Russia in 1839 -Empire of the Czar: A Journey Through Eternal Russia

by Astolphe De Custine

  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 Pomcrania, are maintained at certain distances on the road, at the expense of government. The Avails 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 every where 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.

  ASPECT OF THE COUNTRY.243

  I cany with me my bed, which is a masterpiece of Russian industry. If I break down again before I reach 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 travellers have agreed to repeat the saying. I had adopted the same notion, but unpleasant experience 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 high road 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 M 2

  244MOUNTAINS OF VALDAI.

  sometimes added. These dwellings must be warm, but their appearance is cheerless. The rooms are dark, and tainted for want of air. They have no beds; in summer the inmates sleep on benches which form a divan around the Avails 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 Wilna and Warsaw, I shall neither have seen the Volkof, 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 Saint Sophia, with which is associated the memory of the most glorious events of 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

  COSTUME OF ТПЕ PEASANTRY.245

  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.* ДУе 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 wear the clumsy boots I have already described. Indian handkerchiefs or other pieces of stuff are bound closely round the head. The real national e female head-dress is only worn on holydays. It is the same as that of the ladies of the 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 head-dress, unless it be the tower of the goddess Cybele.

  The peasant women are not the only Russian

  * But little more than a hundred years ago the Russian women never went abroad.

  M 3

  246RUSSIAN LADIES EN DESHABIL·LE.

  females who neglect their persons. I have seen ladies whose dress when travelling was of the most slovenly character. 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 recognise them : the fairies had become sorceresses. Imagine young ladies whom you had only seen in elegant society, suddenly reappearing before you in a costume worse than that of Cinderella ; dressed in old nightcaps that 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 himself bewitched.

  The fair travellers were attended by a considerable retinue. The multitude of lacqueys and waiting-women, muffled in old clothes still 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

  SMALL ÏIUSSIAN TOWNS.2-17

  imagined myself among a camp of gipsies, except that gipsies are without pretence or affectation. I, who pique myself on not being fastidious when travelling, 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 nomade people are acquainted only with the Persian carpet or the sheep-skin, or a mat stretched upon a divan under a tent, whether of canvass 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 recognised by the people of Slavonian 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 grey
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 Zimagoy. 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 M 4

  248TORJECK RUSSIAN LEATHER.

  I had hitherto seen were miserable thickets, scattered here and there, which could only serve to interfere with the culture of the soil.

  I resume my pen at Torjeck. 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 arc wanting in this part of Russia, where nature must lie viewed as an absolute nullity.

  What they call the mountains of Valdaï are a series of declivities and acclivities as monotonous as the heathy plains of Novgorod.

  The town of Torjeck is noted for its manufacture!? of leather. Here are made those beautifully-wrought boots, those slippers embroidered with gold and silver thread, which arc the delight of the elegants of Europe, especially of those who love any thing that is singular, provided it comes from a distance. The travellers who pass through Torjeck pay there for its manufactured leathers a much larger price than that at which they are sold at Petersburg or Moscow. The beautiful morocco, or perfumed Russian leather, is made at Kazan ; and they say it is at the fair of Nijni that it can be bought most cheaply, and that a selection may be made out of mountains of skins.

  Torjeck is also celebrated for its chieken fricassees. The Emperor, stopping one day at a little inn of this town, was served with a hash of fattened chickens,

  CHICKEN FKICASEES.249

  which to his great astonishment he found excellent. Immediately the fricassee of Torjeck became celebrated throughout Russia.* The following is their origin. An unfortunate Frenchman had been well received and treated in this town 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 fricasee chickens. As good luck would have it, this precious recipe was, at least so it is said, first prepared for the Emperor. The innkeeper of Torjeck is dead; but her children have inherited her renown, and they maintain it.

  Torjeck, when that town first breaks upon the view of the traveller, conveys the idea of a camp in the midst of an immense corn 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, [ 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 tract that is sterile, and yet possesses none of the majesty of the wilderness, is of all others the most tedious to travel over.

  * There is nothing which an Emperor of Russia could not bring into fashion in his country. At Milan, if the viceroy patronises an actor or singer, the reputation of the artist is at once lost, and he is hissed unmercifully. M 5

  250

  A DOUBLE ROAD.

