This explosion of national vanity silenced me : I was at Moscow; an inclination to laugh was rising within me, but it would have been dangerous to have given way to it. The argument of my adversary was the same as though a person were to refuse to look upon the Apollo Belvidere because he had elsewhere seen plaster-of-Paris casts of it. The influence of the Mongols survives their conquests among the Russians. Was it, then, to imitate them that they drove them out ? Detractors make little progress, either in the arts or in general civilisation. The Russians observe with malevolence because they lack the perception of perfection: so long as they envy their models they will never equal them. Their empire is immense, but what of that: who would admire the colossus of an ape ?
Such were the angry thoughts that rose in my mind, but of which I suppressed the outward expression, although I believe my disdainful opponent read them on my face, for he did not speak to me any more, unless it was to add, with a nonchalant air, that he had seen olives in the Crimea, and mulberry-trees at Kicw.
For my own part, I congratulate myself that I am only come to Russia for a short time ; a long stay in this land might rob me not only of the courage, but of the desire, to say the truth, in answer to things that I hear and see. Despotism discourages and casts a spell of indifference even over minds that arc the most determined to struggle against its glaring abuses.
Disdain for things that they do not know, appears to me a dominant trait in the character of the Russians.
YAEOSLAF.
129
Instead of endeavouring to comprehend, they endeavour to ridicule. If they ever succeed in bringing to full light their real genius, the world will see, not without some surprise, that it is a genius for caricature. Since I have studied the Russian character, and travelled in this last of the states written in the great book of European history, I have discovered that the talent for ridicule possessed by the
The painted and gilded towers, almost as numerous as the houses of Yaroslaf, shine at a distance like those of Moscow, but the city is less picturescµie than the old capital of the empire. It is protected on the banks of the Volga by a raised terrace, planted with trees; under it, as under a bridge, the road passes, by which merchandise is carried to and from the river. Notwithstanding its commercial importance, the city is empty, dull, and silent. From the height of the terrace is to be seen the yet more empty, dull, and silent surrounding country, with the immense river, its hue a sombre iron-grey, its banks falling straight upon the water, and forming at their top a level with the leaden tinted plain, here and there dotted with forests of birch and pine. This soil is, however, as well cultivated as it is capable of being; it is boasted of by the Russians as being, with the exception of the Crimea, the richest and most smiling tract in their empire.
Byzantine edifices ought to be the models of the national architecture in Russia. Cities full of structures adapted to their location should animate the banks of the Vol¤·a. The interior arrangements of the Russian habitations are rational; their exterior, G 5
130 BOATMEN OF THE VOLGA.
and the general plan of the towns, are not so. Ya-roslaf has its columns and its triumphal arches in imitation of Petersburg, all of which are in the worst taste, and contrast, in the oddest manner, with the style of the churches and steeples. The nearer I approached this city, the more was I struck with the beauty of the population. The villages are rich and well built: I have seen a few stone houses, though too limited a number to vary the monotony of the view.
The Volga is the Loire of Russia; but instead of the gaily-smiling hills of Touraine, crowned with the fairest castles of the middle ages, we here find only flat, unvaried banks, with plains, where the small, gray, mean-looking houses, ranged in lines like tents, sadden rather than animate the landscape : such is the land that the Russians commend to our admiration.
In walking along the borders of the Volga I had to struggle against the wind of the north, omnipotent in this country throughout the year; for three months of which it sweeps the dust before it, and for the remaining nine, the snow. This evening, in the intervals of the blast, the distant songs of the boatmen upon the river caught my ear. The nasal tones, that so much injure the effect of the national songs of the Russians, were lost in the distance, and I heard only a vague, plaintive strain, of which my heart could guess the words. Upon a long float of timber, which they guided skilfully, several men were descending the course of their native Volga. On reaching Yaro-slaf they wished to land: when I saw them moor their raft, I stopped. They passed close before me, without taking any notice of my foreign appear-
RUSSIAN СПЛЕАСТЕН.131
ance; without even speaking to each other. The Russian peasants are taciturn and devoid of curiosity ; I can understand why: what they know disgusts them with all of which they are ignorant.
I admire their noble features and fine expression. With the exception of the Cahnue race, who have broken noses and liigli cheek bones, I again repeat, the Russians are perfectly beautiful.
Another charm, natural to them, is the gentleness of their voice, which is always base, and whieh vibrates without effort. This voice renders euphonious a language, which, spoken by others, would sound harsh and hissing. It is the only one of the European languages which appears to me to lose anything in the mouth of refined and educated persons. My ear prefers the Russian of the streets to the Russian of the drawing-rooms : in the streets, it is a natural tongue : in the
Melancholy, disguised by irony, is in this land the most ordinary humour of mind; in the saloons especially. There, more than elsewhere, it is necessary to dissimulate sadness; henee the sneering, sarcastic tone of lan<nia?¦`e, and those efforts in conversation, painful both to the speaker and the listener. The common people drown their sadness in silent intoxication; the lords in noisy drunkenness. The same vice assumes a different form in the master and the slave. The former has yet another resource against ennui — ambition, that intoxication of the mind. Among all classes there reigns an innate elegance, a natural refinement, which is neither barbarism nor G 6
132
coup-d'?il on
civilisation; not even their affectation can deprive them of this primitive advantage.
They are, however, deficient in a much more essential quality — the faculty of loving. In ordinary affairs, the Russians want kind heartedness; in great affairs, good faith : a graceful egotism, a polite indifference, are the most conspicuous traits in their intercourse with others. This want of heart prevails among all classes, and betrays itself under various forms, according to the rank of the individuals; hut the principal is the same in all. The faculty of being easily affected and tenderly attached, so rare among the Russians, is a ruling characteristic of the Germans, who call it
