CHAPTER III
The Russian frontier—Frontier police—Disappointment at aspect of Petrograd—Lord and Lady Dufferin—The British Embassy—St. Isaac's Cathedral—Beauty of Russian Church-music—The Russian language—The delightful "Blue-stockings" of Petrograd—Princess Chateau—Pleasant Russian Society—The Secret Police—The Countess's hurried journey—The Yacht Club—Russians really Orientals—Their limitations—The "Intelligenzia"—My Nihilist friends—Their lack of constructive power—Easter Mass at St. Isaac's—Two comical incidents—The Easter supper—The red-bearded young priest—An Empire built on shifting sand.
Petrograd is 1,050 miles from Berlin, and forty years ago the fastest trains took forty-five hours to cover the distance between the two capitals. In later years the "Nord-Express" accomplishing the journey in twenty-nine hours.
Rolling through the flat fertile plains of East Prussia, with their neat, prosperous villages and picturesque black-and-white farms, the surroundings had such a commonplace air that it was difficult to realise that one was approaching the very threshold of the great, mysterious Northern Empire.
Eydkuhnen, the last Prussian station, was as other Prussian stations, built of trim red brick, neat, practical, and very ugly; with crowds of red-faced, amply-paunched officials, buttoned into the tightest of uniforms, perpetually saluting each other.
Wierjbolovo, or Wirballen Station as the Germans call it, a huge white building, was plainly visible only a third of a mile away. At Wirballen the German train would stop, for whereas the German railways are built to the standard European gauge of 4 feet 8½ inches, the Russian lines were laid to a gauge of 5 feet 1 inch.
This gauge had been deliberately chosen to prevent the invasion of Russia by her Western neighbour. This was to prove an absolutely illusory safeguard, for, as events have shown, nothing is easier than to narrow a railway track. To broaden it is often quite impossible. The cunning little Japs found this out during the Russo-Japanese War. They narrowed the broad Russian lines to their own gauge of 3 feet 6 inches, and then sawed off the ends of the sleepers with portable circular saws, thus making it impossible for the Russians to relay the rails on the broad gauge. I believe that the Germans adopted the same device more recently.
I think at only one other spot in the world does a short quarter of a mile result in such amazing differences in externals as does that little piece of line between Eydkuhnen and Wirballen; and that is at Linea, the first Spanish village out of Gibraltar.
Leaving the prim and starched orderliness of Gibraltar, with its thick coating of British veneer, its tidy streets and buildings enlivened with the scarlet tunics of Mr. Thomas Atkins and his brethren, you traverse the "Neutral Ground" to an iron railing, and literally pass into Spain through an iron gate. The contrast is extraordinary. It would be unfair to select Linea as a typical Spanish village; it is ugly, and lacks the picturesque features of the ordinary Andalusian village; it is also unquestionably very dirty, and very tumble-down. Between Eydkuhnen and Wirballen the contrast is just as marked. As the German train stopped, hosts of bearded, shaggy-headed individuals in high boots and long white aprons (surely a curious article of equipment for a railway porter) swooped down upon the hand-baggage; I handed my passport to a gendarme (a term confined in Russia to frontier and railway police) and passed through an iron gate into Russia.
Russia in this case was represented by a gigantic whitewashed hall, ambitious originally in design and decoration, but, like most things in Russia, showing traces of neglect and lack of cleanliness. The first exotic note was struck by a full-length, life-size ikon of the Saviour, in a solid silver frame, at the end of the hall. All my Russian fellow-travellers devoutly crossed themselves before this ikon, purchased candles at an adjoining stall, and fixed them in the silver holders before the ikon.
