AT THE FAIR OF NIJNI.215
The governor informs me that the value of the merchandise brought this year to the fair of Nijni exceeds one hundred and fifty millions*, according to the manifestoes of the merchants themselves, who, with the mistrust natural to Orientals, always conceal a part of the value of their stock.
Although all the countries in the world send the tri-bute of their soil and industry to Xijni, the principal importance of this annual market is owing to its being a depot for the provisions, the precious stones, the stuffs, and the furs of Asia. The wealth of the Tartars, the Persians, and the Buchanans, is the object which most strikes the imagination of the strangers attracted by the reputation of the fair ; yet, notwithstanding its commercial importance, I, as merely a curious observer, find it below its reputation. They reply to this, that the Emperor Alexander spoiled its picturesque and amusing aspect. He rendered the streets which separate the stalls more spacious and regular; but such stiffness is dull: besides, everything is gloomy and silent in Russia; everywhere the reciprocal distrust of government and people banishes mirth. Every passion and every pleasure has to answer for its consequences to some rigid confessor, disguised as an agent of police; every Russian is a school-boy liable to the rod; all Riissia is a vast college, where discipline is enforced by severe and rigid rule, until constraint and ennui, becoming insupportable, occasion here and there an outbreak. When this takes place, it is a regular
* The author does not state whether these are francs or roubles. — Trans.
216 FRENCHMEN OF THE NEW SCHOOL.
political saturnalia; but, once again, the acts of violence are isolated, and do not disturb the general quiet. That quiet is the more stable, and appears the more firmly established, because it resembles death: it is only living things that can be exterminated. In Russia, respect for despotism is confounded with the idea of eternity.
I find several Frenchmen assembled together at Nijni. Notwithstanding my passionate love for France, for that land which, in my vexation with the extravagancies of its inhabitants, I have so often abandoned with the vow never to return, but to which I return always, and where I hope to die, — notwithstanding this blind patriotism, I have never ceased, since I first travelled and encountered in foreign lands a crowd of countrymen, to recognise the impertinence of the young French, and to feel astonished on observing the strong relief in which our faults stand forth among foreigners. If I speak only of the younger men, it is because at their age the stamp upon the mind, being less worn away by the rubs of life, the exhibition of character is the more striking. It must then be owned that our young countrymen invite a laugh at their own expense, by the sincerity with which they imagine that they dazzle the simple men of other nations. French superiority, a superiority so well established in their eyes that it does not require even to be proved, is the axiom upon which they support themselves. This unshaking faith in their own personal merit, this self-love, so completely at ease, that it would become ingenuous through its very confidence, if so much credulity did not generally unite itself, in hideous combination, with scoffing and
FRENCHMEN OP THE NEW SCHOOL. 217
sneering self-sufficiency ; this knowledge, for the most part devoid of imagination, which turns the intellect into a storehouse of facts and dates, more or less well classed, but always cited with a dryness which robs truth of its value, for without heart, a man cannot be truthful, he can only be exact; this continual look-out of that advance-guard of conversation, vanity, reconnoitring each thought of others, expressed or not expressed, in order to extract from it advantage ; this forgetfulness of others, carried to the point of unknowingly insulting them through not perceiving that the high opinion a person entertains of himself is lowering to the rest; this total absence of sensibility, which only serves to increase susceptibility, evinced by bitter hostility elevated into a patriotic duty, by a constant liability to be offended at some preference of which another may be the object, or at some correction, however useful the lesson given ; — in short, all this infatuation, serving as the buckler of folly against truth, with many other traits, which some of my readers will supply better than I can, appears to me to characterise the present race of young Frenchmen, from ten years old and upwards, for that is the age at which they become men in these days.
Such characters injure our position among foreigners ; they have little influence in Paris, where the number of models of this species of impertinence is so great as to attract no attention, where they are lost in a crowd like themselves, just as instruments drown each other in an orehcstre: but when they become isolated, and placed in the midst of a society whei`e reign passions and habits of mind different from those which agitate the French world, they
