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

wish to do. Love is the only really skilful flatterer, because its praises, even when most exaggerated, are sincere. This is a truth which conscience vainly preaches in the ear of despots.

The incfficacy of conscience in human affairs, in the greatest as in the least, is, to me, the most wonderful mystery in this world, for it proves to me the existence of another. God creates nothing without an object: since, then, he has given conscience to every individual, and since this internal light is so useless upon earth, it must have its ordained mission to fulfil elsewhere: the evil deeds of this world have for their excusers our passions; the justice of the next world will have for its advocate our conscience.

I slowly followed the promenaders of the streets, and after having ascended and descended several declivities in the wake of a wave of idle loungers, whom I mechanically took for guides, I reached the centre of the city, a shapeless square, adjoining which was a garden, with alleys of trees brilliantly lighted, and under them could be heard the sound of distant music. Several open cafes tended further to

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remind me of Europe ; but I could not interest myself with these amusements: I was under the walls of the Kremlin, — that colossal mountain raised for tyranny by the hands of slaves. For the modern city a public promenade has been made, a species of garden planted in the English taste, round the walls of the ancient fortress of .Moscow. How am I to describe the walls of 'the Kremlin ? The word walls gives an idea of quite too ordinary an object; it would deceive the reader: the walls of the Kremlin are a chain of mountains. This citadel, reared on the confines of Europe and Asia, is, as compared with ordinary ramparts, what the Alps are to our hills : the Kremlin is the Mont Blanc of fortresses. If the giant that is called the Russia Empire had a heart, I should say that the Kremlin was the heart of the monster; but, as it is, I would call it the head.

I wish I could give an idea of this mighty pile of stones, reared step by step into the heavens; this asylum-of despotism, raised in the name of liberty : for the Kremlin was a barrier opposed to the Calnmcs by the Russians: its walls have equally aided the independence of the state and the tyranny of the sovereign. They are boldly carried over the deep sinuosities of the soil. When the declivities of the nillocks become too precipitous, the rampart is lowered by steps: these steps, rising between heaven and earth, are enormous; they are the ladder for the giants who make war against the gods.

The line of this first girdle of structures is broken by fantastic towers, so elevated, strong, and grotesque in form, as to remind one of the peaks in Switzerland, with their many-shaped rocks, and their many-O 6

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coloured glaciers. The obscurity no doubt contributed to increase the size of objects, and to give them unusual forms and tints, — I say tints, for night, like engravings, has its colouring. To behold gentlemen and ladies, dressed a la parisienne, promenading at the feet of this fabulous palace, was to fancy myself in a dream. What would Ivan III., the restorer, or, it might be said, the founder of the Kremlin, have thought, could he have beheld at the foot of the sacred fortress, his old Muscovites, shaved, curled, in frock coats, white pantaloons, and yellow gloves, eating ices, seated before a brightly-lighted cafe ? He would have said, as I do, jt is impossible ! and yet this is now seen every summer evening in Moscow.

I have, then, wandered in the public gardens planted on the glacis of the ancient citadel of the Czars; I have seen the towers, wall above wall, the platforms, terraee upon terrace, and my eyes have swept over an enchanted city. It would need the eloquence of youth, which every thing astonishes and surprises, to find words analogous to these prodigious things. Above a long vault, which I crossed, I per-eeived a raised viaduct, by which carriages and foot-passengers enter the holy city. The spectacle was bewildering; nothing but towers, gates, and terraces, raised one above the other, steep slopes, and piled arches, all serving to form the road by which the Moscow of the present day, the vulgar Moscow, is left for the Kremlin — the Moscow of miracle and of history. These aqueducts, without water, support other stories of more fantastic edifiees. I observed, raised upon one of the hanging passages, a low round tower, all bristling with battlements of spear-heads. The silver

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brightness of this ornament contrasted singularly with the blood-red of the walls. The tower seemed like a crowned giant standing before the fortress of which he was the guardian. What is there that one could not see, by the light of the moon, wandering at the foot of the Kremlin ? There, every thing is supernatural; the mind believes in spectres in spite of itself. Who could approach without a religious terror this sacred bulwark, a stone of which, disturbed by Buonaparte, rebounded even to Saint Helena, to crush the conqueror in the bosom of the' ocean ! Pardon, reader, I am born in the age of grandiloquence.

The newest of the new schools is endeavouring to banish it, and to simplify language upon the principle that people the most devoid of imagination that have ever existed, ought most carefully to shun venturing among the tortuous paths of a faculty which they do not possess. I can admire a puritanical style when it is employed by superior talents, talents capable of divesting it of all monotony, but I cannot imitate it.

After having seen all that I have gazed at this evening, it would be wise to return straight to one's own country : the excitement of the journey is exhausted.

302THE KREMLIX.

CHAP. XXV.

THE KREMLIN BY DAYLIGHT. CHARACTER OF ITS ARCHITECTURE.

—SYMBOLIC IMAGERY. RELATION BETWEEN THE CHARACTER

OF BUILDINGS AND BUILDERS. — IVAN IV. PATIENCE CRIMINAL.

—INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORY OF IVAN IV.REASONS FOR

CREDITING KARAMSIN.,

An attack of ophthalmia, which came on between Petersburg and Moscow, gives me much pain and annoyance. Notwithstanding this malady, I resumed to-day my promenade of yesterday evening, in order to compare the Kremlin by daylight with the fantastic Kremlin of the night. The shade increases and distorts every thing : the sun restores to objects their forms and their proportions.

At this second view, the fortress of the Czars still surprises me. The moonlight magnified and threw out in strong relief certain masses of the fabric, but it concealed others ; and, while acknowledging that I had imaged to myself too many vaults, and galleries, hanging roads, and lofty portals, I found quite enough of all these objects to justify my enthusiasm. There is something of every thing at the Kremlin : it is a varied landscape of stones. The solidity of its ramparts exceeds that of the rocks on which they stand. The multitude and the. multiformity of its parts are a marvel. This labyrinth of palaces, museums, towers, churches and dungeons, is terrific as the architecture of Martin ; it is as great and more

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irregular than the compositions of that English painter. Mysterious sounds rise out of the depth of its subterranes ; such abodes must be haunted by spirits, they cannot belong to beings like ourselves. The citadel of