Behind the line of tables serving for the Customs examinations was a railed-off space, containing many desks under green-shaded lamps. Here some fifteen green-coated men whispered mysteriously to each other, referring continually to huge registers. I felt a thrill creep down my back; here I found myself at last face to face with the omnipotent Russian police. The bespectacled green-coated men scrutinised passports intently, conferred amongst themselves in whispers under the green-shaded lamps, and hunted ominously through the big registers. For the first time I became unpleasantly conscious of the existence of such places as the Fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul, and of a country called Siberia. I speculated as to whether the drawbacks of the Siberian climate had not been exaggerated, should one be compelled to make a possibly prolonged sojourn in that genial land. Above all, I was immensely impressed with the lynx-eyed vigilance and feverish activity of these green-coated guardians of the Russian frontier. From my subsequent knowledge of the ways of Russian officials, I should gather that all this feverish activity began one minute after the whistle announced the approach of the Berlin train, and ceased precisely one minute after the Petrograd train had pulled out, and that never, by any chance, did the frontier police succeed in stopping the entry of any really dangerous conspirator.
Diplomats with official passports are exempt from Customs formalities, so I passed on to the platform, thick with pungent wood-smoke, where the huge blue-painted Russian carriages smoked like volcanoes from their heating apparatus, and the gigantic wood-burning engine (built in Germany) vomited dense clouds from its funnel, crowned with a spark-arrester shaped like a mammoth tea urn, or a giant's soup tureen. Everything in this country seemed on a large scale.
In the gaunt, bare, whitewashed restaurant (these three epithets are applicable to almost every public room in Russia) with its great porcelain stove, and red lamps burning before gilded ikons, I first made the acquaintance of fresh caviar and raw herrings, of the national cabbage soup, or "shtchee," of roast ryabehiks and salted cucumbers, all destined to become very familiar. Railway restaurants in Russia are almost invariably quite excellent.
And so the train clanked out through the night, into the depths of this mysterious glamour-land.
The railway from the frontier to Petrograd runs for 550 miles through an unbroken stretch of interminable dreary swamp and forest, such as would in Canada be termed "muskag," with here and there a poor attempt at cultivation in some clearing, set about with wretched little wooden huts. After a twenty-four hours' run, without any preliminary warning whatever in the shape of suburbs, the train emerges from the forest into a huge city, with tramcars rolling in all directions, and the great golden dome of St. Isaac's blazing like a sun against the murky sky.
I had pictured Petrograd to myself as a second Paris; a city glittering with light and colour, but conceived on an infinitely more grandiose scale than the French capital.
We emerged from the station into an immensely broad street bordered by shabbily-pretentious buildings all showing signs of neglect. The atrociously uneven pavements, the general untidiness, the broad thoroughfare empty except for a lumbering cart or two, the absence of foot-passengers, and the low cotton-wool sky, all gave an effect of unutterable dreariness. And this was the golden city of my dreams! this place of leprous-fronted houses, of vast open spaces full of drifting snowflakes, and of an immense emptiness. I never was so disappointed in my life. The gilt and coloured domes of the Orthodox churches, the sheepskin-clad, red-shirted moujiks, the occasional swift-trotting Russian carriages, with their bearded and padded coachmen, were the only local touches that redeemed the streets from the absolute commonplace. The Russian lettering over the shops, which then conveyed nothing whatever to me, suggested that the alphabet, having followed the national custom and got drunk, had hastily re-affixed itself to the houses upside down. Although as the years went on I grew quite attached to Petrograd, I could never rid myself of this impression of its immense dreariness. This was due to several causes. There are hardly any stone buildings in the city, everything is of brick plastered over. Owing to climatic reasons the houses are not painted, but are daubed with colour-wash. The successive coats of colour-wash clog all the architectural features, and give the buildings a shabby look, added to which the wash flakes off under the winter snows. There is a natural craving in human nature for colour, and in a country wrapped in snow for at least four months in the year this craving finds expression in painting the roofs red, and in besmearing the houses with crude shades of red, blue, green, and yellow. The result is not a happy one. Again, owing to the intense cold, the shop-windows are all very small, and there is but little display in them. Streets and shops were alike very dimly lighted in my day, and as there is an entire absence of cafés in Petrograd, there is none of the usual glitter and glare of these places to brighten up the streets. The theatres make no display of lights, so it is not surprising that the general effect of the city is one of intense gloom. The very low, murky winter sky added to this effect of depression. Peter the Great had planned his new capital on such a gigantic scale that there were not enough inhabitants to fill its vast spaces. The conceptions were magnificent; the results disappointing. Nothing grander could be imagined than the design of the immense place opposite the Winter Palace, with Alexander I's great granite monolith towering in the midst of it, and the imposing semicircular sweep of Government Offices of uniform design enclosing it, pierced in the centre by a monumental triumphal arch crowned with a bronze quadriga. The whole effect of this was spoilt by the hideous crude shade of red with which the buildings were daubed, by the general untidiness, and by the broken, uneven pavement; added to which this huge area was usually untenanted, except by a lumbering cart or two, by a solitary stray "istvoschik," and an occasional muffled-up pedestrian. The Petrograd of reality was indeed very different from the sumptuous city of my dreams.