VOL. III.L
218 AN AGREEABLE RENCONTRE.
exhibit themselves in a manner that would drive to despair a traveller as attached to his country as I am. Imagine, then, my joy on finding here, at the
governor's dinner-table, M., one among living
men the most capable of giving a favourable idea of young France to foreigners. In truth, he belongs to old France by his family; and it is to the mixture of new ideas with ancient traditions that he owes the elegance of manners and the justness of views which distinguish him. He has seen well, and describes well what he has seen ; he does not think more of himself than others think, and perhaps even a little less; and he therefore greatly edified and amused me, after leaving the table, by the recital of all that he has daily learnt since his stay in Russia. Dupe of a coquette in Petersburg, he consoles himself for his mistake by studying the land with redoubled attention. His mind is clear, he observes carefully, and recounts with exactness ; which does not prevent him from listening to others, nor even — and this recalls the memory of the flourishing days of French society — from inspiring them with the wish to talk. In conversing with him we fall into an illusion ; we believe that conversation is always an interchange of ideas, that refined society is still founded among us upon the relations of reciprocal pleasures : in short, we forget the invasion that brutal, unmasked egotism has· made on our modern saloons, and fancy that social life is, as formerly, a commerce beneficial to all, — an old-fashioned error, which dissipates on the first reflection, and leaves us conscious of the melancholy reality, the pillage of ideas, and of bons mots, the literary treasons, the laws, in short, of war,
DINNER AT ТПЕ GOVERNOR'S. 219
which, since the peace, have become the only recognised code in the fashionable world. Such is the dreary recollection which. I cannot banish in listening
to the agreeable conversation of M., and in
comparing it with that of liis contemporaries. Of conversation may be said, with even greater justice than of the style of books, that it is the individual himself. People arrange their writings, bit not their repartees, or if they attempt to arrange them, they, at least, lose more than they gain by it; for, in familiar talk, affectation is no longer a veil, it becomes a signal,
The party that met yesterday at the dinner of the
governor was a singular compound of contrary ele
ments : besides young M., of whom I have just
drawn the portrait, there was another Frenchman, a
Doctor К, who had sailed, I was told, in a govern
ment vessel on an expedition to the Pole, disem
barked, I know not why, in Lapland, and had travelled
straight from Archangel to Nijni, without even pass
ing through Petersburg; a useless and fatiguing
journey, which a man of the iron frame that I ob
served in this traveller could alone support. I am
assured that he is a learned naturalist: his counte
nance is remarkable ; there is something of immobility
and mystery about it which piques the imagination.
As for his conversation, I shall hope to hear it in
France; in Russia he says nothing. The Russians
are
more skilful; they always say something, though,
indeed, the contrary often to what is expected from
them; but it is sufficient to prevent their silence being
remarked. There was also, at this dinner, a family of
young English fashionables, of the highest rank, and
L 2
220DINNER AT THE GOVERNOR'S.
whom I have been following, as though by track, ever since my arrival in Russia; encountering them every where, finding it impossible to avoid them, and yet never meeting an opportunity of making- direct acquaintance with them. All these people found a seat at the table of the governor, without reckoning some employes, and various other natives, who never opened their mouths except to eat. I need not add that general conversation was impossible in such a circle. In Russian society, the women never become natural except by aid of culture : their language is acquired, it is that of books; and to lose the pedantry which books instil, a long experience of the world is necessary. The wife of the governor has remained too provincial, too much herself, too Russian, too natural, iii short, to appear simple like the women of the court; besides, she has little facility in speaking French. Yesterday, in her drawing-room, all her attempts were limited to receiving her guests, with intentions of politeness the most praiseworthy, but she did nothing to put them at their ease, or to establish between them a facile intercourse. I was, therefore, very well satisfied, on rising from table, to
be able to .talk tête-à-tête, in a corner with M. .
Our conversation was drawing to a close, for all the
guests of the governor were preparing to leave, when
young Lord, who knows my countryman, ap
proached him, with a ceremonious air, and asked him
to present us to each other. This flattering advance
was made by him with the politeness of his country?
which, without being graceful, or even because it is
not graceful, is by no means devoid of a kind of
ENGLISH ODDITIES.221
nobleness allied to the reserve of sentiments and to coldness of manners.
" I have for a long time, my lord," I said, " desired an opportunity of becoming acquainted with you, and í thank you for having given it me. We are, I think, destined frequently to meet this year; I hope for the future to profit better by the chance than I have done hitherto." ■
" I am very sorry to leave you," replied the Englishman, " but I set out directly."
" We shall meet again at Moscow ?"
£¢ No; I am going to Poland ; my carriage is at the door, and I shall not leave it until I reach Wilna."
An inclination to laugh almost over-mastered me,
when I saw in the face of M. that he thought
with me, that after having done without each other for three months, at the court, at Peterhoff, at Moscow, in short, every where where we met without speaking, the young lord might have dispensed with uselessly imposing upon three persons the tiresomeness of a formal introduction, without any object either for himself or me. It appeared to us that, after having dined together, if his wish had been to talk with us for a quarter of an hour, nothing need have prevented his joining in our conversation. The scrupulous and formal Englishman left us stupified by his tardy, troublesome, and superfluous politeness ; while he himself appeared equally satisfied with having made acquaintance with me, and with having made no use of this advantage, if advantage it be.
This gaucherie reminds me of another, of which a Polish lady was the object.
