RUSSIAN CURIOSITY./У
for six weeks, neither more nor less. If it be asked what has become of him, the answer, ' he is only gone to have a fuddling bout' ! satisfies every body.
The Russians have too much levity to be vindictive ; they are graceful debauchees. I take pleasure in repeating that they are supremely pleasant and agreeable; but their ])oliteness, insinuating as it is, sometimes becomes exasperated and fatiguing. This often makes me regret coarseness, which has, at least. the merit of being natural. The first law of politeness is to indulge only in praises that can be accepted : all others are insults. True politeness is nothing more than a code of flatteries well disguised. What is so flattering as cordiality ? for, in order to manifest it, sympathy must first be felt.
If there are very polite persons among the Russians. there are also very impolite. The bad taste of these latter is shocking. They inquire, after the manner of savages, into things the most important, as well as into the most trifling bagatelles, without any modesty and with the utmost minuteness. They assail you with impertinent or puerile questions, and act at the same time as children and as spies. The Slavonians are naturally inquisitive; and it is only good education, and the habits of the best society, that ean repress their curiosity : those who have not these advantages never tire of putting you in the witness-box : they must know the objects and the results of your journey ; they will ask boldly, and repeat such interrogations unceasingly — if you prefer Russia to other lands; if you think Moscow more beautiful than Paris; if the Winter Palace at Petersbur?r is finer than the Tuileries; if Krasnacselo is larger than E 4
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PRINCE
Versailles: and with each new individual to whom you are introduced you have to re-commence the repeating of this catechism, in which national vanity hypocritically draws upon the urbanity of foreigners, and ventures its own rudeness in reliance upon the politeness of others.
I have been introduced to a person who was de
scribed to me as a singular character, worthy of obser
vation. He is a young man of illustrious name, the
Prince, only son of a very rich individual; al
though this son spends double his income, and treats
his mind and body as he does his fortune. The tavern
is his empire : it is there that he reigns eighteen
hours out of the twenty-four; on that ignoble theatre
he displays, naturally and involuntarily, noble and
elegant manners : his countenance is intellectual and
extremely fascinating ; his disposition is at once
amiable and mischievous : many traits of rare libe
rality, and even of touching sensibility, are recounted
of him.
Having had for his tutor a man of great talent, an old French abbe and
Profligacy has impressed upon his countenance the traces of a premature decay ; still these ravages of folly, not of time, have been unable to change the almost infantile expression of his noble and regular features. Innate grace will last with life, and remains
AND HIS COMPANIONS.81
faithful to the man who possesses it, whatever effort he may make to throw it off. In no other land could
a man be found like the young Prince , l>ut
there are more than one such here.
He is to be seen surrounded by a crowd of young men, his disciples and competitors, who, without equalling him either in disposition or in mind, all share with him a kind of family resemblance : it may be seen at the first glance that they are, and only can be Russians. It is for this reason that I am about to give some details connected with their manner
of lifeBut already my pen falls from
my hands; for it will be necessary to reveal the connection of these libertines, not with women of the town, but with the youthful sisters of religious orders,—with nuns, whose cloisters, as it will be seen, are not very securely guarded. I hesitate to recite facts which will too readily reeal our revolutionary literature in 1793. I shall remind the reader of the Visitandines; — and why, he will ask, lift a corner of the veil that covers scenes of disorder which ought to remain carefully covered ? Perhaps my passion for the truth obscures my judgment; but it seems to me that evil triumphs so long as it remains secret, whilst to publish it is to aid in destroying it: besides, I have resolved to draw a picture of this country as I see it, — not a composition, but an exact and complete copy from nature. My business is to represent things as they are, not as they ought to be. The only law that I impose on myself, under a sense of delicacy, is to forbear making any allusion to persons who desire to remain unknown. As for the man whom I select for a specimen of the most unbridled E 5
82
MURDER IN A NUNNERY.
among the libertines of Moscow, he carries his contempt of opinion to the extent of desiring me to describe him as I see him. In citing several facts related by himself, I have first heard them confirmed by others.
A story of the death of a young man, killed in
the convent of, by the nuns themselves, he told
me yesterday at a full table-d'hote, before several grave and elderly personages, employes and placemen, who listened with an extraordinary patience to this and several other tales of a similar kind, all very contrary to good manners.
I have surnamed this singular young man, Prince
, the Don Jnan of the Old Testament, so greatly
does the measure of his madness and audacity exceed the ordinary bounds of an abandoned life among modern nations. Nothing is little or moderate in Russia: if the laud is not, as my Italian cicerone calls it, a land of miracles, it is truly a land of giants.
The story in question related to a young man, who, after having passed an entire month concealed within
the convent of , began, at last, to weary of his
excess of happiness to a degree that wearied the holy sisters also. He appeared dying : whereupon the nuns,
