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

by Astolphe De Custine

  When the traveller has been so fortunate as to cross safely the bottom of the ravine, the next difficulty is to climb the opposite bank. The Russian horses know no other pace but the gallop: if the road is not heavy, the hill short, and the carriage light, they bring you to the summit in a moment; but if the ascent is long, or the road, as is frequently the case, sandy, they soon come to a stop; panting and exhausted, in the middle of their task, they turn stupid under the application of the whip, kick, and run back, to the imminent danger of throwing the carriage into the ditches; while at each dilemma of the kind I say to myself, in derision of the pretensions of the Russians, there are no distances in Russia!

  The coachmen, however adroit they may be, want experience when they leave their native plains; they do not understand the proper manner of getting horses over mountains. At the first signs of hesitation every body alights; the servants push at the wheels; at every few steps the horses stop to breathe,

  IN MOUNTAIN ROADS.159

  when the men rub their nostrils with vinegar, and encourage them with voice and hand. In this manner, aided by strokes of the whip, generally applied with admirable judgment, Ave gain the summit of these formidable ridges, which in other countries would be climbed without difficulty. The road from Yaroslaf to Nijni is one of the most hilly in the interior of Russia; and yet I do not believe that this natural rampart or quay that crowns the banks of the Volga exceeds the height of a house of five or six stories in Paris.

  There is one danger when journeying in Russia which could hardly be foreseen —the danger the traveller runs of breaking: his head against the cover of his calèehe. He who intends visiting the country need not smile, for the peril is actual and imminent. The logs of which the bridges and often the roads themselves are made, render the carriages liable to shocks so violent, that the traveller when not warned would be thrown out if his equipage were open, and would break his neck if the head were up. It is therefore advisable, in Russia, to procure a carriage the top of which is as lofty as possible. A bottle of Seltzer-water, substantial as those bottles are, has, although well packed in hay, been broken under my seat, by the violence of the jolts.

  Yesterday I slept in a post-house, where there was a want of every common convenience. My carriage is so uncomfortable, and the roads are so rough, that I cannot journey more than twenty-four hours together without suffering from violent headache, and, therefore, as I prefer a bad lodging to brain-fever, I stop wherever we may happen to be. The greatest rarity in these out-of-the-way lodgings, and indeed

  160

  POST-HOUSES.

  in all Russia, is clean linen. I carry my bed with me, but I cannot burden myself with much store of bed-clothes; and the table-cloths which they give me at the post-houses have always been in iise. Yesterday, at eleven o'clock in the evening, the master of the post-house sent to a village more than a league distant to search for clean sheets on my account. I should have protested against this excess of zeal in my feldjäger, but I did not know of it until the next morning. From the window of my kennel, by the obscured light that is called night in Russia, I could admire at leisure the eternal Roman peristyle, which, with its wooden, whitewashed pediment and its plaster pillars, adorns, on the stable side, the Russian post-houses. This clumsy architecture creates a nightmare that follows me from one end of the empire to the other. The classic column has become the sign of a public building in Russia ·. false magnificence here displays itself by the side of the most complete penury; but " comfort," and elegance well understood and every where the same, is not to be seen, either in the palaces of the wealthy, where the saloons are superb, but where the bed-chamber is only a screen, or yet in the huts of the peasants. There may, perhaps, be two or three exceptions to this rule in the whole empire. Even Spain appears to me less in want than Russia of objects of convenience and necessity.

  Another precaution indispensable to a traveller in this country is a Russian lock. All the Slavonian peasants are thieves, in the houses if not on the highway. When, therefore, you have got your luggage into the room of an inn, full of different classes of

  KOSTROMA.

  161

  people, it is necesssaiy, before going out to walk, either to make your servants mount guard at the door, or to lock it. One of your people will be already engaged in keeping watch over the carriage; and there are no keys, nor even locks, to the doors of apartments in Russian inns. The only expedient, therefore, is to be provided with staples, rings, and padlock. With these you may speedily place your property in safety. The country swarms with the most adroit and audacious of robbers. Their depredations are so frequent, that justice does not dare to be rigorous. Every thing is here done by fits and starts, or with exceptions,—a capricious system, which too well accords with the ill-regulated minds of the people, who are as indifferent to equity in action as to truth in speech.

  I yesterday visited the convent of Kostroma, and saw the apartments of Alexis Romanow and his mother, a retreat which Alexis left to ascend the throne, and to found the actual reigning dynasty. The convent was like all the others. A young monk, who was not fasting, and who smelt of wine at a considerable distance, showed me the house. I prefer old monks with white beards, and popes with bald heads, to these young, well-fed recluses. The Treasury, also, resembled those I had seen elsewhere. Would the reader know in a few words, what is Russia ? Russia is a country where the same persons and the same things are every where to be seen. This is so true, that on arriving at any place, we think always that we recognise persons whom we had left elsewhere.