For the second time I was extraordinarily lucky in my Chief. Our relations with Russia had, during the "'seventies," been strained almost to the breaking point. War had on several occasions seemed almost inevitable between the two countries.
Russians, naturally enough, had shown their feelings of hostility to their potential enemies by practically boycotting the entire British Embassy. The English Government had then made a very wise choice, and had appointed to the Petrograd Embassy the one man capable of smoothing these troubled relations. The late Lord Dufferin was not then a diplomat by profession. He had just completed his term of office as Governor-General of Canada, where, as in every position he had previously occupied, he had been extraordinarily successful. Lord Dufferin had an inexhaustible fund of patience, blended with the most perfect tact; he had a charm of manner no human being could resist; but under it all lay an inflexible will. No man ever understood better the use of the iron hand under the velvet glove, and in a twelvemonth from the date of his arrival in Petrograd he had succeeded not only in gaining the confidence of official Russia, but also in re-establishing the most cordial relations with Russian society. In this he was very ably seconded by Lady Dufferin, who combined a perfectly natural manner with quiet dignity and a curious individual charm. Both Lord and Lady Dufferin enjoyed dancing, skating, and tobagganing as wholeheartedly as though they were children.
Our Petrograd Embassy was a fine old house, with a pleasant intimate character about it lacking in the more ornate building at Berlin. It contained a really beautiful snow-white ball-room, and all the windows fronted the broad, swift-flowing Neva, with the exquisitely graceful slender gilded spire of the Fortress Church, towering three hundred feet aloft, opposite them. We had a very fine collection of silver plate at the Embassy. This plate, valued at £30,000, was the property of our Government, and had been sent out sixty years previously by George IV, who understood the importance attached by Russians to externals. We had also a small set, just sufficient for two persons, of real gold plates. These solid gold plates were only used by the Emperor and Empress on the very rare occasions when they honoured the Embassy with their presence. I wonder what has happened to that gold service now!
Owing to the constant tension of the relations between Great Britain and Russia, our work at the Petrograd Embassy was very heavy indeed at that time. We were frequently kept up till 2 a.m. in the Chancery, cyphering telegrams. All important written despatches between London and Petrograd either way were sent by Queen's Messenger open to Berlin, "under Flying Seal," as it is termed. The Berlin Embassy was thus kept constantly posted as to Russian affairs. After reading our open despatches, both to and from London, the Berlin Embassy would seal them up in a special way. We also got duplicates, in cypher, of all telegrams received in London the previous day from the Paris, Vienna, Berlin, and Constantinople Embassies which bore in any way on Russia or the Eastern Question. This gave us two or three hours' work decyphering every day. Both cyphering and decyphering require the closest concentration, as one single mistake may make nonsense of the whole thing; it is consequently exhausting work. We were perfectly well aware that the Russian Government had somehow obtained possession of one of our codes. This particular "compromised code" was only used by us for transmitting intelligence which the Russians were intended to know. They could hardly blame us should they derive false impressions from a telegram of ours which they had decyphered with a stolen code, nor could they well admit that they had done this.
As winter came on, I understood why Russians are so fond of gilding the domes and spires of their churches. It must be remembered that Petrograd lies on parallel 60° N. In December it only gets four hours of very uncertain daylight, and the sun is so low on the horizon that its rays do not reach the streets of the city. It is then that the gilded domes flash and glitter, as they catch the beams of the unseen sun. When the long golden needle of the Fortress Church blazed like a flaming torch or a gleaming spear of fire against the murky sky, I thought it a splendid sight, as was the great golden dome of St. Isaac's scintillating like a second sun over the snow-clad roofs of the houses.
