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

defining a feeling which is scarcely more common among us than among the Russians. But the refined and ingenuous French plaisanterie is here replaced by a malignantly prying, a hostile, closely observing, caustic, satirical, and envious spirit, which appears to me infinitely more objectionable than our jesting frivolity. Here, the rigour of the climate, the severity of the government, and the habit of espionnao`e, render characters melancholy, and self-love distrustful. Somebody, or something, is always feared; and, what is worse, not without cause. This is not avowed, yet it cannot be concealed from a traveller accustomed to observe and compare different nations.

To a certain point the want of a charitable disposition in the Russians towards strangers appears to me excusable. Before knowing us, they lavish their attentions upon us with apparent eagerness, because they are hospitable like the Orientals; but they are

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also easily wearied like the Europeans. In welcoming us with a forwardness which has more ostentation than cordiality, they scrutinize our slightest words, they submit our most insignificant actions to a critical examination ; and as such work necessarily furnishes them with much subject for blame, they triumph internally, saying, ' These, then, are the people who think themselves so superior to us !'

This kind of study suits their quickly discerning, rather than sensitive nature. Such a disposition neither excludes a certain politeness nor a kind of grace, but it is the very opposite of true amability. Perhaps, with eare and time, one might succeed in inspiring them with some confidence; nevertheless, I doubt whether all my efforts could achieve this`; for the Russians are the most unimpressible, and, at the same time, the most impenetrable people in the world. What have they done to aid the march of human mind ? They have not hitherto produced either philosophers, moralists, legislators, or literati whose names belong to history; but, truly, they have never wanted, and never will want good diplomatists, clever, politic heads; and it is the same with their inferior classes, among whom there are no inventive mechanics, but abundance of excellent workmen.

I am leading the reader into the labyrinth of contradictions, that is, I am showing the things of this world as they have appeared to me at the first and at the second view. I must leave to him the task of so reviewing and arranging my remarks as to be able to draw from them a general opinion. My ambition will be satisfied, if a comparing and selecting from this crowded collection of precipitate and carelessly

134PRIMITIVE DROWSKAS.

hazarded judgments will allow any solid, impartial, and ripe conclusions to be drawn. I have not attempted to draw them, because I prefer travelling to composing: an author is not independent, a traveller is. I therefore relate my impressions, and leave the reader to complete the book.

The above reflections on the Eussian character have been suggested by several visits that I have made in Yaroslaf. I consider this central point as one of the most interesting in my journey.

I will relate to-morrow the result of my visit to the chief personage of the place, the governor, for I have just sent him my letter. I have been told, or rather given to infer, much to his disparagement in the various houses that I have visited this morning.

The primitive drowska is to be seen in this city. It consists of a little board on four wheels, entirely concealed under the occupant, and looks as though the horse were fastened to his person ; two of the wheels are covered by his legs, and the other two are so low that they disappear under the rapid motion of the machine.

The female peasants generally go barefoot. The men most frequently wear a species of sandal made of rushes, rudely platted, which resembles those of antiquity. The leg is clothed in a wide pantaloon, the folds of which, drawn together at the ancle by a little fillet, are covered with the shoe. This attire is precisely similar to the Scythian statues of the Roman sculptors.

I am writing in a wretched inn; there are but two good ones in Eussia, and they are kept by foreigners : the English boarding-house at Saint Petersburg, and

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that of Madame Howard, at Moscow, are those to which I refer. In the houses even of independent private people, I cannot seat myself without trembling.

I have seen several public baths, both at Petersburg and Moscow. The people bathe in different ways : some enter chambers heated to a temperature that appears to me insupportable; the penetrating vapour of these stews is absolutely suffocating. In other chambers, naked men, standing upon heated floors, are soaped and washed by others also naked. The people of taste have their own baths, as in other places : but so many individuals resort to these public establishments ; the warm humidity there is so favourable to insect life, the clothes laid down in them are nurseries of so many vermin, that the visitor rarely departs without carrying with him some irrefragable proof of the sordid negligence of the lower orders.

Before cleansing their own persons, those who make use of the public baths ought to insist on the cleansing; out of these dens where the old ]Iuseovites revel in their dirtiness, and hasten old age by the inordinate use of steam, and by the perspiration it provokes.

It is now ten o'clock in the evening. The o`overnor has sent to inform me that his son and his carriage will presently attend me. I have answered, with many thanks, that having retired for the night, I cannot this evening avail myself of his kindness; but that I shall pass the whole of the morrow at Yaroslaf, and shall then make my acknowledgments in person. I am not sorry to have this opportunity of observing Russian hospitality in the provinces.

136VISIT TO THE GOVERNOR.

This morning, about eleven, the governor's son, who is a mere child, arrived in full uniform, to take me in a carriage-and-fonr, with coachman, and faleiter mounted on the off-side horse, an equipage precisely similar to that of the courtiers at Petersburg. This elegant ajmarition at the door of my inn disappointed me; I saw at once that it was not with old Muscovites, with true boyards, that I had to do. I felt that I should be again among European travellers, courtiers of the Emperor Alexander, and lordly cosmopolites.

' My father knows Paris,' said the young man; ' he will be delighted to see a Frenchman.'

' At what period was he in France ? '

The young Russian was silent; my question appeared to disconcert him, although I had thought it a very simple one : at first I was unable to account for his embarrassment; after discovering its cause, I gave him credit for an exquisite delicacy, — a rare sentiment in every country and at every age.

M., governor of Yaroslaf, had visited France,

in the suite of the Emperor Alexander, during the campaigns of 1813 and 1814, and this was a reminiscence of which his son was unwilling to remind me. His tact recalled to my memory a very different trait. One day, in a small town of Germany, I dined with the envoy of a petty German government, who, in presenting me to his wife, said that I was a Frenchman.

' He's an enemy, then,' interrupted their son, a boy of apparently thirteen or fourteen years old.

That young gentleman had not been sent to school in Russia.