I AM WRITING at Pomerania, a post town eighteen leagues from Petersburg.
To travel post on the road from Petersburg to Moscow, is to treat oneself for whole days to the sensation experienced in descending the montagnes russes at Paris. It would be well to bring an English carriage to Petersburg, if only for the pleasure of traveling, on really elastic springs, this famous road, the best chaussée in Europe, according to the Russians, and, I believe, according to strangers also. It must be owned that it is well kept, although hard, by reason of the nature of the materials, which, broken as they are in tolerably small pieces, form, in encrusting over the surface, little immovable asperities, which shake the carriages to a degree that causes something to come out of place at every stage. As much time is thus lost as is gained by the speed at which they drive; for we rush along in a whirlwind of dust, with the rapidity of a hurricane chasing the clouds before it. An English carriage is very pleasant for the few first stages; but in the long run, the necessity of a Russian equipage, to withstand the pace of the horses, and the hardness of the road, is discovered. The rails of the bridges are formed of handsome iron balustrades, and the granite pillars which support them are carved with the Imperial arms. This road is broader than those of England; it is also as even, although less easy: the horses are small, but full of muscle.
My Feldjäger has ideas, a bearing, and a semblance, which prevent my forgetting the spirit which reigns in his country. On arriving at the second stage, one of our four horses fell on the road. Notwithstanding the advanced season, the middle of the day is still excessively hot, and the dust renders the air suffocating. It appeared to me that the horse had fallen under the influence of the heat, and that unless he were instantly bled, he would die. I therefore called the Feldjäger, and taking from my pocket a case containing a fleam, I offered it to him, telling him to make prompt use of it if he wished to save the life of the poor brute. He answered, with a malicious phlegm, while declining the instrument I offered, that it was of no consequence, as we were at the end of the stage. Thereupon, without aiding the unfortunate coachman to disengage the animal, he entered the stable hard by, in order to prepare another set of horses.
The Russians are far from having, like the English, a law to protect animals from the ill-treatment of men. On the contrary, it is among them as necessary to plead the cause of the men, as it is in London to plead the cause of the dogs and horses. My Feldjäger would not believe in the existence of such a law.
This man, who is a Livonian by birth, fortunately for me, speaks German. Under the exterior of an officious civility and obsequious language, may be discovered much obstinacy and insolence. His figure is slim; his flaxen hair gives to his features an infantile appearance which belies their really dry and harsh expression. That of his eyes, more especially, is crafty and relentless. They are gray, edged with almost white lashes; his thick eyebrows are very light, his forehead full, but low; his skin would be fair were it not tanned by the constant action of the air; his mouth is finely formed, always closed, and the lips so small that they are not seen until he speaks. His clean and neatly fitting uniform of Russian green, with a leather belt round his waist, buckled in front, gives him a certain air of elegance. He has a light step, but an extremely slow understanding.
Notwithstanding the discipline under which he has been bred, it can be perceived that he is not of Russian descent. The race, half Swedish, half Teutonic, which peoples the southern side of the Gulf of Finland, is very different from that either of the Finns or the Slavs. The real Russians are, in their primitive endowments, more to be admired than the mixed populations that defend the frontiers of their land.
This Feldjäger inspires me but with little confidence. Officially, he is my guide and protector; nevertheless, I see in him only a disguised spy, and feel towards him as I should towards one who might at any moment receive an order to become my jailer.
The Russian people give me the idea of being men endowed with gentle dispositions, but who believe themselves born exclusively for violence. With the easy indifference of the Orientals, they unite a taste for the arts, which is tantamount to saying that nature has given them the desire of liberty; whilst their masters have made them the machines of oppression. A man, as soon as he rises a grade above the common level, acquires the right, and, furthermore, contracts the obligation to maltreat his inferiors, to whom it is his duty to transmit the blows that he receives from those above him. Thus does the spirit of iniquity descend from stage to stage down to the foundations of this unhappy society, which subsists only by violence—a violence so great, that it forces the slave to lie to himself by thanking his tyrant; and this is what they here call public order; in other words, a gloomy tranquillity, a fearful peace, for it resembles that of the tomb. The Russians, however, are proud of this calm. So long as a man has not made up his mind to go on all fours, he must necessarily pride himself in something, were it only to preserve his right to the title of a human creature.
