Government _employés_, their servility—Baseness, and its
fruits—Duty of the senate—Dishonesty, bribery, and poverty—New
way to pay old debts—Mistrust—Conduct of the ladies—Duties of
those in office—The railway serfs—Police-masters in Russia—The
military officers and the soldiers—The wretched fare of the
army—Peculations of the colonel—Army regulation—A colonel in
the Caucasus—Why _the people_ are created.
The most detestably mean class in Russia are certainly the government
_employés_. There is no baseness too base, no dishonesty too dishonest,
no cringing too low, no lie too barefaced, no time-serving too vile for
them. “Do you see those men in their gold-laced coats, cocked-hats,
swords, and ribbons?” said a governor’s lady to me one day; “they are
all coming to congratulate my husband. There is not one but would think
it an honour to wipe the dust off his shoes.” I fear, although severe,
she spoke the truth, and knew well how to appreciate the character of
her countrymen. There are, as far as we could learn, few exceptions to
this servility, and unfortunately it seems to run through the whole of
the different official ranks in Russia. It begins at the beginning: the
ministers cringe to the Emperor, the heads of the departments to the
ministers, the _employés_ to their chiefs, and so on down to the very
lowest writer or clerk receiving pay from the government; and, what is
worse, every one has his price according to his rank. When I was staying
at the house of a provincial governor, the Emperor paid a visit to the
place, and walked up and down in front of the station talking to his
Excellency. His Majesty had no sooner left the town than the heads of
the departments, the military officers, police, and _employés_ rushed
in full dress to the governor’s to offer their congratulations on the
occasion. If he had been promised the inheritance of the imperial crown
itself, they could scarcely have magnified the honour more, or proffered
a greater amount of flattery and adulation than they did on this event.
There were two of the _employés_ in the province of which I speak who
were exceptions to this: the governor respected them accordingly; they
were almost daily at his house, and he esteemed them highly; they were
the two principal adjutants, and were honourable men. Neither of these
gentlemen came to congratulate the governor upon the occasion to which I
have referred. One of them came in the evening, as usual, to take tea. He
sat almost in silence, and seemed much out of spirits: at last he arose,
and, complaining of a headache, asked if we would like to take a walk
round the garden. Madame declined, but I arose and accompanied him. As
soon as we had reached the broad avenue, I said,—
“I fear it is more than a headache that you are suffering from; you have
been annoyed by something.”
“You are right, Madame,” answered he; “I am vexed and ashamed when I
think that I am obliged to be the witness of such degrading baseness in
my own country-people as was shown to-day. What a dreadful thing it is
that men should so lower themselves, and vilify the image in which they
have been created!” He stopped suddenly, and he seemed overwhelmed with
sorrow.
“They will behave more nobly,” I said, “when more enlightened.”
“Never, never!” he exclaimed, “until a dreadful revolution has swept over
the land and destroyed every vestige of the government now existing and
of the corruption throughout every rank.”
“Hush! you must not talk so, Dmitri Ivanowitch; suppose any one should
hear you.”
“I am quite glad,” he replied, “that I have had an opportunity of telling
my feelings to some one: I know I am safe in speaking to an English
person. You can sympathize in our cause of grief, as yours is a free
nation.”
Poor man! such noble sentiments were almost a misfortune to one condemned
to serve in Russia.
“Without being base, it is impossible to get on,” was the remark of
another Russian to me one day.
The general rule certainly seems to be, that every encouragement shall
be given to slavishness, and none to nobility of soul. “Do you know,”
said Dmitri Ivanowitch one day, “do you know why there are so many mean
people? It is this: a young man, for example, enters the service with the
determination to keep up a character for honour and integrity, and he
does so for some time, and lives in poverty; in the mean while he sees
those whose meanness he despises rise over his head in reward for their
cringing; he gets no credit for being honourably poor; he wearies of the
pursuit of honour, and so gradually becomes as debased as the others.”
There is a senate of the empire; the senators assemble at the ministerial
department in St. Petersburg. Their duties cannot be very fatiguing, as
they consist in saying, “Sa Majesté a parfaitement raison” to everything
that is proposed. One would be apt to think, also, that the law must be
an easy study, as on the first page of the statute-book it is announced
that everything is according to the will of the Emperor.
