THE HOLY CITY OF RUSSIA.
The “sea of fire” which Napoleon saw at Moscow was replaced for us by
a sea of green roofs as we neared that city at 10.30 A. M., July 23d.
The sight of a real sea could not have been more refreshing. We had
been traveling fourteen hours by express from St. Petersburg. We could
have read coarse print by twilight as late as 11 P. M., and then again
as early as two in the morning. It was possible, therefore, to see most
of the country through which we passed by simply raising the curtain
of the sleeping-car window. But the more we looked at the flying
landscape the less we liked it. The scenery was that from Wirballen to
St. Petersburg over again--flat, boggy, densely wooded, in places well
cleared and cultivated, in others with plenty of cattle reclining in
the fields, but lightly dotted with houses. Nothing except mountains
compensates for the absence of human life. We could have shouted for
joy at the first glimpse of that broad stretch of pea-green, two
stories high. From its surface, as from a body of water, rose domes,
turrets, spires, towers, battlements innumerable. There were bulbous
forms which we compared variously to onions, radishes, or turnips.
These were mostly plated with gold, which shone intensely in the keen
light of day. Others were silver or indigo-blue or red, and still
others matched the green from which they sprang. The churches of Moscow
are five hundred strong. Each of these may have half a dozen steeples.
The effect of the whole is bristling. The city looks like “many-spired
Milan” on a large scale, except that the domes interject an element
which one misses in the Christian West. The place of the Kremlin is
at once identified by the thicker growth of bulbs and needles which
we see near the center of the great city. The terms “eccentric,”
“whimsical,” “grotesque,” “bizarre,” “barbaric,” are used by some of
our fellow-travelers to express their feelings. We do not quarrel with
their epithets. We can only say that for us there can not be too great
a contrast between the church architecture here and that which we have
seen in other countries of other religions. We thank the Tartars--if
they are the responsible parties--for originating all those odd shapes
which cluster in the fold of the Kremlin.
At the station we were received by a man wearing a long blue robe
girded at the waist, trousers tucked into his boots, and a sort of
smoking-cap with a band of peacock’s feathers. If he could have
spoken a word of English or French or German, the charm of this
splendid apparition would have vanished instantly. He was delightfully
Russian from top to toe. When we said “Slaviansky Bazaar” (name of
the principal hotel here), he knew what was meant. He conducted us
to a carriage, to which were harnessed four white horses abreast,
all decorated with bells and tassels. It was obvious that this sort
of thing was not universal in Moscow, for we saw no other men in the
streets dressed in that way, and few other horses thus caparisoned. All
the more were we obliged to the proprietor of the Slaviansky Bazaar for
treating his guests to the revival of old Russian hospitalities. At the
hotel we were sorry to see waiters in the claw-hammer coats and white
neck-ties of Delmonico’s. But then, again, it was a pleasure to find a
smooth-faced boy with his long hair parted in the middle and a tunic of
such a cut and length that he looked externally just like a girl. When
one finds these things at Moscow after traveling thousands of miles for
them, he begins to feel rewarded.
We have been in pursuit of good, genuine Russian dinners in and out
of the hotel, and are prepared to say that they fully equal the best
French combinations in appetizing and nourishing qualities. At some of
the restaurants you must read or speak Russian or starve, unless you
can make the waiter understand that you will take a dinner at a fixed
price. It is delightful to find a race with the moral courage to invent
dishes of its own, with names which a Frenchman can not understand.
The soup, to begin with, would be incomprehensible to a Parisian
_chef_. Two portions of it would make a square meal. It is hot, slab
broth, with a large chunk of meat (not a knuckle-bone) in the middle
of it, inviting the knife to cut and come again. With this succulent
dish is served pastry, looking like Yankee “turn-overs,” stuffed to
the bursting-point with meat hash. Croquettes and balls of meat--with
delicious sauces--figure in almost every dinner. The conventional
“joint” of other countries--beef, mutton, or veal--is not wanting, and
the Russians so far accommodate themselves to our prejudices as to
give us chicken and salad--but the latter in the disappointing form
of pickled cucumber, while we are sighing for a little crisp lettuce.
I had almost forgotten the fish, but then the fish is served out of
place. Here it comes, third on the list, following a meat dish. For
dessert, one has the fruit of the season. Just now the strawberry is
in its zenith. They bring us a rosy pile, which we are expected to eat
out of soup-plates with table-spoons. Cream is plenty, but powdered
sugar scarce. I send for more. The waiter is polite, and goes for it.
