RUSSIAN MANNERS AND CUSTOMS.
Rude and savage as the lower orders are in their external appearance,
they certainly can not be considered deficient in politeness, if the
habit of bowing be taken as an indication. In that branch of
civilization they are well entitled to take rank with the Germans and
French, from whom, doubtless, they have acquired many of their forms of
etiquette. Something, however, of Asiatic gravity and courtliness
mingles with whatever they may have adopted from the more sprightly and
demonstrative races of the South; and a certain degree of dignity,
accompanied though it may be with rags and filth, is always observable
in their manners. The alacrity, good nature, and enthusiasm so
characteristic of the Germans, and the dexterous play of muscles and
vivacious suavity of the French, are wholly deficient in the
Russians--such of them, at least, as have retained their nationality.
The higher classes, of course, who frequently spend their summers at
the watering-places of Germany and their winters in Paris, come home,
like all traveled gentlemen, with a variety of elegant accomplishments,
the chief of which is a disgust for their own language and customs.
This, indeed, seems to be a characteristic of several other
nations--an inordinate desire to become denationalized by imitating
whatever is meretricious and absurd in other people; and you need not
be surprised should you fail to recognize even your unpretending friend
and correspondent on his return to California; for although I still
pretend to write a little English, I no longer speak it except in
broken accents. Having also worn out three good hats practicing the art
of bowing on the boulevards of Paris and the glacis of Frankfort, I
never pretend now to recognize any body without striking the top of my
tile against the cap of my knee.
[Illustration: A PASSAGE OF POLITENESS.]
This, you see, is all in the way of excuse for the Russians, and
arises rather from an excess of good nature than an excess of egotism.
Constant practice in the solemnities of street-worship--uncovering
their heads and bowing low before their numerous saints and
shrines--may have some influence upon the stateliness of Russian
politeness. It is, however, a very prominent and characteristic trait,
and in some of its phases rather astounding to a stranger. A common
thing in the streets of Moscow is to see a couple of sturdy beggars,
uncouth as grizzly bears, meet and stop before each other with the
utmost and most punctilious gravity. Beggar number one takes his
greasy cap from his head slowly and deliberately, gives it a graceful
sweep through the air, and, with a most courtly obeisance, exhibits
the matted tuft, or the bald spot on the top of his head, to his
ragged friend. Beggar number two responds in a similar courteous
style, neither uttering a word. Each then gravely replaces his cap,
touches the brim of it once or twice by way of representing a few
extra bows, and passes on his way with an expression of profound
dignity, utterly unconscious of the grotesque effect of all this
ceremony to a stranger. I have seen the most vagabond-looking
istrovoschik, or drosky-drivers, jump out of their drosky and perform
similar courtesies toward each other; and where men of this craft are
given to politeness, one may rest assured that it must be a national
characteristic. All seem to be the slaves of ceremony, from the Czar
down to the Mujik. Porters, wagoners, water-carriers, butchers,
bakers, and chimney-sweeps are equally skilled in the noble art of
bowing. At first, judging by the uncouth faces and the grimy costumes
of these interesting people, such passages of politeness have very
much the effect of burlesque. It seems impossible that men of such
rude aspect can be in earnest. One soon gets used to it, however, and
regards it as a matter of course. I could not but think how strange it
would look to see a couple of Sacramento or San Francisco hack-drivers
meet in some populous part of the town, and each one take off his hat
to the other, and, with a graceful flourish, make a courtly salaam; or
a pair of draymen stop their drays, get down leisurely, approach each
other in an attitude of impressive dignity, take off their hats, and
double themselves up before an admiring audience. They would certainly
be suspected in our rude country of poking fun at each other. I can
very well understand why butchers and chimney-sweeps should be polite,
since they are accustomed to scraping; and the custom looks
appropriate enough with many other classes, including barbers, who are
generally men of oily manners, and tailors and printers, who are
naturally given to forms; but with men whose business is intimately
associated with horse-flesh, I must say it has something of a
satirical aspect. Never in this world can I force myself to believe
that a hack-driver is in earnest in any thing short of his fare. Do
not understand me as casting any injurious reflection upon this
valuable class of men; but it is a melancholy feature in humanity--of
which sad experience enables me to speak feelingly--that integrity and
horse-flesh are antagonistical, and can never go together. For the
hack-driver personally I have great respect. He is a man of the
world--knows a thing or two about every body and every thing; is
constitutionally addicted to cheating, and elevates that noble
propensity into one of the fine arts; maintains his independent
character, and pockets his extraordinary profits in the face of all
municipal restrictions; scoffs at the reign of the law, and drinks his
regular bitters. I consider him a persecuted and an injured man; but
of such elastic stuff is he made that he rises above all persecutions
and all injuries, and still is, and ever will be, master of that
portion of the human race which travels and abounds in cities. He is
given to humor, too, is the hackman. Nobody better understands how to
give a joke, or to resent one. An adept in ridicule, he always enjoys
it when not applied to himself. If he is deficient in any one quality,
perhaps it is piety. Hack-drivers, as a class, are not pious men; they
may be very good men in their way, but, strictly speaking, they are
not pious. Neither are they much given to mutual courtesies,
especially at steam-boat landings. Therefore I say that to see
hack-drivers bow down before shrines and stop on public thoroughfares,
and with the utmost gravity uncover their heads and interchange
courtly salaams--nay, even kiss hands in certain cases--is a novel and
peculiar spectacle, suggestive of improvements which might be
beneficially imported into our country.
