IF WE ARE to believe the Russians, all their roads are good during the summer season, even those that are not the great highways. I find them all bad. A road full of inequalities, sometimes as broad as a field, sometimes extremely narrow, passes through beds of sand in which the horses plunge above their knees, lose their wind, break their traces, and refuse to draw at every twenty yards; if these sands are passed, you soon plunge into pools of mud which conceal large stones and enormous stumps of trees, that are very destructive to the carriages. Such are the roads of this land, except during seasons when they become absolutely impassable, when the extreme of cold renders traveling dangerous, when storms of snow bury the country, or when floods, produced by the thaw, transform, for about three months in the year, the low plains into lakes; namely, for about six weeks after the summer, and for as many after the winter season; the rest of the year they are marshes. The landscape remains the same. The villages still present the same double line of small wooden houses, more or less ornamented with painted carvings; their gable always faces the street, and they are flanked with a kind of enclosed court, or large shed open on one side. The country still continues the same monotonous though undulating plain, sometimes marshy, sometimes sandy; a few fields, wide pasture ranges bounded by forests of fir, now at a distance, now close upon the road, sometimes well grown, more frequently scattered and stunted: such is the aspect of all these vast regions. Here and there is to be seen a country house, or large and mansionlike farm, to which an avenue of birch trees forms the approach. These are the manor houses, or residences of the proprietors of the land; and the traveler welcomes them on the road as he would an oasis in the desert.
In some provinces the cottages are built of clay; in which case their appearance is more miserable, though still similar in general character: but from one end of the empire to the other, the greater number of the rustic dwellings are constructed of long and thick beams, carelessly hewn, but carefully caulked with moss and resin. The Crimea, a country altogether southern, is an exception; but, as compared to the whole empire, that country is but a point lost in immensity.
Monotony is the divinity of Russia; yet even this monotony has a certain charm for minds capable of enjoying solitude: the silence is profound in these unvarying scenes; and sometimes it becomes sublime on a desert plain, of which the only boundaries are our power of vision.
The distant forest, it is true, presents no variety: it is not beautiful: but who can fathom it? When we remember that its only boundary is the wall of China, we feel a kind of reverence. Nature, like music, draws a part of her potent charm from repetitions. Singular mystery!—by means of uniformity she multiplies impressions. In seeking for too much novelty and variety there is danger of finding only the insipid and the clumsy, as may be seen in the case of modern musicians devoid of genius; but on the contrary, when the artist braves the danger of simplicity, art becomes as sublime as nature. The classic style—I use the word in its ancient acceptation—has little variety.
Pastoral life has always a peculiar charm. Its calm and regular occupations accord with the primitive character of men, and for a long time preserve the youth of races. The herds-men, who never leave their native districts, are unquestionably the least unhappy of the Russians. Their beauty alone, which becomes more striking as I approach the government of Yaroslavl, speaks well of their mode of life.
I have met—which is a novelty to me in Russia—several extremely pretty peasant girls, with golden hair, excessively delicate and scarcely colored complexions, and eyes, which though of a light blue, are expressive, owing to their Asiatic form and their languishing glances. If these young virgins, with features similar to those of Greek Madonnas, had the tournure and the vivacity of movement observable in the Spanish women, they would be the most seductive creatures upon earth. Many of the females in this district are handsomely dressed. They wear over the petticoat a little habit or pelisse bordered with fur, which reaches to the knee, sits well to the shape, and imparts a grace to the whole person.
In no country have I seen so many beautiful bald heads and silver hairs as in this part of Russia. The heads of Jehovah, those chefs d’œuvre of the first pupil of Leonardo da Vinci, are not such entirely ideal conceptions as I imagined when I admired the frescoes of Luini at Lainate, Lugano, and Milan. These heads may be here recognized, living. Seated in the thresholds of their cabins, I have beheld old men, with fresh complexions, unwrinkled cheeks, blue, sparkling eyes, calm countenances, and silver beards glistening in the sun round mouths the peaceful and benevolent smile of which they heighten, who appear like so many protecting deities placed at the entrance of the villages. The traveler, as he passes, is saluted by these noble figures, majestically seated on the earth which saw them born. Truly antique statues, emblems of hospitality which a pagan would have worshiped, and which Christians must admire with an involuntary respect: for in old age beauty is no longer physical; it is the depicted triumph of the soul after victory.
