48RURAL SCENERY IN MOSCOW.
aspect of a colony founded but yesterday. The Kremlin alone seems destined to brave the storms, and to lire as long as the empire, of which it is the emblem and the bulwark. The idea of the irrevocable is always solemn.
In Moscow points of view abound. In the streets, you see only the houses that border them. But cross a large square, open a window, or ascend a terrace, and you immediately discover a new city spread over hills separated by valleys of wheat-fields, large pools, and even woods. This city encloses a country whose undulations resemble the waves of the sea. The sea viewed from afar, has abvays the appearance of a plain, however agitated its surface may be.
Moscow is the city for painters of character pieces ; but architects, sculptors, and historical painters have nothing to do there. Clusters and masses of edifices, isolated in deserts, present multitudes of striking pictures. This ancient capital is the only large city which, although populous, still retains all the picturesque attributes of the country. It contains as many open roads as streets, as many cultivated fields as hills covered with buildings, as many deserted valleys as public squares. After leaving the crowded centre, we find ourselves among lakes, forests, and villages, rather than in a city. Here, rises a stately monastery, surmounted with its multitudes of church- steeples ; there, hills built to the summit; others again bear only crops of corn, between them winds a stream of water; a little farther are isolated edifices, as singular as varied in their style ; among them are theatres with antique peristyles, and palaces of wood — the only private dwellings that display a national architecture.
DRUNKENNESS AMONG THE RUSSIANS. 49
All these varied structures are half concealed by verdant foliage, whilst the entire poetical decoration is crowned by the old Kremlin, with its indented walls and singular towers. That Parthenon of the Slavonians commands and protects Moscow: it reminds one of the Doge of Venice seated in the midst of his senate.
This evening, the tents where the holiday folks of Devitschiepol were congregated, emitted various scents, the mixture of which produced an atmosphere that was intolerable. There was perfumed Russian leather, spirituous liquors, sour beer, cabbages, the grease of the boots of Cossacks, and the musk and ambergris of numerous fashionable loiterers, who appeared determined to suffer from ennui, were it only out of aristocratic pride. I found it impossible long to breathe this mephitic air.
The greatest pleasure of the people is drunkenness; in other words, forgctfulness. Unfortunate beings ! they must dream if they would be happy. As a proof of the good temper of the Russians, when the mugies get tipsy, these men, brutalised as thcy are, become softened, instead of infuriated. Unlike the drunkards of our country, who quarrel and fight, they weep and embrace each other. Curious and interesting nation! it would be delightful to make them happy. But the task is hard, if not impossible. Show me how to satisfy the vague desires of a giant, — young, idle, ignorant, ambitious, and so shackled that he can scarcely stir hand or foot. Never do I pity this people without equally pitying the all-powerful man who is their governor.
I soon left the taverns to walk in the square,
VOL. III.D
50HIDDEN POETRY.
where the promenaders raised clouds of dust. The summers of Athens are long, but the days are short, and, owing to the sea-breeze, the air is scarcely hotter than it is at Moscow during the short northern heats. The insupportable summer of this year is, however, now nearly over; the nights return, and winter will soon follow. Beyond the fair, the view of the distant pine-forests that surround the city with a girdle of mourning, the slowly decreasing tints of a long twilight, all tended to heighten the effect of the monotonous landscape of the north, upon whose face poetry is written in a mystic tongue — a tongue which we do not understand.
In treading this oppressed earth I hear, without comprehending them, the Lamentations of an unknown Jeremiah. Despotism must give birth to prophets; —the future is the paradise of slaves and the hell of tyrants ! A few notes of a plaintive song, oblique, deceitful, furtive glances — easily interpret to me the thoughts that spring in the hearts of this people: but youth, which, little valued though it be, is more favourable to study than riper age, could alone teach me thoroughly all the mysteries of their poetry of sorrow. I congratulate myself on havino` seen this festival, so devoid of gaiety, but, likewise, so different from those of other lands. The Cossacks were to be seen in great numbers among the promenaders and the drinkers who filled tiie square. They formed silent groups around singers, whose piercing voices chanted forth melancholy words set to a softly pleasing tune, although its rhythm was strongly marked. The air was the national son«· of the Don Cossacks. It has a kind of resemblance to
SONG OF THE DON COSSACKS.51
some old Spanish melodies, but is more plaintive; it is soft yet penetrating as the warble of the nightingale when heard at a distance, by night, in the depths of the woods. Now and then the bystanders repeated in chorus the last words of the strophe.
The following is a prosaic translation, verse by verse, which a Russian has just made for me :
They shout the loud alarm, My war steed paws the ground ;
I hear him neigh,
О ! let me go !
Let others rush to death :
Too young and gentle, thou
Shalt yet watch o'er our cottage home ;
Thou must not pass the Don.
The foe, the foe,— to arms ! — I go to fight for thee : If gentle here, against the foe, Though young, I still am brave.
The old Cossack would blush with wrath and shame
If I should stay behind.
See thy mother weeping, Behold her sinking frame ; We shall be victims of thy rage, Ere yet the foe is seen.
When they talk of the campaign, They would call me a poltroon : But if I die, and comrades praise my name, Thy tears shall soon be dried. D 2
52
THE CHARACTER OF
THE MAIDEN.
Never! we'll sleep within the same dark tomb ; If thou must die, I follow. Thou goest! but still together we