Soon after my arrival I went to the vast church under the gilded dome to hear the singing of the far-famed choir of St. Isaac's.
Here were none of the accessories to which I had been accustomed; no seats; no organ; no pulpit; no side-chapels. A blue haze of incense drifted through the twilight of the vague spaces of the great building; a haze glowing rosily where the red lamps burning before the jewelled ikons gave a faint-dawnlike effect in the semi-darkness. Before me the great screen of the "ikonostas" towered to the roof, with its eight malachite columns forty feet high, and its two smaller columns of precious lapis lazuli flanking the "Royal doors" into the sanctuary. Surely Montferrand, the Frenchman, had designedly steeped the cathedral he had built in perpetual twilight. In broad daylight the juxtaposition of these costly materials, with their discordant colours, would have been garish, even vulgar. Now, barely visible in the shadows, they, the rich mosaics, the masses of heavily-gilt bronze work in the ikonostas, gave an impression of barbaric magnificence and immense splendour. The jasper and polychrome Siberian marbles with which the cathedral was lined, the gold and silver of the jewelled ikons, gleaming faintly in the candle-light, strengthened this impression of sumptuous opulence. Then the choir, standing before the ikonostas, burst into song. The exquisitely beautiful singing of the Russian Church was a perfect revelation to me. I would not have believed it possible that unaccompanied human voices could have produced so entrancing an effect. As the "Cherubic Hymn" died away in softest pianissimo, its echoes floating into the misty vastness of the dome, a deacon thundered out prayers in a ringing bass, four tones deeper than those a Western European could compass. The higher clergy, with their long flowing white beards, jewelled crowns, and stiffly-archaic vestments of cloth of gold and silver, seemed to have stepped bodily out of the frame of an ikon; and the stately ritual of the Eastern Church gave me an impression as of something of immemorial age, something separated by the gap of countless centuries from our own prosaic epoch; and through it all rose again and again the plaintive response of the choir, "Gospodi pomiloi," "Lord have mercy," exquisitely sung with all the tenderness and pathos of muted strings.
This was at last the real Russia of my dreams. It was all as I had vaguely pictured it to myself; the densely-packed congregation, with sheepskin-clad peasant and sable-coated noble standing side by side, all alike joining in the prescribed genuflections and prostrations of the ritual; the singing-boys, with their close-cropped heads and curious long blue dressing-gowns; the rolling consonants of the Old Slavonic chanted by the priests; all this was really Russia, and not a bastard imitation of an exotic Western civilisation like the pseudo-classic city outside.
Two years later, Arthur Sullivan, the composer, happened to be in Petrograd, and I took him to the practice of the Emperor's private church choir. Sullivan was passionately devoted to unaccompanied part-singing, and those familiar with his delightful light operas will remember how he introduced into almost every one of them an unaccompanied madrigal, or a sextet. Sullivan told me that he would not have believed it possible for human voices to obtain the string-like effect of these Russian choirs. He added that although six English singing-boys would probably evolve a greater body of sound than twelve Russian boys, no English choir-boy could achieve the silvery tone these musical little Muscovites produced.
People ignorant of the country have a foolish idea that all Russians can speak French. That may be true of one person in two thousand of the whole population. The remainder only speak their native Russ. Not one cabman in Petrograd could understand a syllable of any foreign language, and though in shops, very occasionally, someone with a slight knowledge of German might be found, it was rare. All the waiters in Petrograd restaurants were yellow-faced little Mohammedan Tartars, speaking only Russian and their own language. I determined therefore to learn Russian at once, and was fortunate in finding a very clever teacher. All men should learn a foreign language from a lady, for natural courtesy makes one listen to what she is saying; whereas with a male teacher one's attention is apt to wander. The patient elderly lady who taught me knew neither English nor French, so we used German as a means of communication. Thanks to Madame Kumin's intelligence, and a considerable amount of hard work on my own part, I was able to pass an examination in Russian in eleven months, and to qualify as Interpreter to the Embassy. The difficulties of the Russian language are enormously exaggerated. The pronunciation is hard, as are the terminations; and the appalling length of Russian words is disconcerting. In Russian, great emphasis is laid on one syllable of a word, and the rest is slurred over. It is therefore vitally important (should you wish to be understood) to get the emphasis on the right syllable, and for some mysterious reason no foreigner, even by accident, ever succeeds in pronouncing a Russian name right. It is Schouvaloff, not Schòuvaloff; Brusìl-off, not Brùsiloff; Demìd-off, not Dèmidoff. The charming dancer's name is Pàv-Lova, not Pavlòva; her equally fascinating rival is Karsàv-ina, not Karsavìna. I could continue the list indefinitely. Be sure of one thing; however the name is pronounced by a foreigner, it is absolutely certain to be wrong.
