speak of twelve hundred, others of two thousand, and others again of one hundred and fifty. Imagine the uncertainty in which every thing must be involved, when the circumstances of an event that took place, as it were, under our eyes, will always remain D 5
58DEATH OF TWO ENGLISHMEN.
unknown, even to ourselves. I shall never cease to marvel at having seen a people exist, so thoughtless as readily and tranquilly to live and die in the twilight which the policy of its masters accords it. Hitherto I had been accustomed to believe that man could no more dispense with truth for his mind than with sun and air for his body; but my Russian journey has undeceived me. Truth is only needful to elevated minds or to advanced nations; the vulgar accommodate themselves to the falsehoods favourable to their passions and habits; here, to lie, is to protect society, to speak the truth is to overthrow the state. The twilight of politics is less transparent than the polar sky.
For the authenticity of one of the accidents connected with the catastrophe of PeterhoiF I can vouch.
Three young Englishmen, the eldest of whom I know, had been some days in Petersburg. Their father is in England, and their mother waits them at Carlsbad. On the day of the fete, the two youngest sailed for PeterhoiF without their brother, who constantly refused their solicitations to accompany them, alleging that he felt no curiosity. He валу them embark in their little vessel, and bade them adieu until the morrow. Three hours afterwards both were corpses ! They perished together with several women and children and two or three men, who wTere in the same boat; a sailor, who was a good swimmer, was alone saved. The unhappy surviving brother is plunged in a despair which would be difficult to describe. He is preparing to leave, to join his mother and apprise her of the melancholy tidings. She had written to her sons desiring them not to omit seeing
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the fete of Peterhoff, nor to hurry their departure, should their curiosity incline them to prolong their stay, intimating that she would wait patiently for them at Carlsbad. A little more urgency on her part would perhaps have saved their lives.
What numberless accounts, discussions, and proposals would not such a catastrophe have given rise to in any other land except this, and more especially in our own ! How many newspapers would have said, and how many voices would have repeated, that the police never does its duty, that the boats were not seaworthy, the watermen greedy only of gain, and that the authorities, far from interfering, did but increase the danger by their indifference or their corruption! It would have been added that the marriage of the grand-duchess had been celebrated under very gloomy auspices, like many other royal marriages ; and then, dates, allusions, and citations would have followed in great abundance. Nothing of the kind here ! A silence more frightful than the evil itself, everywhere reigns. Two lines in the Gazette, without details, is all the information publicly given ; and at court, in the city, in the saloons of fashion, not a word is spoken. There are no coffee-houses in Petersburg where people comment upon the journals ; there are indeed no journals upon which to comment. The petty employes are more timid than the great lords; what is not dared to be spoken of among the principals, is yet more carefully avoided by subordinates; and as to the merchants and shopkeepers, that wily caution necessary to all who would live and thrive in the land is, by them, especially observed. If.they speak on D 6
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grave, and therefore dangerous subjects, it is only in strict and confidential privacy.*
Russia is instructed to say nothing which could render the empress nervous; and thus is she left to live and die dancing! ' She would be distressed, therefore hold your peace.' And hereupon, children,
* I may insert here the extract of a letter received in the present year from a female friend, which, though it does not add to, may serve to illustrate what has been already said, and to give a better idea of the subjection in which minds are held in Russia than anything I can myself say. ' An Italian painter who was at Petersburg at the same time that you were, is now in Paris. lie related to me, as you had done previously, the circumstances of that catastrophe, in which about four hundred individuals perished. The painter told his story in a very low voice. ' I know all this,' I said to him, ' but why do you whisper it ?' ' О ! because the Emperor has forbidden that it should be spoken of.' This obedience, in spite of the time that had elapsed, and the distance, excited my astonishment. But you, who cannot conceal one truth, when do you mean to publish your journey ?'
I subjoin yet another illustration, taken from an article in the
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friends, relations, all who are loved, die, and no one dares to even weep for them. People here are too unfortunate to complain.
The Russians are all courtiers. Soldiers, spies, gaolers, executioners in this land all do more than their duty ; all ply their trade as parasites. ЛУЪо shall tell me to what lengths a society may not go which is not built on the foundation of human dignity ?
I repeat that as much must be undone as done, before there can be here made a people.
This time, the silence of the police is not merely the result of a desire to flatter, it is also the effect of fear. The slave dreads the angry mood of his master, and employs every effort to keep him in a state of benignity and good humour. The chains, the dungeon, the knout and Siberia, are all within reach of an irritated czar; or at the best there is the Caucasus, a Siberia mitigated to the uses of a despotism softened in accordance with the spirit of the century.
It cannot be denied that in this instance the first cause of the evil was the carelessness of the administration. If the authorities had prevented the boatmen of Petersburg from overloading their vessels, or from venturing on the gulf in craft too small or weak +o ride the waves, no one would have perished; and yet, who knows ? The Russians are generally bad seamen : wherever they are, there is danger. When Asiatics, with their long robes and long beards, are the sailors, there can be little surprise at hearing of shipwrecks.
On the day of the fete, one of the steam-boats that generally run between Petersburg and Kron-
