The tomb of the saint in the cathedral of the Trinity blazes with magnificence. The convent would have furnished a rich booty to the French; it has not been taken since the fourteenth century. It contains nine churches. The slirine of the saint is of silver, gilt; it is protected by silver pillars and canopy, the gift of the Empress Anne. The image of Saint Sergius is esteemed miraculous. Peter the Great carried it with him in his Avars against Charles XII.
Not far from the slirine, under shelter of the virtues of the hermit, lies the body of the usurping assassin, Boris Godounoff, surrounded by many of
INCONVENIENCES OF TRAVELLING.119
his family. The convent contains various other famous but shapeless tombs: they exhibit at once the infancy and the decrepitude of art. The house of the Archimandrite and the palace of the Czars present nothing of interest. The number of monks is now only one hundred; they were formerly thrice as many. Notwithstanding my persevering request, they would not show me the library. ' It is forbidden' was always the answer. This modesty of the monks, who conceal the treasures of science, while they parade those of vanity, strikes me as singular. I argue from it that there is more dust on their books than on their jewels.
I am now at Dernicki, a village between the small town of Periaslavle and Yaroslaf, the capital of the province of the same name.
It must be owned that it is a strange notion of enjoyment which can induce a man to travel for his pleasure in a country where there are no high roads*, according to the application of 'the word in other parts of Europe,—no inns, no beds, no straw even to sleep upon—fori am obliged to fill my mattress and that of. my servant with hay, — no white bread, no wine, no drinkable water, not a landscape to gaze upon in the country, — not a work of art to study in the towns; where, in winter, the cheeks, nose, ears, and feet are in great danger of being frozen; where, in the dog-days, you broil under the
* With the exception of the road between Petersburg and Moscow, and part of that between Petersburg and liiga.
120BAD QUALITY OF THE ЛУАТЕЕ.
sun, and shiver at night. Such are the amusements I am come to seek in the heart of Russia.
The water is unwholesome in nearly every part of the country. You will injure your health if you trust to the protestations of the inhabitants, or do not drink it without correcting it by effervescent powders. To be sure, you may obtain the luxury of Seltzer-water in the large towns; but the necessity of laying in stores of this foreign beverage, as provision for the road, is very inconvenient. The wine of the taverns, generally white, and christened with the name of Sauterne, is scarce, dear, and of bad quality.
As for the scenery, there appears so little variety, that, as regards the habitations which alone enliven it, it may be said that there is but one village in all Russia. The distances are incommensurable, but the Russians diminish them by their rate of travelling: scarcely leaving their carriage until arrived at the place of their destination, they feel as though they had been in bed at home the whole length of the journey; and are astonished to find that we do not share their taste for tins mode of travelling while sleeping, inherited by them from their Scythian ancestors. We must not believe, however, that their course is always equally rapid; these northern Gascons do not tell us of all their delays on the route. The coachmen drive fast when they are able, but they are often stopped by insurmountable difficulties.
Even on the road between Petersburg and Moscow I found that we proceeded at very unequal rates, and that at the end of the journey we had scarcely saved more time than is done in other countries. On other routes the inconveniences are multiplied a hundred-
А NIGIIT IN A RUSSIAN VILLAGE.121
fold: tlie horses become scarce, the roads such as would destroy any vehicle; and the traveller asks himself, with a kind of shame, what could have been his motive for imposing upon himself so many discomforts, by coming to a country that has all the wilduess, without any of the poetic grandeur of the desert ? Such was the question I addressed to myself this evening, when benighted on a road, the difficulty of moving in which was greatly enhanced by a new unfinished chaussee, which crossed it at every fifty yards, and by tottering bridges, which had often lost the pieces of timber the most essential to their security.
My meditations at length determined me to halt, and, to the great annoyance of my coachman and feldjager, I fixed on a lodging in the little house of some villagers, where I am now writing. This refuge is less disgusting than a real inn : no traveller stops in such a village ; and the wood of the cabin serves as a refuge only to the insects brought from the forest. My chamber, a loft reached by a dozen steps, is nine or ten feet square, and six or seven high ; it reminds me of the cottage of the imbecile old man in the story of Thelenef. The entire habitation is made of the trunks of fir-trees, caulked with moss and pitch as carefully as if it were a boat. The same eternal smell of tar, cabbage, and perfumed leather, which, combined, pervades every Russian village, annoys me ; but I prefer headache to mental distress, and find this bed-chamber far more comfortable than the large plastered hall of the inn at Troitza. I have fixed in it my iron bedstead : the peasants sleep, wrapped in their sheep-skins, on the seats ranged round the room on the ground-floor.
YOL. III.G
]'22WANT OF PROBITY
Antonio makes his bed in the coach, which is guarded by him and the fcldjager. Men are pretty safe on Russian highways, but equipages and all their appurtenances are viewed as lawful prizes by the Slavonian serfs; and, without extreme vigilance, I should fiud my caleche in the morning, stript of cover, braces, curtains, and apron ; in short, transformed into a primitive tarandasse', a real telega ; and not a soul in the village who would have any idea what had become of the leather: or if, by means of rigid searches, it should be found at the bottom of some shed, the thief, by stating that he had found it and brought it there, would be acquitted. This is the standing; defence in Eussia: theft is rooted in the habits of the people, and consequently the robber preserves an easy conscience and a serene face that would deceive the very angels. ' Our Saviour would have stolen,'1 they say, 'if his hands had not been pierced.' This is one of their most common adages.
Xor is robbery the vice alone of the peasants : there arc as many kinds of theft as there arc orders in society. The governor of a province knows that he is constantly in danger of something occurring that may send him to finish his days in Siberia. If, dnrino· the time that he continues in office, he has the cleverness to steal enough to defend himself in the legal process which would precede his exile, he may get out of the difficulty ; but if he continue poor and honest he must be ruined. This is not my remark, but that of several Russians whom I may not name', but whom I believe to be worthy of faith. The commissaries of the army rob the soldiers, and enrich themselves by starving them : in short,
Л NATIONAL CHARACTERISTIC.123
an honest administration would be here both dangerous and ridiculous.
I hope to-morrow to reach Yaroslaf: it is a central city; and I shall stop there a day or two in order to discover, in the interior of the country, real original Russians. I took care, with this intention, to procure several letters of introduction to that capital of one of the most interesting and important provinces of the empire.