I am certain that the dishonourable actions to which many of these
_employés_ are addicted, and which I myself have witnessed, would
scarcely be credited in England, where officers and gentlemen are
synonymous terms. One day we saw an officer boldly pocket some money
belonging to his neighbour, at cards. Another slipped some concert
tickets up his sleeve, that were the property of my friend. We both saw
him do it, but neither of us could accuse him to his face. Many a time
things were missing that could have been missing in no other way. One day
a young officer called while the family were at dinner. The footman very
carelessly had requested him to enter one of the drawing-rooms whilst he
went and informed his master. He came back in a minute or two, and begged
him to wait a little, but the officer politely said that he did not wish
to derange the dinner-party, and, as he had to call elsewhere, he would
shortly return. He then went away. No sooner had he done so than the
servant discovered that his lady’s watch had disappeared. The police were
not informed of it, out of respect to his uncle, who was of rank.
Bribery is everywhere practised. There are some honourable men among
the _employés_ undoubtedly, but they are generally so wretchedly poor,
that really the temptation must be almost irresistible. Their pay from
the government is so small that they can scarcely supply themselves
with shoes and gloves out of it; so the money must be obtained somehow
to enable them to make a genteel appearance. A few have perhaps private
property, but the major part have only their appointment.
From all that is told concerning them, the Russo-Germans seem to be the
most rapacious of any people in the country: they are the most cringing
when in an inferior station, and the most tyrannical and merciless when
in power.
“Immense numbers of our officers are Germans,” said a nobleman to me.
“They enter the service, and, as they have their fortune to make, they
will submit to all sorts of insults, cringe and curry favour with their
superiors, and do anything to get on. Now, _a Russian_ will not do that;
he will throw up his commission and leave the service upon a very slight
provocation.” My experience did not enable me to agree with him.
“Every man has his price,” is said to have been one of Sir Robert
Walpole’s axioms; had he lived in Russia, he would have nearly hit the
truth, and, he might have added, “every woman” too.
A lady in St. Petersburg, whose husband was indebted to the crown in
the sum of about ten thousand silver roubles, and had not the means, or
perhaps the will, to pay it, hit upon the following expedient:—It was
the anniversary of the marriage of a personage of the most exalted rank,
so she thought fit to address a letter of humble congratulations on the
occasion. Humble enough! for it began thus:—“If a worm crawling upon
the earth dare to offer,” &c. &c., through a couple of pages, all in the
same style. The letter deserved to be kept, were it only as a curiosity
of literature, and to preserve it as an existing proof to what grovelling
meanness a human being can descend. It was not in this light, however,
that it was regarded by the personage to whom it was sent, or by those
who had _the pleasure_ of perusing it. The entire household was in an
extasy of admiration for three whole days concerning Madame K—ska’s
beautiful address to the E——. The writer obtained what she so ardently
desired; the debt was remitted. When I state that this was the person
mentioned in a former chapter as having caused her poor servants’ hair to
be cut off, her character can be justly appreciated.
One day we went to pay a visit to an old lady. As all the drawing-rooms
were thrown open for the reception of visitors, I committed no solecism
of etiquette in rising to take a nearer view of some beautiful English
engravings of which I caught a glimpse in the next room. I was surprised
and rather annoyed to find that I was followed step by step by the old
lady herself, and that every movement of mine was closely watched by
her. I was so vexed that I returned to my seat without having had the
pleasure I expected. On going home I mentioned the circumstance to my
friend. “You must not be surprised at it, ma chère,” answered she, “for
really you do not know how many things are lost in such parties from the
too great admiration of the visitors.” At a ball it is quite disgraceful
to see the quantities of sweetmeats and fruit the ladies and gentlemen
put into their pockets. The rush into the refreshment-room, when it is
thrown open, is quite disgusting; it can be compared to nothing else than
a swarm of locusts, and they leave the same desolation behind them. When
the ladies go into the dressing-room they will often actually take the
packet of white gloves or hair-pins which it is the custom to place on
the toilette-table in case any of the visitors should require them. It
would really be an insult to the lowest peasant in England to suspect
him of such meanness as one meets with every day among the _employés_
and _soi-disant_ gentlemen and ladies in Russia. Dmitri Ivanowitch was
perhaps right in saying that nothing but the hurricane of revolution
could clear the social atmosphere of its corruption. Perhaps the figure
of Justice on the _outside_ of the ministerial department in St.
Petersburg is an unintentional satire upon the state of affairs within.
