615, and it
was under the impregnable walls of the convent which had done such loyal
service to Russia that the treaty of peace with Poland was signed. The
designs of the Poles had been religious as well as political; had they
prevailed, Russia would have fallen under the spiritual dominion of the
Pope. So the monks were warring for very existence, and they fought
stubbornly.
Even Peter the Great, a scoffer by profession, expressed, and no doubt
felt, a sincere veneration for St. Sergius. It was a picture of the Saint
which was carried with him as his standard in all his battles, and sooth
to say, Peter owed no small debt of gratitude to the brave monks. His
early years were not very rosy. He was but ten years old when his eldest
brother, Feodor, died childless, leaving the succession to Peter, to the
prejudice of a witling elder brother, Ivan. Their sister Sophia made this
the pretext for a revolution to which she excited the strelzi (literally
“archers”), a sort of irregular soldiery, and with their help assumed the
regency. In 1789 he felt himself strong enough to call upon her to resign.
The whole story forms an interesting episode in the history of the
country, but there is no space to tell it here; I only allude to it
because it was in this monastery that Peter and his poor weak brother
Ivan found a refuge until, the strelzi turning round upon Sophia, Peter
assumed the government and she was sent into a convent, where she might
again weave plots to her heart’s content. So it was gratitude that
prompted his reverence for the Saint and his monks, and as I imagine
they gained no small amount of prestige from his support. However that
may be, great is the fame of the place. It was a festival of the church,
and though the train was pretty full at starting, we picked up many
worshippers at intermediate stations, till we were quite a crowd.
The Lavra stands upon a hill, and with its picturesque towers and
spires rising above its venerable battlemented walls, looks like an
ancient feudal city, of which the suburbs are formed by the tea-houses,
grog-shops and booths for the sale of toys and sacred images clustered
round its base. Here the faithful congregate after worshipping at the
shrines, and a thriving trade is done in refreshments, chiefly liquid
and strong above proof, and it must be a poor pilgrim indeed who does
not carry back with him a toy or two as fairings for the children, or an
_ikona_ for the good wife.
There were several hundreds of men and women toiling wearily up the hill
at the same time as ourselves. The women were in travelling outfit, their
faces bound round with kerchiefs, only the nose and eyes showing, their
short skirts reaching just below the knee, and both men and women had
their legs thickly swathed round with linen bands, tied together with
pieces of string, and their feet encased in shapeless shoes contrived
out of coarse matting. The better-to-do pilgrims carried knapsacks,
while their less fortunate fellows had but their staves, with, at most,
a small wallet, trusting to chance and charity for a meal or a night’s
lodging. It was a mixed crowd, for besides these humbler folk there were
prosperous farmers and tradesmen, whose _telegas_ and carts were standing
outside the gates, making the space look like the halting-place of a vast
caravan. Plutocrats and grandees were not wanting, and the numberless
beggars and cripples of whom we had to run the gauntlet gathered a rich
harvest of coppers and small silver coins.
We entered the gates at the same moment as an old grey-beard, tottering
on his staff, wan and weary, worn out with the long journey on foot from
a distant part of Russia, so feeble that nothing but the intoxication of
fanaticism could have carried him on to its end. Inside the gates were
more beggars, but these were apparently collectors for the monastery,
for I noticed that a reverend brother was going his rounds among them,
peering into the contents of the little tin plates to see that there
should be no alienation of alms for private purposes. I felt rather
indignant at this, but it occurred to me afterwards that the idea might
be simply to pool all the receipts, that the fraternity of beggars might
all share and share alike.
Swiftly a serving brother laid hold of us; he was half, if not wholly,
an idiot, and having an impediment in his speech, promised to be very
troublesome; but a jolly little monk coming up delivered us from our
tormentor and sent him about his business. He invited us into his cell
and offered to act as our cicerone. His humble home was tiny and neat
and scrupulously clean—one might have eaten off the floor. In one corner
before the ikona (sacred image), a little lamp was burning. His furniture
consisted of a white sofa-bed, two chairs and a cupboard. The little
window, on the sill of which he had the luxury of a sweet-scented verbena
and a pot of mignonette—one of those touches of poetry which make the
whole world akin—looked out upon a very pretty view of the monastery
garden fringed by the woods beyond.
The dear little man made us very welcome, and gave us each a rude print
of St. Sergius as a remembrance of the monk Vaccian and of the Troitzkaia
Lavra. He made me write down his name in my pocket-book, and then I must
write mine for him. To my amazement, for I had written it in the Russian
character, he had to spell it painfully, letter by letter. Print he could
read fairly well, and of course the old Slavonic script of the liturgies.
