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

164CIVILISATION INJURIOUS.

ments of society have lost for him. In this patriarchal land it is civilisation which spoils the inhabitants. The Slavonian was naturally ingenious, musical, and almost tender-hearted; the drilled Russian is false, tyrannical, imitative, and foolishly vain. It would take more than a century to establish an accord between the national manners and the new European ideas; supposing that, all the while, Russia were governed by enlightened princes,— friends of progress, as the expression now is. At present, the complete separation of classes makes social life a violent, immoral thing. It might be supposed that it was from this country Rousseau took the first idea of his system ; for it is not even necessary to possess the resources of his magic eloquence to prove that arts and sciences have done more evil than good to the Slavonians. The future will show the world whether military and political glory can compensate the Russian nation for the happiness of whieh their social organisation deprives them.

Elegance is inborn among the men of pure Slavonian blood. Their characters unite a mixture of simplicity, gentleness, and sensibility, whieh seduce all hearts: they are often combined with a good deal of irony and some little deceitfuhiess; but, when the heart is naturally amiable, these faults are transformed into a kind of grace. The people further possess the advantage of a countenance, the delicacy in the expression of which is inimitable; it influences, by an unknown charm, by a tender melancholy, a suffering gentleness, which almost always springs from a secret sense of evil, hid by the sufferer from himself, in order the better to disguise it from others.

ETYMOLOGY OF SAKMATIAN.165

The Russians are, in short, a resigned nation, — this simple description explains every thing. The man who is deprived of liberty—and here the definition of that word extends to natural rights and real wants, — though he may have all other advantages, is like a plant excluded from the air: in vain do you water its roots, the languishing stem produces a few leaves, but will never send forth flowers.

The true Russians have something peculiar to themselves, both in their character, their countenance, and their whole bearing. Their carriage is light, and all their movements denote a natural superiority. Their eyes are large, of a long oval shape, and the eyelid is but little raised. Their glance combines an expression of sentiment and of mischiev-ousness that is very taking. The Greeks, in their creative language, called the inhabitants of these regions Syromedes, a word which signifies lizard-eyed ; the Latin word Sarmatian is derived from it. This expression of the eye then has struck all attentive observers. The forehead of the Russians is neither very lofty nor very broad; but its form is classic and graceful. In the character of the people, both distrust and credulity, roguishness and tenderness, are united, — and these contrasts have a charm. The Slavonians are neither coarse nor apathetic, like most other northern races. Poetical as nature, their imagination mixes with all their affections; with them, love partakes of the nature of superstition : their attachments have more delicacy than vivacity: always refined, even when impassioned, it may be said that their intellect pervades their sentiment. All these fugitive shades of character are expressed in

166ELEGANCE AND INDUSTRY

their glance, — that glance which was so well characterised by the Greeks.

The ancient Greeks were endowed with an exquisite talent for appreciating men and tilings, and for describing them by names ; a faculty which renders their language rich among all the European languages, and their poetry divine among all poetic schools.

The passionate fondness of the Russian peasants for tea proves to me the elegance of their nature, and well accords with the description I have given of them. Tea is a refined beverage: it has become in Russia an absolute necessary. `Vhen the common people ask for drink-money, they say, for tea, na tchiai.

This instinct of good taste has no connection with mental culture; it does not even exclude barbarism and cruelty, but it excludes vulgarity.

The spectacle now before my eyes proves to me the truth of what I have always heard respecting the Russians' singular dexterity and industry.

A Muscovite peasant makes it a principle to recognise no obstacles,—I do not mean to his own desires, unhappy creature ! but to the orders he receives. Aided by his inseparable hatchet, he becomes a kind of magician, who creates in a moment all that is wanted in the desert. He repairs your carriage, or, if it is beyond repair, lie makes another, a kind of telega, skilfully availing himself of the remains of the old one in the construction of the new. I was advised in Moscow to travel in a tarandasse, and I should have done well to have followed that advice; for, with such an equipage, there is never danger of stopping on the road. It can be repaired, and even re- constructed, by every Russian peasant.

OF THE PEASANTS.167

If you wish to encamp, this universal genius will build you a dwelling for the night, and one that will be preferable to the taverns in the towns. After having established you as comfortably as you can expect to be, he wraps himself in his sheep-skin and sleeps at the door of your new house, of which he defends the entrance with the fidelity of a dog; or else he will seat himself at the foot of a tree before the abode that he has erected for you, and, while continuing to gaze at the sky, he will relieve the soliuide of your lodging by national songs, the melancholy of which awakes a respond in the gentlest instincts of your heart; for an innate gift of music is still one of the prerogatives of this privileged race. The idea that it would be only just that he should share with you the cabin built by his hands will never enter his head.

ЛУШ these elites of their race remain much longer concealed in the deserts where Providence, with some design of its own, keeps them in reserve ? Providence can only answer! The question as to when the hour of deliverance, and, yet more, of triumph, shall strike for them, is a secret with God.

I am struck with the simplicity of the ideas and sentiments of these men. God, the King of heaven ; the Czar, the king of earth — this is all their theory: the orders, and even the caprices, of the master sanctioned by the obedience of the slave; this suffices for their practice. The Russian ?)easant believes that he owes both body and soul to his lord.

Conforming to this social devotion, he lives without joy, but not without pride; for pride is the moral element essential to the life of the intelligent bein<i.

168HUMILITY OF THE PEASANTS.

It takes every kind of form, even the form of humility, — that religious modesty discovered by Christians.

A Russian does not know what it is to say no to this lord, who represents to him his two other greater masters, God and the Emperor; and he places all his talent, all his glory, in eoncµiering those little difficulties of existence that are magnified, and even valued, by the lower orders of other lands, as auxiliaries in their revenge against the rich, whom they consider as enemies, because they are esteemed the happy of the earth.

The Russians are too completely stripped of all the blessings of life to be envious: the men who are most to be pitied are those who no longer complain. The envious among us are those whose ambitious aims have failed: France, that land of easy living and rapid fortune-making, is a nursery of envious people. I cannot feel sympathy with the regrets, full of malice, that prey on these men, whose souls are enervated by the luxuries of life ; but the patience of the peasants here, inspires me with a compassion — I had almost said, with an esteem that is profound. The political self-denial of the Russians is abject and revolting; their domestic resignation is noble and