  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 every thing else that could render it safe and passable, although it was much less handsome, and less smooth than the grand route. 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 waggons, cattle, and travellers, when the Emperor, or other members of the imperial family, proceeded to Moscow. The dust and obstructions that might incommode or retard the august travellers, if the grand route 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 engross the road in a land where the sovereign is every thing. The king who said, " 1 am France," stopped to let a flock of sheep pass ; and under his reign, the foot passenger, the waggoner, and the clown who travelled the public road, repeated our old adage to the princes whom they met: " the high road belongs to every body: " what really constitutes a law is the manner in which it is applied.

  In France, maimers and customs have in every age rectified political institutions; in Russia the harshness of the institutes is increased in their application, so that, there, the consequences are worse than the principles.

  THE COUNTESS 0'DONNELL.251

  CHAP. XXIII.

  THE COUNTESS 0`DONNELL. BOY COACHMEN. THE ROAD.

  GRACEFULNESS OF THE PEOPLE. DRESS OF THE WOMEN.

  THE SEE-SAW. —BEAUTY OF THE FEMALE PEASANTS.—RUSSIAN

  COTTAGES.CUSTOMS OF THE SERFS.DEVOUT THIEVES. —

  WANT OF PRINCIPLE IN THE HIGHER CLASSES. FEMALE POLI

  TICIANS.DOMESTIC HAPPINESS OF THE SERFS. — CASUISTICAL

  REFLECTIONS. — CONNECTION OF THE CHURCH AND STATE.

  ABOLITION OF THE PATRIARCHATE OF MOSCOW.— FUNDAMENTAL

  DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SECTS AND A MOTHER CHURCH.— HISTORY

  OF A FOALTHE AUTHOR INJURED BY THE MORAL ATMO

  SPHERE. NATIONAL MORAL RESPONSIBILITY.DREAM OF A

  WAKING MAN. FIRST VIEW OF THE VOLGA. SPAIN AND

  RUSSIA COMPARED. — DEWS OF THE NORTl·l.

  NOTE.

  Milan, 1st January, 1842. Three years have not yet elapsed since this chapter was written as a letter to Madame, the Countess O'Donnell, and that lady exists no longer.

  Alas ! without fearing henceforward to compromise her by addressing to her my opinions of the singular country I am describing, hers is the only name that will appear among the letters that I publish.

  It is the name of one of the most amiable and most intellectual women I have ever known ; a woman, the most worthy of inspiring, and the most capable of feeling a true friendship. She knew how, at the same time, vigorously tto fortify and gently to embellish the life of her friends: her intellect inspired her with the wisest counsels, her heart dictated the most lofty and energetic resolutions, while the liveliness' of her wit rendered life pleasant to the most unhappy who approached her.

  An avowed enemy of all affectation, she nevertheless bore M 6

  252THE COUNTESS 0¾ONNELL.

  with weakness ; she used with discernment the arms with which her natural penetration supplied her ; she was just, even in the exercise of her wit; she ridiculed only the absurdities that were avoidable. Endowed with a judgment that was strong, although exempt from all pedantry, she rectified the prejudices of others with an address the more efficacious because well concealed. But for the sincerity of sentiment which influenced her in this benevolent work, her skilfulness and her delicacy of feeling might have been taken for art; but that art was the art of kindness and benevolence ; she employed it to correct the faults and to redress the wrongs of others, without wounding the feelings of any.

  When she believed it her duty, she could say severe truths, yet without injuring self-love : for, in her, frankness was felt
as a proof of friendship. All that she showed of her character was agreeable, all that she concealed inspired attachment.

  So rare a union of opposite qualities — so much solidity of character, liveliness of disposition, and kindness of heart — so happy a combination of sense and of gaiety, made her one of the models of those Frenchwomen who, with strong energy of character, concealed under graces of which they alone possess the secret, ai`e, according to the influence of circumstances, fascinating coquettes or real heroines. It is revolutions which test the hearts, and which bring to light the hidden virtues.

  Naturally obliging, she was happier in the good that she did, than in the services that were rendered to her; and yet — rarely seen faculty!—she had carried the delicacy of friendship to the point of knowing how to receive as well as to give ; in other words, she had attained the perfection of sentiment.

  Watching closely over her friends without ever wearying them by her solicitude, always severe with herself and patient towards others, resigned to their imperfections as to necessity, concealing, with a care precisely the contrary to that which other women take, a profound mental capacity under a graceful lightness of conversation, she saw men as they were, and yet viewed every thing on the bright side. Those who knew her, remember as well as I, the philosophy, the courage, and the promptitude with which she submitted to circumstances, and the penetration, yet generosity and charity, with which she