When he returns, I am conscious that he is looking me hard in the face.
He wants to see what manner of man it is who requires to qualify his
sour berries with so much of sweet. He had previously been looking just
as hard at my blue gaiters. I am beginning to discover that gaiters are
as rare here as fez caps in Broadway. In fact, I have the only pair in
Moscow, and should be glad to believe that the universal gaze directed
at them is not one of secret derision in this land of boots. As we are
now through with our dinner, we will dismiss that subject, only adding
that, if one must have wine, he can get something pure, light, and
nice, the product of the Crimea or Caucasus. In settling my score, I
give something to the waiter, as a reward for his spotlessness; for,
at the first-class restaurant where we have just dined (Moskovskia
Traktir), he is dressed in complete white, relieved only by a little
red cord about his waist. This shining habit is unstained by a single
drop of soup or gravy, although he has been whisking plates and tureens
off the table the moment we were through with them.
On Sunday we were wakened early by a grand crash of bells. As almost
every one of the hundreds of churches has a set of four or five bells,
you will understand that, when all ring together, they compel a
hearing. None of them are very near us, and the sound of the harshest
was mellowed by distance. They were of all pitches, from the deepest
bass to the shrillest treble. I could not make out a tune in all the
noise. The bells are not rung as chimes. Each one seems to work “on its
own hook,” and to be striking a continuous fire-alarm. After listening
to the clamor for half an hour, one feels like turning over for another
nap. But the attempt is useless. The bell-ringers are as punctilious
in their performances as if these were the most essential part of
religion. They will not shorten the prescribed hours of this labor by a
single second. Among the profound notes that come booming over all the
green roofs, I fancy I hear the voice of a monstrous brazen-throated
creature whom I patted on the back the other day. He is kept in the
stronghold of a tower within the Kremlin about one hundred and fifty
feet from the ground. Without vouching for measurements, I should say
he is twelve feet wide at the flare or rim and fourteen feet high. His
tongue weighs about two tons. Sounded with the ferule of my umbrella,
he gave a little muffled roar. The man in charge offered to tap him
gently with the ponderous clapper swinging there. But I did not care to
hear him more clearly at short range, and declined.
But one would willingly pay a number of rubles to hear the Tsar Kolokol
struck, if that dethroned monarch of all the bells could be set up
again. But there he remains, mutilated and silent forever. The pictures
of the great bell of Moscow had not prepared me to see how neatly it
had been broken. The detached fragment, which now stands by the side of
the ruined bell, might have been cut from it with a knife, so straight
and clean are the lines of breakage. One would think that it might be
put back again and the last trace of a scar be obliterated with solder.
But that would not restore its voice to the bell. For it has ten or a
dozen cracks, some of them many feet long, and each one has spoiled
it. If there is any considerable percentage of silver in this bell--as
seems likely on inspection, and if it weighs two hundred tons, as we
are told--it would be very valuable as old metal. But it is still more
precious to Moscow as her unique and most interesting treasure.
The ordinary bass voice is often little better than a growl or
huskiness of the throat. No one thinks of calling it musical. But I
never heard tenors that thrilled and charmed me more than the basses
at the Temple of the Saviour. This is the costliest and most splendid
church in all the Russias. Its outside is marble and gold. Its inside
is a lavish display of the precious metals thickly set with gems. Every
fine quarry in the empire has contributed its best to compose the
tesselated floor, the wainscoting, and the columns of the marvelous
structure. It was built to commemorate the defeat of the French
invasion of 1812, and was only recently completed, after forty-six
years of consecutive work. As one walks about this stupendous church,
and transfers his admiration from one object of beauty and richness
to another, his attention is suddenly called off from everything by
a burst of musical thunder. It floods the interior like the crash
of a great organ. He looks all around, and can not see what causes
it. Somewhere in an elevated and hidden choir, or behind the massive
gold altar-piece, are the singers. The voices are all basses. There
are three or four distinct “parts,” some pitched so much higher than
others that they seem relatively to be tenors. Each note--even the
lowest--is clear and firm. It has the sweetness of a flute with the
sonorous volume of a bassoon. The concealed performers are uttering
responses to the gorgeously attired priests, whose own voices are deep
and melodious, and worthy to take part in this noble choral service. I
wait for half an hour, hoping that the singers will execute some long
and formal piece. But they do not, and I retire, having learned for the
first time of what a bass voice is capable in sacred music.