What a wise man he was who first said that for every fresh language you learn you acquire a new pair of eyes and a new pair of ears; I felt immensely elated when I found that I could read the cabalistic signs over the shops as easily as English lettering.
A relation of mine had given me a letter of introduction to Princess B——. Now this old lady, though she but seldom left her own house, was a very great power indeed in Petrograd, and was universally known as the "Princesse Château." For some reason or another, I was lucky enough to find favour in this dignified old lady's eyes. She asked me to call on her again, and at our second meeting invited me to her Sunday evenings. The Princesse Château's Sunday evenings were a thing quite apart. They were a survival in Petrograd of the French eighteenth century literary "salons," but devoid of the faintest flavour of pedantry or priggism. Never in my life, before or since, have I heard such wonderfully brilliant conversation, for, with the one exception of myself, the Princesse Château tolerated no dull people at her Sundays. She belonged to a generation that always spoke French amongst themselves, and imported their entire culture from France. Peter the Great had designed St. Petersburg as a window through which to look on Europe, and the tradition of this amongst the educated classes was long in dying out. The Princess assembled some thirty people every Sunday, all Russians, with the exception of myself. These people discussed any and every subject—literature, art, music, and philosophy—with sparkling wit, keen critical instinct, and extraordinary felicity of phrase, usually in French, sometimes in English, and occasionally in Russian. Their knowledge seemed encyclopædic, and they appeared equally at home in any of the three languages. They greatly appreciated a neatly-turned epigram, or a novel, crisply-coined definition. Any topic, however, touching directly or indirectly on the external or internal policy of Russia was always tacitly avoided. My rôle was perforce reduced to that of a listener, but it was a perfectly delightful society. Princesse Château had a very fine suite of rooms on the first floor of her house, decorated "at the period" in Louis XVI style by imported French artists; these rooms still retained their original furniture and fittings, and were a museum of works of art; but her Sunday evenings were always held in the charming but plainly-furnished rooms which she herself inhabited on the ground floor. We had one distinct advantage over the old French salons, for Princesse Château entertained her guests every Sunday to suppers which were justly celebrated in the gastronomic world of Petrograd. During supper the conversation proceeded just as brilliantly as before. There were always two or three Grand Duchesses present, for to attend Princesse Château's Sundays was a sort of certificate of culture. The Grand Duchesses were treated quite unceremoniously, beyond receiving a perfunctory "Madame" in each sentence addressed to them. How curious that, both in English and French, the highest title of respect should be plain "Madame"! As the Russian equivalent is "Vashoe Imperatorskoe Vuisochestvo," a considerable expenditure of time and breath was saved by using the terser French term. And through it all moved the mistress of the house, the stately little smiling old lady, in her plain black woollen dress and lace cap, dropping here a quaint criticism, there an apt bon-mot. Perfectly charming people!