But writing, and the reading of the written character, were beyond his
capabilities. Indeed, during the seven hours that I spent with him and
his brethren, I was continually being struck by the proofs of the most
crass and darkest ignorance. Beyond the four walls of their convent they
knew nothing, absolutely nothing. One of them asked me whether England
was not supplied with gold by Russia. When I alluded to California and
Australia, they had never heard of either. They knew that there was
a place called America, and another quite unimportant place called
India, but what they were, to whom they belonged, or by whom they were
peopled—that was a blank.
One’s ideas of the monasteries of the olden time were of sacred
institutions where in an age of ignorance the holy fire of learning was
kept alight; here, and apparently in similar places, were castles of
indolence, refuges to which men might fly from the cares and duties of
mankind, contented to be supplied with the barest necessaries of life at
the public expense, adding thereto a few scanty comforts by the kindness
of some passing stranger.
Every monk received at the refectory one meal a day, consisting of
vegetable soup, fish, bread, vegetables and kvass. If they ate anything
else in the day it must be at their own expense. They were allowed
twenty roubles (£3 at that time) a year out of which they must clothe
themselves. Some had a little something of their own wherewith to eke out
this pittance; others managed to pick up a trifle now and again as guides
to visitors; others had nothing. There were in all three hundred and
fifty brethren. The admission to the order was simple enough; any man was
eligible if only he could show that he had a vocation. The monks had free
egress and ingress, and might even obtain a week’s leave of absence from
the Archimandrite. A curious, unproductive life. Such talents as there
might be were hidden in napkins!
Of course we visited all the churches and shrines; but what interested
me most were the pilgrims. It was impossible not to be touched by the
very real fervour of their piety. To see the tears streaming down the
cheeks of great bearded men when they kissed the face of Saint Sergius,
covered only by a cloth of red velvet and gold, made me feel ashamed of
my stiff-necked apathy. The worshippers moved me, the worshipped did not.
Had the French only known what was immediately under their hand in 1812,
what prizes they might have carried off! The reliquaries and vestments,
the bushels upon bushels of precious stones and pearls. The treasury
of the monastery must represent a fabulous wealth in the offerings of
Emperors and Empresses, Princes and Princesses, and rich folk of lesser
degree.
One jewel was, if not a miracle, as it is reputed to be, at any rate
a world’s wonder. Picture to yourself an agate medallion mounted in
huge diamonds, the staining of the agate representing the figure of a
monk kneeling in worship before the crucifix. Even the eyes of the monk
visible, two little white specks in the blackness of the stone. I held
this wonder in my hand and examined it as closely as I could; but in vain
did I try to discover any trace of possible fraud. I have seen and read
of many freaks of nature; none of its kind, I think, so strange as this.
There was much to be seen in the Lavra—the refectory of the monks,
their carefully-tended garden, and above all the grand old battlements,
twenty-one feet broad, from which we could look down on the surrounding
country and see the advancing hordes of Poles, hear the war cries
of assailants and besieged, listen to the din of battle and to the
triumphant hymns of the cowled warriors giving glory to God for the
victory.
But we had more ground to cover, so after a visit to a neighbouring
_traktir_, where brother Vaccian made himself exceedingly comfortable,
we drove off with him to a most curious hermitage, or perhaps I should
rather say monastery, about four versts off—religion in its most
repellent shape. The church and cells are underground, so we bought
tapers to light us down the dark, slimy steps. How can men inhabit such
dens? How can men think that in so doing they are pleasing the God who
has given them the pure air and the canopy of heaven. To me it seemed
a sacrilege. I went into one of the empty cells and measured it—nine
feet by six; only in the centre was the vaulted roof high enough for
me to stand with my hat on. All the furniture a stove, a pallet and an
ikona; the only ornament a black cross painted on the roof. The water was
literally streaming down the walls.
In such a den as this fanatics will live for years without the light
of day and without air; their only communication with the outer world
is by means of the serving brother who brings their food and cleans
(save the mark!) their cells. Their days are passed in contemplation,
and in reading the lives of the saints by the dim light of a taper. The
liturgies of the Church they only hear through a tiny window, like the
lepers’ squints in our own country, which during Mass is thrown open to
the church that the cells surround. I asked if these holy men received
visitors, as I should have liked to have had some talk with them, but
I was told that they only received the Emperor, the Empress and the
Metropolitan. If they must have company, apparently it has to be of the
very best.