There was an impassive, abstracted air about Dominico very difficult
to describe, but very impressive to a stranger. All these
peculiarities were developed the first or second day of our
acquaintance. About the third he seemed to grow impatient, hummed over
a few gems from unknown operas, and was less disposed than usual to
unbend himself. There was evidently a coolness growing up between us.
I suspected it originated in my hat, which was really very shabby; and
fancied I detected a supercilious expression in his eye as it ranged
over my coat and down to my boots. At length he said, "Monsieur, you
appear to travel with very little baggage!"
_Myself._ Yes, only a knapsack.
_Dominico_ (after a pause). Pray what business may Monsieur be engaged
in?
_M._ None at all--just ranging about miscellaneously.
_Dom._ May I be so bold as to ask what part of England does Monsieur
come from?
_M._ Oh, I didn't come from England at all!
_Dom._ (puzzled). Pray where does Monsieur come from?
_M._ Oh, just come from over the way there--California!
_Dom._ (elevating his eyebrows and stopping suddenly). California? The
great gold country? Where they dig gold out of the ground?
_M._ Yes--that's my country.
_Dom._ (admiringly). Oh, then, Monsieur is a gentleman of fortune,
just traveling for pleasure?
_M._ Precisely; for pleasure and information combined. My estates are
situated in the city of Oakland.
_Dom._ Is that a large city?
_M._ Well, it covers a good deal of ground--as much, I think, as
Moscow.
_Dom._ If Monsieur pleases, we will take a drosky and visit some of
the gardens?
_M._ Agreed.
And so ended the conversation. It was marvelous, the change it
produced in Dominico; how his dignity evaporated; how vivacious he
became; how frank and unreserved he was in his descriptions of the
wonders of Moscow; how he scorned to take trifles of change, and how
magnificently he disregarded expenses. Wherever we went, however grand
the domestics, soldiers, or police, Dominico was always high above
them, and I could hear him descanting constantly on the wonderful
richness of California. Doubtless the strain of his conversation ran
about thus: "Behold, gentlemen, I have brought before you a living
Californian! Notwithstanding the shabbiness of his hat, and the
strange and uncivilized aspect of his clothes, he is the richest man
in that land of gold! Yes, gentlemen, his income can scarcely fall
short of ten millions of rubles per annum. Make way, if you please!"
All things considered, Dominico let me off pretty well at the close
of our acquaintance, upon my explaining to him that a draft for five
hundred thousand rubles which ought to be on the way had failed to
reach me, owing doubtless to some irregularity in the mail service, or
some sudden depression in my Washoe stocks.
In the way of food the hotels are well supplied, and the fare is not
bad in the principal cities. Fish and game are abundant, but veal is
the standard dish. I called for a beefsteak at the hotel in St.
Petersburg, and was furnished with veal. The soup was made of veal.
After salad we had veal cutlets. Then came a veal stew; next in order
was a veal pie; and before the courses were finished I think we had
calf's head baked and stuffed. At a station-house on the way to Moscow
I hurriedly purchased a sandwich. It was made of veal. I asked for
mutton-chops at the hotel in Moscow, and got veal. In fact, I was
surfeited with veal in every possible shape wherever I went.
Now I am not particular in matters of diet. In a case of emergency I
can relish buzzard, but if there is any one kind of food upon earth
that I think never was designed to be eaten, it is veal. No very young
meat is good, to my notion--not even young pig, so temptingly
described by the gentle Elia; nor young dog, so much esteemed by
Chinese and Russian epicures. It has neither the consistency nor the
flavor of the mature animal, and somehow suggests unpleasant images of
flabby innocence. There is something horribly repugnant to one's sense
of humanity in killing and devouring a helpless little calf. Who but a
cannibal can look the innocent creature in the face, with its soft
confiding eyes, its gentle and baby-like manners, and calculate upon
devouring its brains, or satisfying the cravings of hunger upon its
tender ribs? Who can see the butcher, with his murderous knife in such
a connection, without a sting of remorse at the idea of the mother's
grief--her great eyes swimming in tears, her lowing cries haunting him
for days? I never see a gang of these helpless little creatures
driven to the shambles without thinking of that touching picture, the
Murder of the Innocents.
In vain I tried to escape this veal passion in Russia. Nay, even in
Finland and Sweden it pursued me. I actually began to feel flabby, and
felt ashamed to look the poor cows in the face. It was a marvel how
the cattle, of which there seemed to be no lack, ever arrived at
maturity. If the people kill all the calves, as appeared to be the
case, in the name of wonder, where do the cows come from? This
question puzzled me exceedingly for some time, and was only solved
when I asked a Russian to explain it. "Oh," said he, smiling at my
simplicity, "they only kill the male calves. They allow the cow calves
to grow up!"