We must go among the Russian peasants to find the pure image of patriarchal society; and to thank God for the happy existence he has dispensed, notwithstanding the faults of governments, to these inoffensive beings, whose birth and death are only separated by a long series of years of innocence.
May the angel, or demon of industry and of modern enlightened views, pardon me!—but I cannot help finding a great charm in ignorance, when I see its fruits in the celestial countenances of the old Russian peasants.
The modern patriarchs, laborers whose work is no longer a compulsory task, seat themselves, with dignity, towards the close of the day, in the threshold of the cottage which they themselves have, perhaps, rebuilt several times; for, under this severe climate, the house of man does not last so long as his life. Were I to carry back from my Russian journey no other recollection than that of these old men, with quiet consciences legible on their faces, leaning against doors that want no bolt, I should not regret the trouble I had taken to come and gaze upon beings so different from any other peasants in the world. The majesty of the cottage will always inspire me with profound respect.
Every fixed government, however bad it may be in some respects, has its good results; and every governed people have something wherewith to console themselves for the sacrifices they make to social life.
And yet, at the bottom of this calm which I so much admire, and which I feel so contagious, what disorder! what violence! what false security!
I had written thus much, when an individual of my acquaintance, in whose words I place confidence, having left Moscow a few hours after me, arrived at Troitsa, and, knowing that I was going to pass the night here, asked to see me while his horses were changing: he confirmed to me news that I had already heard, of eighty villages having been just burnt, in the government of Simbirsk, in consequence of the revolt of the peasants. The Russians attribute these troubles to the intrigues of the Poles. “What interest have the Poles in burning Russia?” I asked the person who related to me the fact. “None,” he replied, “unless it be that they hope to draw upon themselves the wrath of the Russian government: their only fear is that they should be left in peace.”
“You call to my recollection,” I observed, “the band of incendiaries who, at the commencement of our first revolution, accused the aristocrats of burning their own châteaux.” “You will not believe me,” replied the Russian, “but I know, by close observation and by experience, that every time the Poles observe the emperor inclining towards clemency, they form new plots, send among us disguised emissaries, and even feign conspiracies when they cannot excite real ones; all of which they do solely with a view of drawing upon their country the hate of Russia, and of provoking new sentences for themselves and their countrymen: in fact, they dread nothing so much as pardon, because the gentleness of the Russian government would change the feelings of their peasants, who would soon be induced even to love the enemy.”
“This appears to me heroical Machiavellism,” I replied; “but I cannot believe in it. If it be true, why do you not pardon them in order to punish them? You would be then more adroit, as you are already more powerful, than they. But you hate them: and I am much inclined to believe that, to justify your rancor, you accuse the victims, and search, in every misfortune that happens to them, some pretext for laying your yoke more heavily upon adversaries whose ancient glory is an unpardonable crime; the more so, as it must be owned that Polish glory was not very modest.”
“Not a whit more so than French glory,” maliciously responded my friend, whom I had known in Paris: “but you judge unfairly of our policy, because you neither understand the Russians nor the Poles.”
“This is always the burden of your countrymen’s song whenever anyone ventures to tell them unpleasant truths. The Poles are easily known; they are always talking: I can trust in boasters better than in those who say nothing but what we do not care to know.”
“You must, however, have a good deal of confidence in me!”
“In you, personally, I have; but when I recollect that you are a Russian, even though I have known you ten years, I reproach myself with my imprudence—I mean my candor.”
“I foresee that you will give a bad account of us, on your return home.”
“If I write, I perhaps may; but, as you say, I do not know the Russians, and I shall take care not to speak at random of so impenetrable a nation.”
“That will be the best course for you to pursue.”
“No doubt; but do not forget, that when once known to dissimulate, the most reserved men are appreciated as if already unmasked.”
“You are too satirical and discriminating for barbarians such as we.”
Whereupon my old friend re-entered his carriage, and went off at full gallop.
Troitsa is, after Kiev, the most famous and best-frequented place of pilgrimage in Russia. This historical monastery, situated twenty leagues from Moscow, was, I thought, of sufficient interest to allow of my losing a day, and passing a night there, in order to visit the sanctuaries revered by the Russian Christians.
To acquit myself of the task required a strong effort of reason: after such a night as the one I have passed, curiosity becomes extinguished, physical disgust overcomes every other feeling.