Everybody seems to think that he is placed in an office for no other
purpose than to fill his own pockets; and it is astonishing with what
rapidity he manages to do so, especially if there be any public work on
hand. We were staying in one of the provinces through which the railway
from Moscow to St. Petersburg runs. While it was being constructed, the
fortunes made by the engineers and _employés_ were astonishing: from
having nothing at all, they soon acquired estates, and became quite rich,
and that at the expense of the crown and of the _miserable serfs_ that
laboured on the road. Once, when the trains began to run, we went to a
picnic by one of them. When we stopped at the station we found about four
hundred of the workmen assembled. They eagerly asked if the governor
were of the party. Being told that he was not, but that his lady was
among us, they earnestly begged to see her. She very kindly came at their
request. We then heard a sad story, showing the way in which these poor
people were treated: they had not been paid any wages for six weeks;
their rations were bad; and, more than that, a dreadful fever, something
like the plague, had broken out among them, which had not been reported,
and they said that their companions had perished by scores, and had been
buried, like so many dogs, in the morasses along the line. The wretched
looks and half-clad bodies of these ill-used men bore witness to their
unhappy state, and showed too plainly how they had been wronged by the
rapacity of the government _employés_.
The police-master and the officer of _gensdarmes_, with some of the chief
engineers, were of the party. They pretended utter ignorance of the whole
affair, and wished to make every one believe that they were quite shocked
to hear of it; but undoubtedly they knew well whither the money had gone.
They made so plausible a tale, and put so fair a face on the matter,
telling the poor serfs that they would see it all righted, that one would
have deemed them their guardian angels, instead of their robbers: not so
thought the unhappy peasants, if one might judge by the look of despair
and hopelessness that they cast on each other. They too well knew that
vengeance would fall on them for daring to make the complaints we had
heard, and that they had only rendered their condition infinitely more
wretched than before.
At another time a large body of the serfs from the railway came to the
governor’s house, and made similar complaints; they waited and saw his
excellency themselves, and he immediately caused their wages to be paid.
As for the police, they have been spoken of elsewhere, but I cannot avoid
mentioning in what manner the chief master of the provincial police is
regarded by the governor. He seems to be a kind of head lacquey, who is
expected to run about as an errand-boy, and to perform all the dirty work
of the government.
The police-master of a provincial capital in which we were residing was
a colonel in the army, six feet high and stout in proportion; yet, when
he used to come to make the daily reports, he stood with the humility of
a servant before his master, and bore all the insulting speeches and all
the opprobrious names that the governor chose to bestow upon him, without
showing the least indignation at them. He looked just like a great
overgrown schoolboy being scolded by a little old pedagogue.
In regard to the military, if they are gentlemen by education _and
fortune_, they behave as such; but the major part, having nothing but
their pay, resort to the same unjust means as the government officials,
and the poor soldiers suffer dreadfully from the injustice of their
superiors. I believe their lot is not quite so miserable in the capital
as in the provinces, because by chance abuses _may come_ to the Emperor’s
knowledge; but it is a fact that sentinels on duty have frequently as
we were passing begged in an under-tone a few copecks to buy themselves
bread; they saw perhaps, poor men! that we were foreign ladies, and not
likely to tell. One of them assured us (and from all that I know to be
true there is no reason to think he spoke falsely) that he was really
more than half-starved, and was so continually tormented by incessant
craving, that it nearly drove him mad.
How many of the grand dinners given by the colonel are paid for by the
hunger of the unhappy soldiers of his regiment, his conscience (if a
Russian colonel have one) can best decide. Russians have often said in
my hearing that they would prefer being colonels to having the rank of
general, because the former have so many more advantages in a pecuniary
view. It is true that there is an army regulation, that, when a general
is sent down from St. Petersburg into the provinces (which takes place at
certain intervals) to review the troops and to inspect military matters,
he can call any man he pleases out of the ranks, and, taking him aside,
ask him questions as to whether he has any cause for complaint regarding
his rations, clothing, &c., against his colonel or commanding officer. It
is supposed to be strictly confidential, and to be kept a great secret.
The plan is certainly a good one, and was established for a humane
purpose, to remove abuses as much as possible, and would doubtlessly act
as a check if there were any trust to be reposed in the generals; but,
from all that we have heard, _that man_ must be a bold one who would
dare to tell the truth: there would be too many opportunities to make
him feel his commander’s vengeance in case it should be believed. I have
heard Russians relate the most dreadful tales of the way in which the
poor soldiers in the Caucasus are treated. Some years since the brother
of a lady we knew in St. Petersburg (it was the same who suffered from
the birch in Orloff’s office) was under judgment for his conduct in the
Caucasus; he had so starved his miserable regiment, and given such bad
food for the men’s use, that a pestilence broke out among them, and _ils
se mouraient comme des mouches_, as it was said. It took half his fortune
to bribe the authorities to hush the matter up. In fact, from all that
is seen and heard in Russia, one would think that the lower classes are
created expressly to become the prey of the upper, just as we see the
smaller fish serve to support the larger, or to be regarded merely as a
breed of sheep whose fleece the farmer takes whenever he pleases to do
so.