Some leagues from Pomerania I met a Russian of my acquaintance, who had been to visit one of his estates, and was returning to Petersburg. We stopped to talk for a short time. The Russian, after casting his eye over my carriage, began to laugh, and, pointing to its various complicated parts, said, “You see all these things, they will not keep together till you reach Moscow: foreigners who persist in using their own carriages when in our country, set out as you did, but return by the stagecoach.”
“Even in going no farther than Moscow?”
“No farther even than Moscow.”
“The Russians told me that it was the best road in all Europe; I took them at their word.”
“There are bridges yet wanting: the road in many parts requires mending; the highway has frequently to be left in order to cross temporary bridges of rude construction, and, owing to the carelessness of our drivers, the carriages of foreigners always break in these awkward places.”
“My carriage is an English one, and its quality has already been well tested by long journeys.”
“They drive nowhere so fast as in Russia; the carriages, under this rapid motion, go through all the movements of a vessel in a storm, the pitching and the rolling combined. To resist such strains on a road like this, which, though even, is very hard, it is necessary, I again repeat, that the carriages should be built in the country.”
“You have still the old prejudice for heavy and massive equipages; they are not, however, the strongest.”
“I wish you a pleasant journey: let me hear if your carriage reaches Moscow.”
Scarcely had I left this bird of ill omen when a part of the axle broke. Fortunately, we were near the end of the stage, where I am now detained. I should mention that I have yet only traveled eighteen leagues out of the one hundred eighty. . . . I shall be obliged to deny myself the pleasure of fast driving, and am learning to say in Russian, “gently,” which is just the opposite of the usual motto of Russian travelers.
A Russian coachman, attired in his caftan of coarse cloth, or, if the weather be warm, as it is today, in his colored shirt or tunic, appears, at first sight, like an Oriental. In simply observing the attitude he assumes when placing himself upon his seat, we may recognize the grace of the Asiatic. In traveling post, the Russians drive from the box, dispensing with postilions, unless a very heavy carriage requires a set of six or eight horses, and even in that case, one of the men mounts the box. The coachman holds in his hands a whole bundle of cords: these are the eight reins of the team, two for each of the four horses harnessed abreast. The grace, ease, agility, and safety with which he directs this picturesque setout, the quickness of his slightest movements, the lightness of his step when he reaches the ground, his erect stature, his manner of wearing his dress, in short, his whole person reminds me of the most naturally elegant people on earth—the Gypsies of Spain. The Russians are fair-complexioned Gypsies.
The houses resemble those that I described in the excursion to Schlüsselburg, but they are not so elegant. The appearance of the villages is monotonous. A village consists always of two lines, more or less extended, of wooden cottages, regularly ranged at a certain distance backwards from the road, for, in general, the street of the village is broader than the embankment of the highway. Each cabin, constructed of pieces of roughly hewn wood, presents its gable to the street. All these habitations are of similar construction; but, notwithstanding their wearisome uniformity, an air of comfort, and even prosperity, appears to reign in the villages. They are rural without being picturesque. I breathe in them the calm of pastoral life, which is doubly agreeable after Petersburg. The country people are not gay or smiling, but they have not the miserable appearance of the soldiers and the dependents of the government. Among all the Russians, these are they who suffer least from the want of liberty. The labors of agriculture tend to reconcile man to social life, whatever it may cost; they inspire him with patience, and enable him to endure everything, provided he is allowed to give himself up to occupations which are so congenial to his nature.