I had been assured at Moscow that I should find at Troitsa a very tolerable lodging. In fact, the building where strangers are accommodated, a kind of inn belonging to the convent, but situated beyond the sacred precinct, is a spacious structure, and contains chambers apparently very habitable. Nevertheless, I had scarcely retired to rest, when I found all my ordinary precautions inefficient. I had kept a candle burning as usual, and by its light I passed the night in making war with an army of vermin, black and brown, of every form, and, I believe, of every species. The death of one of them seemed to draw on me the vengeance of the whole race, who rushed upon the place where the blood had flowed, and drove me almost to desperation. “They only want wings to make this place hell,” was the exclamation which escaped me in my rage. These insects are the legacy of the pilgrims who repair to Troitsa from every part of the empire; they multiply under the shelter of the shrine of St. Sergius, the founder of the famous convent. The benediction of Heaven seems to attend their increase, which proceeds in this sacred asylum at a ratio unknown elsewhere. Seeing the legions with which I had to combat, I lost all courage: my skin was burning, my blood boiled; I felt myself devoured by imperceptible enemies, and in my agony I fancied that I should prefer fighting an army of tigers to this small pest of beggars, and too often of saints; for extreme austerity sometimes marches hand in hand with filthiness—impious alliance! against which the real friends of God cannot protest sufficiently loudly.
I rose up, and found calm for a moment at the open window; but the scourge followed me—chairs, tables, ceiling, floor, walls, were teeming with life. My valet entered my room before the usual hour; he had suffered the same agonies, and even greater; for not wishing, nor being able to add to the size of our baggage, he has no bedstead, and places his paillasse on the floor, in preference to the sofas with all their accessories. If I dwell upon these inconveniences, it is because they form a just accompaniment to the boastings of the Russians, and serve to show the degree of civilization to which the people of this finest part of the empire have attained. On seeing poor Antonio enter the room, his eyes closed up and his face swollen, I had no need of inquiring the cause. Without uttering a word, he exhibited to me a cloak that had been blue the evening before, but was now become brown: after he had placed it on a chair, I perceived that it was moveable: at this sight, horror seized us both: air, water, fire, and all the elements were put in requisition; though in such a war victory itself is a loss. At length, purified and dressed, I made a shadow of a breakfast, and repaired to the convent, where another army of enemies awaited me: but this time, the light cavalry quartered in the folds of the Greek monks’ gowns did not inspire me with the slightest fear; I had sustained the assaults of much more formidable combatants. After the battle of the night, the skirmishes of the day appeared to me a mere child’s play: to speak without metaphor, the bites of bugs, and the dread of lice, had so hardened me against the attack of fleas, that I felt no more annoyance from the light clouds of these creatures that played at our feet in the churches of the convent, than I should have felt from the dust of the road. This past night has awakened all my feelings of pity for the unhappy Frenchmen who remained prisoners in Russia after the retreat from Moscow. Vermin, that inevitable product of poverty, is of all physical evils the one which inspires me with the deepest compassion. When I hear it said of a human being, he is in such wretchedness that he is dirty, my heart bleeds. Personal dirtiness is something viler even than it appears. It betrays, to the eyes of an attentive observer, a moral degradation worse than all bodily evils put together. This leprosy, for being to a certain extent voluntary, is only the more loathsome; it is a phenomenon which springs from our two natures; it embraces both the moral and the physical; it is the result of an infirmity of soul as well as of body; it is at once a vice and a malady.
I have often, in my travels, had reason to remember the sagacious observations of Pestalozzi, that great practical philosopher, the preceptor of the working classes before Fourier and the Saint-Simonians. According to his observations on the life of the lower orders, of two men who have the same habits of life, one will be dirty, the other clean. Personal cleanliness has as much to do with the health and the natural habit of body, as with the personal habits of the individual. Do we not often see among the better classes, people who take great pains with their persons, and who are yet very dirty? Among the Russians there reigns a high degree of sordid negligence: it seems to me they must have trained their vermin to survive the bath.
Notwithstanding my ill humor, I went carefully over the interior of the patriotic convent of the Trinity. It does not possess the imposing aspect of our old Gothic monasteries. The architecture is not the object that should bring people to a sacred place; yet if these famous sanctuaries were worth the trouble of being looked at, they would lose none of their sanctity, nor the pilgrims of their merits.