  At Kunitcha, the ferry-boat in which we re-crossed the Volga had sides so low, that the smallest thing

  162FERRY ON THE VOLGA.

  would have caused it to upset. Nothing has ever appeared to me more dull and gloomy than this little town, which I visited during a cold rain, accompanied with wind, that kept the inhabitants prisoners in their houses. Had the wind increased, Ave should have run much risk of being drowned in the river. I recollected that at Petersburg no one stirs a step to save those that fall into the Neva; and I thought, that should the same fate happen to me here, not an attempt would be made to save me by any one on these banks—populous though they appear a desert, so gloomy and silent are the soil, the heavens, and the inhabitants. The life of man has little importance in the eyes of the Russians; and, judging by their melancholy air, I should say they are indifferent to their own lives as well as to those of others.

  Existence is so fettered and restrained, that every one seems to me secretly to cherish the desire of changing his abode, without possessing the power. The great have no passports, the poor no money, and all remain as they are, patient through despair, that is, as indifferent about death as about life. Resignation, which is every where else a virtue, is in Russia a vice, because it perpetuates the compulsory immobility of things.

  The question here, is not one of political liberty, but of personal independence, of freedom of movement, and even of the expression of natural sentiment. The slaves dare only quarrel in a low voice ; anger is one of the privileges of power. The greater the appearance of calm under this system, the more do I pity the people: tranquillity or the knout!—this is for them the condition of existence. The knout of

  ACCIDENT IN A FOREST.163

  the great is Siberia; and Siberia itself is only an exaggeration of Russia.

  I am writing in the middle of a forest, many leagues from any habitation. We are stopped in a deep bed of sand by an accident that has happened to my carriage ; and while my valet is, with the aid of a peasant whom Heaven has sent us, repairing the damage, I, who am humbled by the want of resources which I find within myself for such an occurrence, and who feel that I should only be in the way of the workmen if I attempted to assist them, take up my pen to prove the inutility of mental culture, when man, deprived of all the accessories of civilisation, is obliged to struggle, without any other resource but his own strength, against a wild nature, still- armed with all the primitive power th
at it received from God.

  As I have before said, handsome female peasants are scarce in Russia; but, when they are handsome, their beauty is perfect. The oval shape of their eyes imparts a peculiar expression ; the eye-lid is finely and delicately chiselled, but the blue of the pupil is often clouded, which reminds one of the ancient Sarmatians, as described by Tacitus : this hue gives to their veiled 2;lanees a gentleness and an inno-cenee, the charm of which is irresistible. They possess all the vague and shadowy delicacy of the women of the north, united with all the voluptuousness of the Oriental females. The expression of kindness in these ravishing creatures inspires a singular feeling — a mixture of respect and confidence. He must visit the interior of Russia who would know the real gifts of the primitive man, and all that the refine-

  164CIVILISATION INJURIOUS.

  ments of society have lost for him. In this patriarchal land it is civilisation which spoils the inhabitants. The Slavonian was naturally ingenious, musical, and almost tender-hearted; the drilled Russian is false, tyrannical, imitative, and foolishly vain. It would take more than a century to establish an accord between the national manners and the new European ideas; supposing that, all the while, Russia were governed by enlightened princes,— friends of progress, as the expression now is. At present, the complete separation of classes makes social life a violent, immoral thing. It might be supposed that it was from this country Rousseau took the first idea of his system ; for it is not even necessary to possess the resources of his magic eloquence to prove that arts and sciences have done more evil than good to the Slavonians. The future will show the world whether military and political glory can compensate the Russian nation for the happiness of whieh their social organisation deprives them.

  Elegance is inborn among the men of pure Slavonian blood. Their characters unite a mixture of simplicity, gentleness, and sensibility, whieh seduce all hearts: they are often combined with a good deal of irony and some little deceitfuhiess; but, when the heart is naturally amiable, these faults are transformed into a kind of grace. The people further possess the advantage of a countenance, the delicacy in the expression of which is inimitable; it influences, by an unknown charm, by a tender melancholy, a suffering gentleness, which almost always springs from a secret sense of evil, hid by the sufferer from himself, in order the better to disguise it from others.

  ETYMOLOGY OF SAKMATIAN.165

  The Russians are, in short, a resigned nation, — this simple description explains every thing. The man who is deprived of liberty—and here the definition of that word extends to natural rights and real wants, — though he may have all other advantages, is like a plant excluded from the air: in vain do you water its roots, the languishing stem produces a few leaves, but will never send forth flowers.

  The true Russians have something peculiar to themselves, both in their character, their countenance, and their whole bearing. Their carriage is light, and all their movements denote a natural superiority. Their eyes are large, of a long oval shape, and the eyelid is but little raised. Their glance combines an expression of sentiment and of mischiev-ousness that is very taking. The Greeks, in their creative language, called the inhabitants of these regions Syromedes, a word which signifies lizard-eyed ; the Latin word Sarmatian is derived from it. This expression of the eye then has struck all attentive observers. The forehead of the Russians is neither very lofty nor very broad; but its form is classic and graceful. In the character of the people, both distrust and credulity, roguishness and tenderness, are united, — and these contrasts have a charm. The Slavonians are neither coarse nor apathetic, like most other northern races. Poetical as nature, their imagination mixes with all their affections; with them, love partakes of the nature of superstition : their attachments have more delicacy than vivacity: always refined, even when impassioned, it may be said that their intellect pervades their sentiment. All these fugitive shades of character are expressed in

  166ELEGANCE AND INDUSTRY

  their glance, — that glance which was so well characterised by the Greeks.