The country that I have hitherto traversed is a poor, marshy forest, covered, as far as the eye can reach over a sterile plain, with miserable, stunted, and thinly scattered birch and pine; there are neither cultivated lands nor thick flourishing plantations of wood to be seen. The cattle are of a wretched breed. The climate oppresses the animals as much as despotism does the men. It might be said that nature and society vie with each other in their efforts to render life difficult. When we think of the physical obstacles that had here to be encountered in order to organize a society, we have no longer a right to be surprised at anything, unless it be that material civilization is as far advanced as we perceive it to be among a people so little favored by nature.
Can it be true that there are in the unity of ideas, and the fixedness of things, compensations for even the most revolting oppression? I think not; but were it proved to me that this system was the only one under which the Russian Empire could have been founded or maintained, I should answer by a simple question: was it essential to the destinies of the human race that the marshes of Finland should be peopled, and that the unfortunate beings brought there should erect a city marvelous to behold, but which is in reality nothing more than a mimicry of western Europe? The civilized world has only gained from the aggrandizement of the Muscovites the fear of a new invasion, and the model of a despotism without pity and without precedent, unless it be in ancient history.
The house in which I write exhibits a taste and neatness that contrast strangely with the nakedness of the surrounding country. It is both post-house and tavern, and I find it almost clean. It might be taken for the country house of some retired, independent person. Stations of this kind, though not so well kept as that of Pomerania, are maintained, at certain distances on the road, at the expense of government. The walls and ceilings of the one I am in are painted as in Italy; the ground floor, composed of several spacious rooms, very much resembles a restaurateur in one of the French provinces. The furniture is covered with leather; large sofas are everywhere to be found, which might serve as a substitute for beds, but I have had too much experience to think of sleeping or even of sitting on them. In Russian inns, not excepting those of the best description, all wooden furniture with stuffed cushions are so many hives where vermin swarm and multiply.
I carry with me my bed, which is a masterpiece of Russian industry. If I break down again before reaching Moscow, I shall have time to make use of this piece of furniture, and shall applaud myself for my precaution.
I am now writing at Yedrova, between Great Novgorod and Valdai. There are no distances in Russia—so say the Russians, and all the travelers have agreed to repeat the saying. I had adopted the same notion, but unpleasant experience now obliges me to maintain precisely the contrary. There is nothing but distance in Russia; nothing but empty plains extending farther than the eye can reach. Two or three interesting spots are separated from each other by immense spaces. These intervals are deserts, void of all picturesque beauty: the highway destroys the poetry of the steppe; and there remains nothing but extension of space, monotony, and sterility. All is naked and poor; there is nothing to inspire awe as on a soil made illustrious by the glory of its inhabitants,—a soil like Greece or Judea, devastated by history, and become the poetical cemetery of nations: neither is there any of the grandeur of a virgin nature; the scene is merely ugly; it is sometimes a dry plain, sometimes a marshy, and these two species of sterility alone vary the landscape. A few villages, becoming less neat in proportion as the distance from Petersburg increases, sadden the landscape instead of enlivening it. The houses are only piles of the trunks of trees, badly put together, and supporting roofs of plank, to which, in winter, an extra cover of thatch is sometimes added. These dwellings must be warm, but their appearance is as cheerless as soldiers’ barracks, though dirtier. The rooms are dark, nauseating, and tainted for want of air. They have no beds; in summer the inmates sleep on benches which form a divan around the walls of the chamber, and in winter, on the stove, or on the floor around it; in other words, a Russian peasant encamps all his life. The word reside implies a comfortable mode of life; domestic habits are unknown to this people.
In passing through Great Novgorod I saw none of the ancient edifices of that city, which was for a long time a republic, and which became the cradle of the Russian Empire. I was fast asleep when we drove through it. If I return to Germany by Vilna and Warsaw, I shall neither have seen the Volkhov, that river which was the tomb of so many citizens,—for the turbulent republic did not spare the life of its children,—nor yet the church of St. Sophia, with which is associated the memory of the most glorious events in Russian history, before the devastation and final subjection of Novgorod by Ivan IV, that model of all modern tyrants.
