by Divine equity. It is this tolerated barbarity which makes me regret the narrow limits of my eloquence: a Rousseau or a Sterne would know how to make the reader weep over the fate of these poor Kirguis horses, destined to carry, in Europe, men as much slaves as themselves, but whose condition к 4
200THE PAIR AFTER SUNSET.
does not always deserve as great pity as that of the enslaved brute.
Towards evening the aspect of the plain became imposing. The horizon was lightly veiled in mist, which afterwards fell in dew on the dust of Nijni, a kind of fine brown sand, the reflection of which imparted to the heavens a reddish tint. The depths of the shade were pierced by the fantastic light of a multitude of lamps in the bivouacs by which the fair was surrounded. Everything had a voice;—from the distant forest, from the bosom of the inhabited river, a murmur brought to the attentive ear the sounds of life. What an imposing gathering together of mankind ! what different languages and contrasting habits ! and yet what uniformity of sentiments and ideas. The object of this great meeting, of each individual it comprised, was simply to gain a little money. Elsewhere the gaiety of the people conceals their cupidity; here commerce stands naked, and the sterile rapacity of the merchant predominates over the frivolity of the lounger: nothing is poetical; everything is mercenary. I am wrong, — the poetry of fear and of sorrow is at the bottom of everything in this country : but where is the voice that dares express it ? Nevertheless, there are a few pictures to console the imagination and to refresh the eye.
On the roads which connect the different merchant-encampments, may be seen long files of singular vehicles, being pairs of wheels united by ah axle, which, when attached to others, so as to form an equipage of four or six wheels, had served to carry the beams and poles used in the construction of some of the temporary erections of the fair. They return
EFFECT OF MUSIC IN RUSSIA.201
thus detached, drawn by one horse, guided by men who stand upright on the axle, balancing themselves with a savage grace, and managing their half-broken steeds with a dexterity I have seen nowhere but in Russia. They remind me of the charioteers of the Byzantian circus; their shirts form a Greek tunic that is truly antique. As the Russian female peasants are the only women on earth who make themselves a waist above the bosom, so are their male relatives the only men I have ever seen who wear their shirts over their pantaloons.
In wandering at night about the fair, I was struck with the brilliancy of the eating-booths, the little theatres, the taverns, and the coffee-houses. But from the midst of so much light there rose no sound save a dull suppressed murmur; and the contrast formed by the illumination of the place, and the taciturnity of the people, gave the idea of magic. I could have believed the human beings had been touched by the wand of an enchanter. The men of Asia continue o·rave and serious, even in their diversions : and the Russians are Asiatics, drilled, but not civilised.
I am never tired of hearing their popular songs. The value of music is doubled in a place where a hundred different communities are drawn together by their common interests, though divided by their language and religion. When speech serves only to separate meji, they sing to understand each other. Music is the antidote of sophistry ; whence the ever-increasing vogue of this art in Europe. There is, in the pieces executed by the mugics of the Volga, an extraordinary complexity, evolving effects of harmony which, notwithstanding, or perhaps owing to к 5
202
THE FAIR AT NIGHT.
their rudeness, we should call scientific in a church or a theatre. These melodies are not sweetly inspired; but, at a distance, the numerous voices counteracting each other in choruses, remarkable for the mournfulness of the accords, produce a novel and profound impression upon us Western people. The plaintive sadness of the sounds is not diminished by the decoration of the scene. A thick forest of masts bounds the view on two sides; on the other, a solitary plain, lost in a forest of firs : by degrees the lights are seen to diminish; at length they become extinguished; the obscurity heightens the effect of the eternal silence of these pale regions, and spreads in the soul a new surprise : night is the mother of astonishment. All the scenes that a short time before animated the desert are effaced; vague recollections succeed to the movements of life; and the traveller finds himself alone with the Russian police, who render the darkness doubly fearful: he believes himself in a dream, and regains his lodging, his mind full of poetiy, that is, of a vague fear, and of mournful presentiments. It is impossible for a moment to forget, while travelling over Russia, that the people are Orientals, who in their former migrations lost their road, and whose chiefs, by mistake, led towards the north, a people born to live in the sun.
FINANCIAL PHENOMENON.203
FINANCIAL PHENOMENONFINANCIAL REFORM OF THE EMPEROR`S.
MEANS TAKEN BY THE GOVERNOR OF NIJNI TO INDUCE THE
MERCHANTS TO OBEY. THEIR NOMINAL COMPLIANCE.EN
QUIRY INTO THEIR MOTIVES.IMPROVEMENTS AT NIJNI. — THE
SERF AND THE LORD.THE GOVERNOR OF NIJNI`S EXPLANATIONS
OF DESPOTIC ADMINISTRATION. FORBEARANCE OF THE AU
THORITIES. — A RIDE WITH THE GOVERNOR. VALUE OF THE
COMMODITIES AT THE FAIR OF •NIJNI.PORTRAIT OF FRENCH
MEN OF THE NEW S`CHOOL. AN AGREEABLE RENCONTRE.
DINNER AT THE GOVERNOR'S. ENGLISH ODDITIESANECDOTE
TOLD BY A POLISH LADY. THE UTILITY OF EASY MANNERS.
VISITS WITH THE GOVERNOR. THE BUREAUCRACY.THE
AUTHOR'S FELDJAGER. FLAG OF MININE.BAD FAITH OF THE
GOVERNMENT. — MODERN VANDALISM.PETER THE GREAT.
FRENCH CHARACTER. THE TRUE GLORY OF NATIONS. THE
KREMLIN OF NIJNI. THE GOVERNOR'S CAMP. SONG OF THE
SOLDIERS. — CHURCH OF THE STROGONOFFS. — RUSSIAN VAUDEVILLE.
This year, immediately before opening the fair, the governor called around him the ablest commercial heads in Russia, then assembled together at Nijni, and laid before them, in detail, the long-ago-acknowledged and deplored inconveniences of the monetary system of the empire.
The reader is, aware that there are in Russia two representative signs of commodities — paper and silver money ; but he, perhaps, does not know that the latter, by a singularity that is unique, I believe, in financial history, is constantly varying in value, whilst the worth of the former remains fixed. Nothing but a к 6
204 FINANCIAL REFORM OF THE EMPEROR'S.
profound study of the political economy of the country could explain another very extraordinary fact resulting from this singularity, namely, that in Russia, the specie represents the paper, although the latter wras only instituted, and only legally exists to represent the former.
Having explained this anomaly to his auditors, and expatiated on all the mischievous consequences arising therefrom, the governor added that the emperor, in his constant solicitude for his people and for the order of his