Still, when I came to reflect upon the reason given, it occurred to me
that they must be a very singular race of cows. Perhaps they were
Amazonian cows.
This leads me by an easy and not ungraceful transition to the
Foundling Asylum of Moscow, one of the largest and most remarkable
institutions of the kind in the world. In other public places
throughout Europe, especially in picture-galleries and museums, the
visitor is required to deliver up his walking-stick at the door, in
return for which he receives a ticket corresponding with one fastened
upon the article itself--as in baggage-cars upon the railway, so that
he may redeem it when he thinks proper. But I had little thought, in
my experience of foreign travel, that a similar system should prevail
in regard to the deposit of living beings, as in the foundling
establishment of Moscow. Here, any body with a surplus baby can carry
it and have it labeled around the neck, receive a ticket in return
corresponding in number with the deposit, and call for it at any
future time, certain that it will be delivered up--if alive. The
building is of immense extent, and is situated on the banks of the
Moskwa River, near the lower part of the town. The grounds around it
are tastefully laid out, and must occupy twenty or thirty acres, the
whole being surrounded by a high wall, and comprising numerous and
substantial outhouses, workshops, etc., for the use of the
establishment. Many thousand children are annually taken in and nursed
at this institution, no restriction being imposed upon the parents,
who may be either married or single, to suit their own taste or
condition. The regular force of wet-nurses employed is about six
hundred, besides which there are numerous dry-nurses and teachers for
the older children. It is estimated that the entire expense of
conducting the establishment is not less than five or six hundred
thousand rubles per annum, most of which is defrayed by voluntary
contributions and interest received on loans.
I spent a forenoon rambling through the various wards, and can safely
say I never before saw such an extraordinary collection of human
squabs within one inclosure. It was certainly one of the strangest and
saddest spectacles I had ever witnessed--so many infant specimens of
humanity, bundled up like little packages of merchandise, labeled,
numbered, and nursed with a mathematical regularity fearfully
inconsistent with one's notions of the softness and tenderness of
babyhood. To be sure, they are well treated--kindly and gently
treated, perhaps; but it is pitiful to see these helpless little
creatures bereft of the gentle motherly touch; washed, physicked,
nursed, and too often buried by hired and unsympathizing hands; and no
more thought of them, save in the way of duty, than so many little
animals destitute of souls. The very idea of attachments formed by
nurses is of itself a painful subject of contemplation; for of what
avail is it that a child should be loved by its nurse, or find in her
a new mother, when by the rules of the establishment there must be
constant separations. It is said that over twenty-five thousand
children derive, either directly or indirectly, support from this
establishment. About six thousand are taken in annually, of which
perhaps one fourth die. Many of them are not far from dead when
admitted; and it is only surprising, considering the deprivations they
must endure in being so suddenly withdrawn from the mother's care,
that so large a proportion should survive.
If it be a wise child that knows its own father, it would be a very
remarkable father who could recognize his own child among such a
variegated collection as I saw here. Never upon earth was there a more
astonishing mixture of baby flesh--big babies and little babies,
pug-nosed, black-eyed, blue-eyed, fat and lean, red, yellow, and white
babies--all sorts ever invented or brought to light in this curious
world of ours. Yet the utmost order was observed, and the beds,
nurses, cribs, and feeding apparatus looked wonderfully clean for a
Russian institution, where cleanliness is not generally the prevailing
characteristic. But, great guns! what music they must make when they
all get started in one grand simultaneous chorus! five or six hundred
babies, of both sexes, from one to two or three years old, in one
department; as many girls from three to five in another; boys of the
same age in another; older boys and older girls innumerable in
another! What a luxury it must be to hear them all together! In
general, however, they do not make as much noise as might be supposed.
I only heard about forty or fifty small choruses while there; but,
trifling as that was, it enabled me to form an idea of the style of
music that might be made when five or six thousand gave their whole
mind to it. I am personally acquainted with one small baby not over a
couple of years old, who, when excited of nights, can very nearly
raise the roof off the house, and am certain that five hundred of the
same kind would burst the whole city of Moscow sky-high if ever they
got at it together. These Russian foundlings, however, are generally
heavy-faced, lymphatic babies, and fall naturally into the machine
existence which becomes their fate; otherwise it would seem a hard
life for the poor nurses, who are not always gifted with the patient
endurance of mothers. I was told that the children only cried
periodically, say at intervals of every four hours, but hardly credit
that statement. Being for the most part soggy little animals, they
spend a goodly portion of their time in sleep, and doubtless, when not
sleeping, are much given to eating and drinking.
During the summer months several thousand of these children are sent
out in the country to nurse, after which they are returned in due
order. As soon as they become old enough, they are taught reading and
writing, and the most intelligent are selected to become teachers. The
boys usually receive a military education, and a certain proportion of
them furnish recruits for the imperial army.