I had heard much of the mountains of Valdai, which the Russians pompously entitle the Muscovite Switzerland. I am approaching this city, and, for the last thirty leagues, have observed that the surface of the soil has become uneven, though not mountainous. It is indented with numerous small ravines, where the road is so formed that we mount and descend the declivities at a gallop. It is only when changing horses that time is lost, for the Russian hostlers are slow in harnessing and putting-to.
The peasants of this canton wear a cap, broad and flat at the top, but fitting very closely round the head; it resembles a mushroom; a peacock’s feather is sometimes twisted round the band, and when the men wear a hat, the same ornament is also adopted. Instead of boots, they most commonly have plats of reeds, woven by the peasants themselves, and worn as leggings fastened with packthread laces. They look better in sculpture than on the living man. Some ancient statues prove the antiquity of the attire.
The female peasants are rarely to be seen. We met ten men for one woman. Such as I have noticed wear a dress that indicates a total absence of female vanity. It consists of a species of dressing gown, very wide and loose, which fastens round the neck and reaches to the ground. A large apron of the same length, fastened across the shoulders by two short straps, completes their rustic and ungainly costume. They nearly all go barefoot; the wealthier only wear clumsy boots; Indian handkerchiefs, or other pieces of stuff, are bound closely round the head. The real national female headdress is only worn on holy days. It is the same as that of the ladies at court; a species, namely, of shako, open at the top, or rather a very lofty diadem, embroidered with precious stones when worn by the ladies, and with flowers in gold or silver thread when on the heads of the peasants. This crown has an imposing effect, and resembles no other kind of headdress, unless it be the tower of the goddess Cybele.
The peasant women are not the only Russian females who neglect their persons. I have seen ladies whose dress when traveling was of the most slovenly description. This morning, in a post-house where I stopped to breakfast, I encountered an entire family whom I had left in Petersburg, where they inhabit one of those elegant palaces which the Russians are so proud of showing to foreigners. There, these ladies were splendidly attired in the Paris fashions; but at the inn where, thanks to the new accident that had happened to my carriage, I was overtaken by them, they were altogether different persons. So whimsically were they metamorphosed that I could scarcely recognize them: the fairies had become witches. Imagine young ladies whom you had never seen except in elegant society, suddenly reappearing before you in a costume worse than that of Cinderella; dressed in nightcaps, of which it could only be said that they might have once been white, extremely dirty gowns, neck handkerchiefs that resembled ragged napkins, and old shoes in which they walked slipshod. It was enough to make a man fancy his eyes bewitched.
The fair travelers were attended by a considerable retinue. The multitude of lackeys and waiting women, muffled in old clothes more loathsome than those of their mistresses, moving about in all directions, and keeping up an infernal noise, completed the illusion that it was the scene of a meeting of witches. They screamed and scampered here and there, drank, and stuffed themselves with eatables in a manner that was sufficient to take away the appetite of the most hungry beholder; and yet these ladies could complain before me in an affected manner of the dirtiness of the post-house,—as if they had any right to find fault with slovenliness. I could have imagined myself amid a camp of Gypsies, except that Gypsies are without pretense or affectation. I, who pique myself on not being fastidious when traveling, find the post-houses established on this road by the government, that is, by the emperor, sufficiently comfortable. I consider that I have fared well in them: a man may even sleep at night, provided he can dispense with a bed; for this nomad people are acquainted only with the Persian carpet or the sheepskin, or a mat stretched upon a divan under a tent, whether of canvas or of wood, for in either case it is a souvenir of the bivouac. The use of a bed, as an indispensable article of furniture, has not yet been recognized by the people of Slavic race: beds are rarely seen beyond the Oder.
Sometimes, on the borders of the little lakes which are scattered over the immense marsh called Russia, a distant town is to be seen; a cluster, namely, of small houses built of gray boards, which, reflected in the water, produce a very picturesque effect. I have passed through two or three of these hives of men, but I have only particularly noticed the town of Zimagoi. It consists of a rather steep street of wooden houses, and is a league in length; at some distance, on the other side of one of the creeks of the little lake on which it stands, is seen a romantic convent, whose white towers rise conspicuously above a forest of firs, which appeared to me loftier and more thickly grown than any that I have hitherto observed in Russia. When I think of the consumption of wood in this country, both for the construction and the warming of houses, I am astonished that any forests remain in the land. All that I had hitherto seen were miserable thickets, scattered here and there, which could only serve to interfere with the culture of the soil.