Although the Russians spend so much money to celebrate the failure
of Napoleon, they really admire the audacious genius of the man, and
make no secret of it. In every palace and museum I have visited at
St. Petersburg and Moscow I have seen full-lengths or busts of him in
marble, bronze, or oil. Some are originals, others are copies. One
painting, entirely new to me, represents him with brown hair, banged.
In the Treasury of the Kremlin the guide shows you two camp-beds which
Napoleon left behind when he evacuated Moscow. He is always indicating
to you the street by which Napoleon entered or withdrew from the city,
the steps up which he walked, the doors through which he passed, the
chairs in which he sat. You would think that he was a Russian hero. The
people still point with a certain pride to the marks of cannon-shot and
bullets, and say, “Napoleon!”
Of all the Russian sovereigns, next to Peter the Great, Catharine
the Second seems to have been the most extraordinary. The tourist is
continually running across her statues, her portraits, her crowns,
her jewelry, her silverware. There is more of her personal property
and reminders of her of one kind and another on show than of any
other Romanoff, man or woman. The best things in all the palaces,
the treasuries, and the sacristies were hers. If you see a string of
pearls, each perfect and as large as a hazel-nut, even before you have
pointed it out, your guide says, “Catharine the Second.” If there is a
scepter with a particularly large diamond in the top, and the handle
knobby with rubies, emeralds, and sapphires, you know who wielded it
without being told. To the physical courage of a man she added the
delicate æsthetic tastes of a woman. Other rulers may have been more
extravagant than she, but Catharine the Second understood how to make
boundless wealth contribute to the production of artworks that still
live to be admired. The goldsmiths, the silversmiths, the lapidaries,
the sculptors, and the painters found in her their most intelligent
patroness. In their turn they did their utmost to perpetuate her
memory. Stone and canvas, metal and ivory agree in representing her
as tall and stout, with ample brain-power, a full lower face, and a
most imperial port. She was one born to command, and she would have
reduced men to vassalage by her indomitable will if she had not gentler
arts for managing them. In St. Petersburg stands a magnificent bronze
image of the Empress, of heroic size. Seated at the base of this lofty
figure, on a pedestal running all about it, are nine gentlemen, also
in bronze. Their postures are sentimental or statesmanlike or warlike.
The guide-book tells us they were favorites of Catharine the Second. In
that capacity, perhaps, they thought they could manage her. But they
were mistaken. A woman who, when in full army uniform, looked like the
most gallant of generals, was not putty in the hands of any favorite.
In that amazing collection of odds and ends known as the Treasury,
inside the Kremlin, there is an equestrian portrait of Catharine.
She bestrides her horse like a man. In front of the picture are two
saddles, made for her use and presented to her by some tributary
princes or neighboring potentates, who wanted to keep on good terms
with her. Her horse, already burdened with her generous weight, could
not have shared her admiration of the saddles, for they are heavy
with all kinds of precious stones, numbered by the hundreds; and the
stirrups and the shoes which the poor beast must wear in her honor are
of solid silver.
In a corner of the room where I am now writing, just below the ceiling,
is a framed, silver-gilt picture of the Saviour facing the east. The
Virgin and Child look down from a similar position in the adjoining
bedchamber. Every room in this great labyrinth of a hotel has just such
an object of reverence which the pious Russian can not fail to see
as he crosses the threshold. To this he pays his homage of signs and
bows. He does it a thousand times a day in the streets, where these
emblems confront him at every turn. He does not expect people of other
religions to conform to any of his notions. He allows them to walk
freely about the churches and stare through opera-glasses, in a languid
way, at objects which to him are sacred, and to be approached only in
a spirit of abasement and veneration. But there is one shrine in this
city before which it is expected that every foreigner will remove his
hat. If he fails to do so, he is thought an ignorant, boorish fellow,
and may be hissed and hooted. It is the fine, large Icon of the Master,
which hangs above the Redeemer’s gate (Spasköi Vorota)--one of the
entrances of the Kremlin. Immemorial custom has made it obligatory
to take off the hat when entering this gate and keep it off till the
entire width of the wall is traversed. The cabman would let his horses
run away before he would neglect this hallowed usage; and if the Tsar
himself should fail to comply with it, he would start a revolution.