It occurred in London. The lady, who possesses a l 3
222ANECDOTE OF A POLISH LADY.
charming wit, related it to me herself. The graces of her conversation and the solid culture of her mind cause her to be much courted in the higher circles, notwithstanding the misfortunes of her country and her family. I say notwithstanding, for whatever may be said or thought, misfortune is little compassionated in society, even in the best; on the contrary, it stands greatly in the way of the individual's other recommendations. It does not, however, prevent the woman of whom I speak from being considered as one of the most distinguished and amiable of the day, both in London and Paris. Invited to a large, ceremonious dinner party, and being placed between the master of the house and a stranger, she soon grew weary, and had long to continue so; for, although the fashion of everlasting dinners is on the wane in England, they arc still longer there than in other lands. The lady, making the best of her misfortune, sought to vary the conversation, and, whenever the master of the house allowed her a moment's respite, she turned towards her right-hand neighbour; but she invariably encountered •a face of stone : and notwithstanding her easy manners as a woman of rank, and her vivacity as a woman of wit, so great an immobility disconcerted her. The dinner passed under these discouraging circumstances ; a gloomy silence followed : gloom is as necessary to English faces as uniform is to soldiers. Later in the evening, when the men again joined the ladies in the drawing-room, she who told me this story no sooner perceived her neighbour, the stony-visaged man of the dinner-table, than he, before venturing a word, hastened to find the owner of the house at the other end of the room, to
UTILITY OF EASY MANNERS.223
request him, with a solemn air, to introduce him to the fair and amiable foreigner. All these requisite ceremonies being duly accomplished, the awkward neighbour at length opened Ins mouth, and, drawing his breath from the lowest depths of his breast, while at the same time he bowed respectfully, said, " I have been particularly anxious, madame, to make your acquaintance."
The mention of this great anxiety produced in the lady an inclination to smile, which, however, her familiarity with the world enabled her to overcome; and she at length found in this ceremonious person a well-informed and even interesting man —of so little signification are forms in a country where pride renders the greater number of the men timid and reserved.
This proves that easy manners, light, agreeable conversation, in short, true elegance, which consists in putting every body we meet as much at his ease as we are ourselves, far from being an unimportant, frivolous thing, as certain people who only judge the world by hearsay call-it, is useful and even necessary in the higher ranks of society, where either business or pleasure is constantly bringing together people who have never seen each other before. If it was always necessary, in order to make acquaintance with new faces, to proceed with the slowness and patience required in the cases of the Polish lady and myself before Ave could have the right of exchanging a word with an Englishman, we should renounce the object, and lose many valuable opportunities of instructing and amusing ourselves.
This morning early, the governor, whose obliging L 4
224VISITS WITH THE GOVERNOE.
kindness I can never tire, took me to see the curiosities of the old city. His servants attended him, which enabled me to dispense with putting to a second proof the docility of my feldjäger, whose claims the governor respects.
There is in Russia a class of persons which corresponds to the citizen class among us, though without possessing the firmness of character derived from an independent position, and the experience obtained by means of liberty of thought and cultivation of mind: this is the class of subaltern employes, or secondary nobility. The ideas of these men are generally turned towards innovations, whilst their acts are the most despotic that are committed under despotism : this, indeed, is the class which, in spite of the emperor, governs the empire. They pretend to enlighten the people, and their pretensions incur the dislike and contempt of both great and little. Theii impertinences are become proverbial: whoever has any need of making use of these demi-nobles, newly raised by their office and their rank in the tchinn to the honours of territorial proprietors, revenges himself upon their pride by unmerciful ridicule. These men, risen from class to class, and attaining at length, by virtue of some cross or some employ, the class in which a man may possess lands and fellow-men, exercise their seignorial rights with a ri
gour which renders them objects of execration among their unhappy peasants. AVhat a singular social phenomenon is this liberal or changeable element in a despotic system of government, which system it here renders yet more intolerable ! " If we had only the old lords," the peasants say, " we should not complain of our
THE AUTHOR'S FELDJÄGER.225
condition." These new men, so hated by the small number who are their serfs, are also masters of the supreme master ; and are the preparers likewise of a revolution in Russia,—first, by the direct influence of their ideas, and, secondly, by the indirect consequences of the hatred and contempt which they excite among the people. Republican tyranny under autocratical! — what a combination of evils !
These are enemies created by the emperors themselves, in their distrust of the old nobility. An avowed aristocracy, long rooted in the land, but moderated by the progress of manners and the amelioration of customs, would have been an instrument of civilisation preferable to the hypocritical obedience, the destructive influence of a host of commissioners and deputies, the greater number of foreign origin, and all more or less imbued, in the secret of their hearts, with revolutionary notions; all as insolent in their thoughts as obsequious in their words and manners.
Russia in 1839 -Empire of the Czar: A Journey Through Eternal Russia Page 81