How sweet the pine woods smelt in the soft, delicious air of spring after
these noisome holes at which a well-conditioned toad would turn up his
nose! There was more to be done yet, for the place seemed to be a perfect
colony of Holiness. At a little distance there dwelt an old monk, who
after ten years spent in one of those hideous cells (ten years! it makes
one shudder to think of it!) had reached such a pinnacle of piety that he
was now accredited by the wondering mujiks with the power of performing
miracles. He was not a very old man, as we were told, but so broken down
with infirmity, bred rather of privations than of years, that he could
hardly raise himself on his couch to receive us. Strikingly handsome, and
of rare distinction, with long grizzly hair and beard, he was the ideal
of St. Jerome. He was not unwilling to talk; but his mind was wandering,
his speech incoherent, and he seemed relieved when I bade him farewell.
I was afraid that if I offered any little gift to so saintly a personage
he would be affronted, so on leaving I put a trifle in the hand of the
attendant who kept the pretty little cottage. He begged me to go back and
lay it on the hermit’s table. He was lying back apparently exhausted, but
at the sight of the silver he revived, and gave every sign of pleasure
and gratitude.
Close by is one of those austere monasteries into which no female may
enter; but we had seen enough, so we drove back to the Lavra, there to
await the train which should carry us back to Moscow. By this time a
good many of the pilgrims who were merrymaking among the booths outside
the walls were very drunk indeed. They had washed down their piety with
vodka, and when the effects of that should have passed off, would be
ready once more to face the world, the flesh, and the devil, with that
added reputation for holiness which is the privilege of the Hadji in
every land.
It had been a full and an interesting day, to the pleasure of which our
good little monk Vaccian had contributed not a little; but I could have
wished that when I said good-bye, leaving with him the wherewithal to
buy a few little comforts, he had not in the profusion of his gratitude
insisted on kissing as well as blessing me, for indeed his person was not
kept with the same scrupulous cleanliness as his cell. The blessing was
good; the kissing less so; but it had to be endured, so I tried not to
make a wry face over it.
The next day was the last of my delightful stay at Moscow. Dreamily I
wandered alone through the streets, a purposeless vagabond, and rather
mournful, for I would fain have remained much longer. I carefully
eschewed sightseeing, for I was anxious to fix on my mind what I had
already seen, and that could best be achieved by gathering a general
impression of the peculiar features of the city.
On the 24th of May I reached St. Petersburg and almost immediately left
for London. I brought away with me a store of happy memories, especially
the cherished remembrance of Lord and Lady Napier. Of Russia I felt as
if I must take my leave, full of gratitude for boundless hospitality and
kindness, in her own pretty formula “Forgive!”
Many years after the betrayal of Denmark, when I was Secretary of the
Office of Works, I was once more, to my great delight, associated
officially with my old chief. Mr. Nelson, the famous Edinburgh publisher,
had very generously offered to pay the cost of certain improvements
and restorations at Edinburgh Castle. Lord Napier and I were appointed
members of a committee to consider the plans and proposals. One fine
afternoon, after the meeting of the committee, we were walking down the
hill together, when we began talking of the old St. Petersburg days. He
was full of fun and merriment, laughing over the old memories. At last I
said:
“Do you remember that dismal night in February, 1864, when you sent for
me to decipher the telegram that decided the fate of Denmark?”
“Yes, indeed,” was the answer.
“And do you remember your journey to Tsarskoe Selo the next morning and
what Prince Gortchakoff said to you.”
“No,” said Lord Napier, “I don’t remember _that_,” with a strong emphasis
on the _that_—but there came into his eyes the old merry twinkle that I
loved to see. He would not give away Lord Russell, whom he loved, even to
me who knew the whole story, but the laughter in his tell-tale eyes spoke
volumes. Nobody suffered more than Lord Napier occasionally did from the
diplomatic vagaries of his old chief. But I think that he looked upon
him as a sort of superlunary political saint, not to be measured by the
standards applicable to the ordinary commonplace Secretary of State.
On my way home I stopped at Berlin, which was in a fever of excitement
and self-glorification. Two of the most formidable military Powers of
Europe, having joined forces, had succeeded in crushing little Denmark.
Prussia was triumphant, the Mark beside itself with martial elation.
Trophies of war were stacked in public places, poor little old-fashioned
smooth-bore cannons, not much better than toys, which had been all
that the brave Danes had had for the defence of their Dannewerke. The
officers, “unscarred braggarts,” who had fought (save the word!) in this
noble warfare each wore a white silk band round the sleeve of his tunic,
rattling his sabre with all the conscious pride of heroism, while the
fair-haired maidens fell down in worship before the majesty of the War
God. Surely since the world began there never was so much cry over such a
paltry ploc of wool. But your Prussian Junker can outboast creation!
Two more days, and then back to the Foreign Office.