The convent stands on an eminence, and resembles a town surrounded with strong walls, mounted with battlements. Like the convents of Moscow, it has gilded spires and cupolas, which, shining in the evening sun, announce to the pilgrims, from afar, the end of their pious journey.
During the fine season, the surrounding roads are crowded with travelers, marching in procession. In the villages, groups of the faithful are to be seen eating and sleeping under the shade of the birch trees; and at every step, a peasant may be met walking in a species of sandal, made of the bark of the lime tree: a female often accompanies him, carrying his shoes in her hand, whilst with the other she shields herself with an umbrella from the rays of the sun, which the Muscovites dread in summer more than the inhabitants of the South. A kibitka, drawn by one horse, follows, and contains the sleeping appurtenances, and the utensils with which to prepare tea. The kibitka doubtless resembles the chariot of the ancient Sarmatians. This equipage is constructed with primitive simplicity; it consists of the half of a cask severed lengthways, and placed upon axles resembling the frame of a cannon.
The countrymen and women, who know how to sleep anywhere except in a bed, travel, stretched at their ease, in these light and picturesque vehicles: sometimes one of the pilgrims, watching over the sleepers, sits with his legs hanging over the edge of the kibitka, and lulls with national songs his dreaming comrades. In these dull and plaintive melodies, the sentiments of regret prevail over those of hope; their expression is melancholy, but never impassioned: everything is repressed, everything betrays prudence in this naturally light and cheerful people, rendered taciturn by education. If I did not view the fate of nations as written in heaven, I should say that the Slavs were born to people a more generous soil than the one on which they established themselves when they came forth from Asia, that great nursery of nations.
The first oppressor of the Russians was the climate. With every respect for Montesquieu, extreme cold appears to me more favorable to despotism than heat: the men, the freest perhaps on the face of the earth—are they not the Arabs? The rigors of nature inspire man with rudeness and cruelty.
On leaving the hostelry of the convent I crossed an open square, and entered the monastic walls. After passing under an alley of trees, I found myself among several little churches, surnamed cathedrals, with high steeples dividing them from one another; while numerous chapels, and ranges of dwellings, wherein are now lodged the disciples of St. Sergius, were scattered around without design or order.
All the names of note in Russian history have taken pleasure in enriching the convent, which overflows with gold, pearls, and diamonds. The universe has been placed under contribution to swell the pile of wealth that forms one of the miracles of the place, and which I contemplate with an astonishment more nearly approaching to stupefaction than to admiration. Czars, empresses, nobles, libertines, and true saints, have vied with one another in enriching the treasury of Troitsa. Amid so many riches, the simple dress and the wooden cup of St. Sergius shine by their very rusticity.
The tomb of the saint in the cathedral of the Trinity blazes with magnificence. The convent would have furnished a rich booty to the French; it has not been taken since the fourteenth century. It contains nine churches. The shrine is of silver gilt; it is protected by silver pillars and canopy, the gift of the Empress Anna. The image of St. Sergius is esteemed miraculous. Peter the Great carried it with him in his wars against Charles XII.
Not far from the shrine, under shelter of the virtues of the hermit, lies the body of the usurping assassin, Boris Godunov, surrounded by many of his family. The convent contains various other famous but shapeless tombs: they exhibit at once the infancy and the decrepitude of art. The house of the archimandrite and the palace of the czars present nothing of interest. The number of monks is now only one hundred; they were formerly thrice as many. Notwithstanding my persevering request, they would not show me the library. “It is forbidden” was always the answer. This modesty of the monks, who conceal the treasures of science, while they parade those of vanity, strikes me as singular. I argue from it that there is more dust on their books than on their jewels.
I am now at Dernitsky, a village between the small town of Pereslavl and Yaroslavl, the capital of the province of the same name.
It must be owned that it is a strange notion of enjoyment which can induce a man to travel for his pleasure in a country where there are no highways, according to the application of the word in other parts of Europe,—no inns, no beds, no straw even to sleep upon,—for I am obliged to fill my mattress and that of my servant with hay,—no white bread, no wine, no drinkable water, not a landscape to gaze upon in the country,—not a work of art to study in the towns; where, in winter, the cheeks, nose, ears, and feet are in great danger of being frozen; where, in the dog days, you broil under the sun, and shiver at night. These are the amusements I am come to seek in the heart of Russia!