  The ancient Greeks were endowed with an exquisite talent for appreciating men and tilings, and for describing them by names ; a faculty which renders their language rich among all the European languages, and their poetry divine among all poetic schools.

  The passionate fondness of the Russian peasants for tea proves to me the elegance of their nature, and well accords with the description I have given of them. Tea is a refined beverage: it has become in Russia an absolute necessary. `Vhen the common people ask for drink-money, they say, for tea, na tchiai.

  This instinct of good taste has no connection with mental culture; it does not even exclude barbarism and cruelty, but it excludes vulgarity.

  The spectacle now before my eyes proves to me the truth of what I have always heard respecting the Russians' singular dexterity and industry.

  A Muscovite peasant makes it a principle to recognise no obstacles,—I do not mean to his own desires, unhappy creature ! but to the orders he receives. Aided by his inseparable hatchet, he becomes a kind of magician, who creates in a moment all that is wanted in the desert. He repairs your carriage, or, if it is beyond repair, lie makes another, a kind of telega, skilfully availing himself of the remains of the old one in the construction of the new. I was advised in Moscow to travel in a tarandasse, and I should have done well to have followed that advice; for, with such an equipage, there is never danger of stopping on the road. It can be repaired, and even re-constructed, by every Russian peasant.

  OF THE PEASANTS.167

  If you wish to encamp, this universal genius will build you a dwelling for the night, and one that will be preferable to the taverns in the towns. After having established you as comfortably as you can expect to be, he wraps himself in his sheep-skin and sleeps at the door of your new house, of which he defends the entrance with the fidelity of a dog; or else he will seat himself at the foot of a tree before the abode that he has erected for you, and, while continuing to gaze at the sky, he will relieve the soliüide of your lodging by national songs, the melancholy of which awakes a respond in the gentlest instincts of your heart; for an innate gift of music is still one of the prerogatives of this privileged race. The idea that it would be only just that he should share with you the cabin built by his hands will never enter his head.

  ЛУШ these elites of their race remain much longer concealed in the deserts where Providence, with some design of its own, keeps them in reserve ? Providence can only answer! The question as to when the hour of deliverance, and, yet more, of triumph, shall strike for them, is a secret with God.

  I am struck with the simplicity of the ideas and sentiments of these men. God, the King of heaven ; the Czar, the king of earth — this is all their theory: the orders, and even the caprices, of the master sanctioned by the obedience of the slave; this suffices for their practice. The Russian ¡)easant believes that he owes both body and soul to his lord.

  Conforming to this social devotion, he lives without joy, but not without pride; for pride is the moral element essential to the life of the intelligent bein
  168HUMILITY OF THE PEASANTS.

  It takes every kind of form, even the form of humility, — that religious modesty discovered by Christians.

  A Russian does not know what it is to say no to this lord, who represents to him his two other greater masters, God and the Emperor; and he places all his talent, all his glory, in eoncµiering those little difficulties of existence that are magnified, and even valued, by the lower orders of other lands, as auxiliaries in their revenge against the rich, whom they consider as enemies, because they are esteemed the happy of the earth.

  The Russians are too completely stripped of all the blessings of life to be envious: the men who are most to be pitied are those who no longer complain. The envious among us are those whose ambitious aims have failed: France, that land of easy living and rapid fortune-making, is a nursery of envious people. I cannot feel sympathy with the regrets, full of
malice, that prey on these men, whose souls are enervated by the luxuries of life ; but the patience of the peasants here, inspires me with a compassion — I had almost said, with an esteem that is profound. The political self-denial of the Russians is abject and revolting; their domestic resignation is noble and touching. The vice of the nation becomes the virtue of the individual.

  The plaintive sadness of the Russian songs strikes every foreigner; but this music is not only melancholy, it is also scientific and complicated : it is composed of inspired melodies; and, at the same time, of harmonious combinations exceedingly abstruse, and that are not elsewhere attained except by study and calculation. Often, in travelling through villages, I

  RUSSIAN MUSIC.

  169

  stop to listen to pieces executed by several voices with a precision, and a musical instinct, that I am never tired of admiring. The performers, in these rustic cµiintetti, guess, by intuition, the laws of counterpoint, the rules of composition, the principles of harmony, the effects of the different kinds of voice, and they disdain singing in unison. They execute series of concords, elaborate, unexpected, and interspersed with shakes, and delicate ornaments, which, if not always perfectly correct, are very superior to the national melodies heard in other lands.

  The song of the Russian peasants is a nasal lamentation, not very agreeable when executed by one voice; but when sung in chorus, these complaints assume a grave, religious character, and produce effects of harmony that are surprising. I had supposed the Russian music to have been brought from Byzantium, but I am assured that it is indigenous : this will explain the profound melancholy of the airs, especially of those which affect gaiety by their vivacity of movement. If the Russians do not know how to revolt against oppression, they know how to sigh and groan under it,