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

customs, and finally the Comptroller himself. This important personage considered himself obliged to pay us a visit on account of the illustrious Russian passengers on board. He conversed for a long time with the returned princes and princesses. They talked in Russian, probably because the politics of the West were the subject of their discourse ; but when the conversation fell on the troubles of landing and the necessity of leaving our carriages at Kronstadt, French was freely spoken.

The Travemunde packet draws too much water to ascend the Neva, the passengers, therefore, have to proceed by a smaller steamer, which is dirty and ill-constructed. We are allowed to carry with us our lighter baggage, after it has been examined by the officers. When this formality is concluded we leave for Petersburg, with the hope that our carriages left

ABJECT CHARACTER OF RUSSIAN EMPLOYES. 121

in the charge of these people, may arrive safely on the morrow.

The Russian princes were obliged, like myself, to submit to the laws of the custom-house, but on arriving at Petersburg I had the mortification of seeing them released in three minutes, whilst I had to struggle with every species of trickery for the space of three hours.

A multitude of little superfluous precautions engender here a population of deputies and sub-officials, each of whom acquits himself with an air of importance and a rigorous precision, which seemed to say, rhough everything is done with much silence, ' Make way, I am one of the members of the grand machine of state.'

Such members, acting under an influence which is not in themselves, in a manner resembling the wheel-work of a clock, are called men in Russia! The sight of these voluntary automata inspires me with a kind of fear: there is something supernatural in an individual reduced to the state of a mere machine. If, in lands where the mechanical arts flourish, wood and metal seem endowed with human powers, under despotisms, human beings seem to become as instruments of wood. TVe ask ourselves, what can become of their superfluity of thought ? and we feel ill at ease at the thought of the influence that must have been exerted on intelligent creatures before they could have been reduced to mere tilings. In Russia I pity the human beings, as in England I feared the machines : in the latter country, the creations of man lack nothing but the gift of speech; here, the gift of speech is a thing unnecessary to the creatures of the state.

VOL. I.G

122INQUISITIONS OF THE POLICE,

These machines, clogged with the inconvenience of a soul, are, however, marvellously polite; it is easy to see they have been trained to civility, as to the management of arms, from their cradle. But of what value are the forms of urbanity when their origin savours of compulsion ? The free-will of man is the consecration that can alone impart a worth or a meaning to human actions; the power of choosing a master can alone give a value to fidelity; and since, in Russia, an inferior chooses nothing, all that he says and does is worthless and unmeaning.

The numerous questions I had to meet, and the precautionary forms that it was necessary to pass through, warned me that I was entering the Empire of Fear, and depressed my spirits.

I was obliged to appear before an Areopagus of deputies who had assembled to interrogate the passengers. The members of this formidable rather than imposing tribunal Avere seated before a large table; some of them were turning over the leaves of the register with an attention which had a sinister appearance, for their ostensible employ was not sufficient to account for so much gravity.

Some, with pen in hand, listened to the replies of the passengers, or rather the accused, for every stranger is [treated as culpable on arriving at the Russian frontier. All the answers were carefully written down, and the passports minutely examined, and detained, under the promise that they would be returned at Petersburg.

These formalities being satisfied, we proceeded on board the new steam-boat. Hour after hour elapsed, and still there was no talk of starting. Every mo-

AJSTD OF THE CUSTOM-HOUSE.123

ment fresh boats proceeded from the city, and rowed towards us. Although we were moored close to the walls, the silence was profound. No voice issued from this tomb. The shadows that were gliding in their boats around were equally silent. They were clad in coarse capotes of grey wool, their faces lacked expression, their eyes possessed no fire, their complexion was of a green or yellow hue ; I was told that they were sailors attached to the garrison, but they more resembled soldiers. Sometimes the boats passed round us in silence, sometimes six or a dozen ragged boatmen, half covered with sheep-skins, the wool turned within, and the filthy skin appearing without, brought us some new police agent, or tardy custom-house officer. These arrivals and departures, though they did not accelerate our matters, at least gave me leisure to reflect on the species of filthiness peculiar to the people of the North. Those of the South pass their life in the open air half naked, or in the water; those of the North, for the most part shut up within doors, have a greasy dirtiness, which appears to me far more offensive than the neglect of a people destined to live beneath the open heaven, and born to bask in the sun.

The tedium to which these Russian formalities condemned us, gave me also an opportunity of remarking that the great lords of the country were little inclined to bear patiently the inconveniences of public regulations, when those regulations proved inconvenient to themselves.

' Russia is the land of useless formalities,' they murmured among themselves — but in French, that they might not be overheard by the subaltern em-G 2

124MORE CUSTOM-HOUSE ANNOYANCES.

ployes. I have retained the remark, with the justice of which my own experience has only too deeply impressed me. As far as I have been hitherto able to observe, a work that should be entitled The Russians judged by Themselves, would be severe. The love of their country is with them only a mode of flattering its master; as soon as they think that master can no longer hear, they speak of every tiling with a frankness which is the more startling because those who listen to it become responsible.

The cause of all our delay was at length revealed. The chief of chiefs, the director of the directors of the custom-house again presented himself: it was this visit we had been awaiting so long, without knowing it. At first it appeared as if the only business of the great functionary was to play the part of the man of fashion among the Russian ladies. He

reminded the Princess Dof their rencontre in a

house where the Princess had never been ; he spoke to her of court balls she had never seen : but while continuing to dispense these courtly airs, our drawing-room offieer of the customs would now and then gracefully confiscate a parasol, stop a portmanteau, or recommence, with an imperturbable sang froid, the researches already conscientiously made by his subordinates.

In Russian administration, minuteness does not exclude disorder. Much trouble is taken to attain unimportant ends, and those employed believe they can never do enough to show their zeal. The result of this emulation among clerks and commissioners is, that the having passed through one formality does not secure the stranger from another. It is like a pil-

CHANGE IN FELLOW-TRAVELLEKS.12u

lage, in which, after the unfortunate wight has escaped from the first troop, he may yet fall into the hands of a second and a third.