The water is unwholesome in nearly every part of the country. You will injure your health if you trust to the protestations of the inhabitants, or do not drink it without correcting it by effervescent powders. To be sure, you may obtain the luxury of seltzer water in the large towns; but the necessity of laying in stores of this foreign beverage, as provision for the road, is very inconvenient. The wine of the taverns, generally white and christened with the name of Sauterne, is scarce, dear, and of bad quality.
As for the scenery, there appears so little variety, that, as regards the habitations which alone enliven it, it may be said that there is but one village in all Russia. The distances are incommensurable, but the Russians diminish them by their rate of traveling: scarcely leaving their carriage until arrived at the place of their destination, they feel as though they had been in bed at home the whole length of the journey; and are astonished to find that we do not share their taste for this mode of traveling while sleeping, inherited by them from their Scythian ancestors. We must not believe, however, that their course is always equally rapid; these northern Gascons do not tell us of all their delays on the route. The coachmen drive fast when they are able, but they are often stopped by insurmountable difficulties.
Even on the road between Petersburg and Moscow, I found that we proceeded at very unequal rates, and that at the end of the journey we had scarcely saved more time than is done in other countries. On other routes, the inconveniences are multiplied a hundredfold: the horses become scarce, the roads such as would destroy any vehicle; and the traveler asks himself, with a kind of shame, what could have been his motive for imposing upon himself so many discomforts, by coming to a country that has all the wildness, without any of the poetic grandeur of the desert. Such was the question I addressed to myself this evening, when benighted on a road, the difficulty of moving in which was greatly enhanced by a new unfinished chaussée, which crossed it at every fifty yards, and by tottering bridges, which had often lost the pieces of timber the most essential to their security.
My meditations at length determined me to halt, and, to the great annoyance of coachman and Feldjäger, I fixed on a lodging in the little house of some villagers, where I am now writing. This refuge is less disgusting than a real inn: no traveler stops in such a village; and the wood of the cabin serves as a refuge only to the insects brought from the forest. My chamber, a loft reached by a dozen steps, is nine or ten feet square, and six or seven high. The entire habitation is made of the trunks of fir trees, caulked with moss and pitch as carefully as if it were a boat. The same eternal smell of tar, cabbage, and perfumed leather, which, combined, pervades every Russian village, annoys me; but I prefer headache to mental distress, and find this bedchamber far more comfortable than the large plastered hall of the inn at Troitsa. I have fixed in it my iron bedstead: the peasants sleep, wrapped in their sheepskins, on the seats ranged round the room on the ground floor. Antonio makes his bed in the coach, which is guarded by him and the Feldjäger. Men are pretty safe on Russian highways, but equipages and all their appurtenances are viewed as lawful prizes by the Slavic serfs; and, without extreme vigilance, I should find my calèche in the morning, stripped of cover, braces, curtains, and apron; in short, transformed into a primitive tarantasse, a real telega; and not a soul in the village would have any idea what had become of the leather: or if, by means of rigid searches, it should be found at the bottom of some shed, the thief, by stating that he had found it and brought it there, would be acquitted. This is the standing defense in Russia: theft is rooted in the habits of the people, and consequently, the robber preserves an easy conscience and a serene face that would deceive the very angels. “Our Savior would have stolen,” they say, “if his hands had not been pierced.” This is one of their most common adages.
Nor is robbery the vice alone of the peasants: there are as many kinds of theft as there are orders in society. The governor of a province knows that he is constantly in danger of something occurring that may send him to finish his days in Siberia. If, during the time that he continues in office, he has the cleverness to steal enough to defend himself in the legal process which would precede his exile, he may get out of the difficulty; but if he continue poor and honest, he must be ruined. This is not my own remark, but that of several Russians whom I may not name, but whom I believe to be trustworthy.
The commissaries of the army rob the soldiers, and amass wealth by starving them: in short, an honest administration would be here both dangerous and ridiculous.
I hope tomorrow to reach Yaroslavl: it is a central city; and I shall stop there a day or two, in order to discover, in the interior of the country, real original Russians. I took care, with this intention, to procure several letters of introduction to that capital of one of the most interesting and important provinces of the empire.
[1]Written at the convent of Troitsa, twenty leagues from Moscow, 17th of August.