do they have recourse to the voice: the reins and the bit are their only instruments. One may traverse Petersburg for hours without hearing a single shout. If the pedestrians do not get out of the way sufficiently quickly, the fiilleiter, or postillion, utters a little yelp, like the sharp cry of a marmot roused in his nest, on hearing which every one gives way, and the carriage rushes past without having once slackened its speed.
The carriages are in general void of all taste, badly furnished, and badly kept. If brought from England they do not long resist the wear and tear of the
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pavement of Petersburg. The harness is strong, and at the same time lm`ht and elegant: it is made of ex- cellent leather ; in short, notwithstanding the want of taste, and the negligence of the servants, the
They only harness four horses abreast for long journeys. In Petersburg they are placed two and two; the traces by which they are attached are long beyond all proportion. The child who guides them is, like the coachman, dressed in the Persian robe called the
I do not know how to describe the gravity, the haughty silence, the address, and the imperturbable temerity of these little Slavonian monkeys. Their pertness and dexterity are my delight every time that I go in the city, and they have, which is less often seen here than elsewhere, the appearance of being happy. It is the nature of man to experience satisfaction when what he does is done well. The Russian coachmen and postillions being the most skilful in the world, are perhaps content with their lot, however hard it may be in some respects.
It must also be observed that those in the service of the nobles pique themselves on their personal appearance, and take pains with it; but those who ply on hire, excite, as do also their unfortunate horses, my sincere pity. They remain in the street from morning till evening, at the door of the person who lets them out, or on the stands assigned by the police. о 5
298the emperor's bed.
The horses eat always in harness, and the men always on their scat. I pity the former more than the latter, for the Russians have a taste for servitude.
The coachmen live, however, in this manner only during the summer. In the winter, sheds are built in the midst of the most frequented squares, and near the theatres, and the palaces where fetes are most frequently given. Around this shelter, large fires are lighted, where the servants warm themselves ; nevertheless, in ¦the month of January, scarcely a night passes on which there is a ball, without a man or two dying of cold in the streets.
A lady, more sincere than others to whom I addressed questions on this subject, replied, ' It is possible, bit I have never heard it talked about.' A denial which involved a strange avowal. It is necessary to visit this city in order to learn the extent to which the rich man will carry his contempt for the life of the poor, and the slight value which life in general has in the eyes of men condemned to live under absolutism.
In Russia existence is painful to every body. The Emperor is scarcely less inured to fatigue than the lowest of his serfs. I have been shown his bed, the hardness of which would astonish our common labourers. Here every one is obliged to repeat to himself the stern truth, that the object of life is not to be found on earth, and that the means of attaining it is not pleasure. The inexorable image of duty and of submission appears at each instant, and makes it impossible to forget the hard condition of human existence — labour and sorrow !
If for a moment, in the midst of a public prome-
POETICAL ASPECT OF THE LAND.299
nade, the appearance of a few idlers should inspire the illusive idea that there may be in Russia, as elsewhere, men who amuse themselves for the sake of amusement, men who make pleasure a business, I am soon undeceived by the sight of some feldjager, passing rapidly in his telega. The feldjager is the representative of power — he is the word of the sovereign : a living telegraph, he proceeds to bear an order to another similar automaton, who awaits him, perhaps, a thousand leagues off, and who is as ignorant as himself of the thoughts that put them both in motion. The telega, in which the man of iron travels, is of all travelling vehicles the most uncomfortable. It consists of a little cart with two leather seats, without springs or back. No other kind of carriage could stand the roads of this savage empire. The first seat is that of the coachman, who is changed at each stage ; the second is reserved for the courier, who travels till he dies; and among men devoted to such a life this happens early.
Those whom I see rapidly traversing in every direction the fine streets of this city, seem to represent the solitudes in which they are about to plunge. I follow them in imagination, and at the end of their course appears to me Siberia, Kamtschatka, the Salt Desert, theAVall of China, Lapland, the Frozen Ocean, Nova Zembla, Persia, or the Caucasus. These historical or, almost, fabulous names, produce on my imagination the effect of a dim and vapoury distance in a vast landscape, and engender a species of reverie which oppresses my spirits. Nevertheless, the apparition of such blind, deaf, and dumb couriers is a poetical aliment, constantly presented to the mind О 6
300POETICAL ASPECT OF THE LAND.
of the stranger. This man, born to live and die in his telega, imparts of himself a melancholy interest to the humblest scene of life. Nothing prosaic can subsist in the mind when in the presence of so much suffering and so much grandeur. It must be owned
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that if despotism renders unhappy the people that it oppresses, it is conducive to the amusement of travellers, whom it fills with an astonishment ever new. Where there is liberty, every thing is published and speedily forgotten, for every thing is seen at a glance , but, under an absolute government, every thing is concealed, and therefore every thing is conjectured : the greater the mystery, the greater the curiosity, which is enhanced even by the necessary absence of apparent interest.
Russia has no past history, say the lovers of antiquity. True, but the immense field she occupies, and the prospect of the future, might serve as a pasture for the most ardent imaginations. The jiliilo-sopher in Russia is to be pitied, the poet there may and ought to be gratified.
The only poets really unhappy, are those condemned to languish under a system of publicity. When all the world may say what they please, the poet must hold his peace. Poetry is a mystery which serves to express more than words; it cannot subsist among a people who have lost the modesty of thought. Vision, allegory, apologue, are the truth of poetry ; and in a country where publicity pervades every thing this truth is destroyed by reality, which is always coarse and repulsive to the eye of fancy.
Nature must have implanted a sentiment profoundly poetical in the souls of this satirical and me-
ARCHITECTS OF PETERSBURG. 301
lancholy people, or they could never have found the means of giving an original and picturesque aspect to cities built by men entirely destitute of imagination: and this in the most flat, dull, naked and monotonous region in the earth. Nevertheless, if I eoiud describe Petersburg as I see it, I should draw a picture in every line ; so strikingly has the genius of the Slavonian race reacted against the sterile mania of its government. This anti-national government advances only by military evolutions : it reminds one of Prussia under its first king.
I have been describing a city without character, rather pompous than imposing, more vast than beautiful, and