I take up my pen at Torzhok. It is impossible to see far on plains, because every object is a barrier to the eye: a bush, a rail, or a building conceals leagues of land between itself and the horizon. It may also be observed that, here, no landscape engraves itself on the memory, no sites attract the eye, not one picturesque line is to be discovered. On a surface void of all objects or variety, there should at least be the hues of the southern sky; but they also are wanting in this part of Russia, where nature must be viewed as an absolute nullity.
What they call the mountains of Valdai are a series of declivities and acclivities as monotonous as the heathy plains of Novgorod.
The town of Torzhok is noted for its manufactures of leather. Here are made those beautifully wrought boots, those slippers embroidered with gold and silver thread, which are the delight of the élégants of Europe, especially of those who love anything that is singular, provided it comes from a distance. The travelers who pass through Torzhok pay there for its manufactured leathers a much larger price than that at which they are sold in Petersburg or Moscow. The beautiful morocco, or perfumed Russian leather, is made at Kazan: they say it is at the fair of Nizhny that it can be bought most cheaply, and that a selection may be made out of mountains of skins.
Torzhok is also celebrated for its chicken côtelettes. The emperor, stopping one day at a little inn of this town, was served with a hash of fattened chickens, which to his great astonishment he found excellent. Immediately, the côtelettes of Torzhok became celebrated throughout Russia. The following is their origin. An unfortunate Frenchman had been well received and treated here by a female innkeeper. Before leaving, he said to her, “I cannot pay you, but I will make your fortune”; whereupon he showed her how to make chicken côtelettes. As good luck would have it, the precious recipe was, at least so it is said, first prepared for the emperor. The innkeeper of Torzhok is dead; but her children have inherited her renown, and they maintain it.
Torzhok, when that town first breaks upon the view of the traveler, conveys the idea of a camp in the midst of an immense wheat field. Its white houses, its towers and pavilion-shaped domes, remind him of the mosques and minarets of the East. Gilded turrets, round and square steeples, some ornamented with little columns, and all painted green or blue, announce the vicinity of Moscow. The land around is well cultivated. It is a plain covered with rye, which plain, though devoid of all other objects, I greatly prefer to the sickly woods that have wearied my eyes for the last two days. The tilled earth is at any rate fertile, and the richness of a country will lead us to forgive its want of picturesque beauty; but a track that is sterile, and that yet possesses none of the majesty of the wilderness, is of all others the most tedious to travel over.
I had forgotten to mention a singular object which struck me at the commencement of the journey.
Between Petersburg and Novgorod, I remarked, for several successive stages, a second road that ran parallel to the principal highway, though at a considerable distance from it. It was furnished with bridges and everything else that could render it safe and passable, although it was much less handsome, and less smooth, than the main way. I asked the keeper of a post-house the meaning of this singularity, and was answered, through my Feldjäger, that the smaller road was destined for wagons, cattle, and travelers, when the emperor, or other members of the Imperial family, proceeded to Moscow. The dust and obstructions that might incommode or retard the august travelers, if the highway remained open to the public, were thus avoided. I cannot tell whether the innkeeper was amusing himself at my expense, but he spoke in a very serious manner, and seemed to consider it very natural that the sovereign should monopolize the road in a land where the sovereign is everything. The king who said, “I am France,” stopped to let a flock of sheep pass; and under his reign, the foot passenger, the wagoner, and the peasant who traveled the public road, repeated our old adage to the princes whom they met: “The highway belongs to everybody”: what really constitutes a law is, not its letter, but the manner in which it is applied.
In France, manners and customs have in every age rectified political institutions; in Russia, their harshness increased in their application, so that, there, the consequences are worse than the principles.