The relatives and friends of Princesse Château whom I met at her house, when they discovered that I had a genuine liking for their country, and that I did not criticise details of Russian administration, were good enough to open their houses to me in their turn. Though most of these people owned large and very fine houses, they opened them but rarely to foreigners. They gave, very occasionally, large entertainments to which they invited half Petrograd, including the Diplomatic Body, but there they stopped. They did not care, as a rule, to invite foreigners to share the intimacy of their family life. I was very fortunate therefore in having an opportunity of seeing a phase of Russian life which few foreigners have enjoyed. Russians seldom do things by halves. I do not believe that in any other country in the world could a stranger have been made to feel himself so thoroughly at home amongst people of a different nationality, and with such totally different racial ideals; or have been treated with such constant and uniform kindness. There was no ceremony whatever on either side, and on the Russian side, at times, an outspokenness approaching bluntness. As I got to know these cultivated, delightful people well, I grew very fond of them. They formed a clique, possibly a narrow clique, amongst themselves, and had that complete disregard for outside criticism which is often found associated with persons of established position. They met almost nightly at each others' houses, and I could not but regret that such beautiful and vast houses should be seen by so few people. One house, in particular, contained a staircase an exact replica of a Grecian temple in white statuary Carrara marble, a thing of exquisite beauty. In their perpetual sets of intellectual lawn tennis, if I may coin the term, the superiority of the feminine over the male intellects was very marked. This is, I believe, a characteristic of all Slavonic countries, and I recalled Bismarck's dictum that the Slav peoples were essentially feminine, and I wondered whether there could be any connection between the two points. Living so much with Russians, it was impossible not to fall into the Russian custom of addressing them by their Christian names and patronymics; such as "Maria Vladimirovna" (Mary daughter of Vladimir) or "Olga Andreèvna" (Olga daughter of Andrew) or "Pavel Alexandrovitch" (Paul son of Alexander). I myself became Feòdor Yàkovlevitch, (Frederic son of James, those being the nearest Russian equivalents). On arriving at a house, the proper form of inquiry to the hall porter was, "Ask Mary daughter of Vladimir if she will receive Frederic son of James." In due time the answer came, "Mary daughter of Vladimir begs Frederic son of James to go upstairs." My own servants always addressed me punctiliously as Feòdor Yàkovlevitch. On giving them an order they would answer in Moscovite fashion, "I hear you, Frederic son of James," the equivalent to our prosaic, "Very good, sir." Amongst my new friends, as at the Princesse Château's, no allusions whatever, direct or indirect, were made to internal conditions in Russia. Apart from the fact that one of these new friends was himself Minister of the Interior at the time, it would not have been safe. In those days the Secret Police, or "Third Section," as they were called, were very active, and their ramifications extended everywhere. One night at a supper party a certain Countess B—— criticised in very open and most unflattering terms a lady to whom the Emperor Alexander II was known to be devotedly attached. Next morning at 8 a.m. the Countess was awakened by her terrified maid, who told her that the "Third Section" were there and demanded instant admittance. Two men came into the Countess's bedroom and informed her that their orders were that she was to take the 12.30 train to Europe that morning. They would remain with her till then, and would accompany her to the frontier. As she would not be allowed to return to Russia for twelve months, they begged her to order her maid to pack what was necessary; and no one knew better than Countess B—— how useless any attempted resistance would be.
This episode made a great stir at the time. As the words complained of had been uttered about 3 a.m., the police action had been remarkably prompt. The informant must have driven straight from the supper party to the "Third Section," and everyone in Petrograd had a very distinct idea who the informant was. Is it necessary to add that she was a lady?
Some of my new friends volunteered to propose and second me for the Imperial Yacht Club. This was not the club that the diplomats usually joined; it was a purely Russian club, and, in spite of its name, had no connection with yachting. It had also the reputation of being extremely exclusive, but thanks to my Russian sponsors, I got duly elected to it. This was, I am sure, the most delightful club in Europe. It was limited to 150 members of whom only two, besides myself, were foreigners, and the most perfect camaraderie existed between the members. The atmosphere of the place was excessively friendly and intimate, and the building looked more like a private house than a club, as deceased members had bequeathed to it pictures, a fine collection of old engravings, some splendid old Beauvais tapestry, and a great deal of Oriental porcelain. Above all, we commanded the services of the great Armand, prince of French chefs. Associating so much with Russians, it was possible to see things from their points of view. They all had an unshakable belief in the absolute invincibility of Russia, and in her complete invulnerability, for it must not be forgotten that in 1880 Russia had never yet been defeated in any campaign, except partially in the Crimean War of 1854-50. My friends did not hide their convictions that it was Russia's manifest destiny to absorb in time the whole of the Asiatic Continent, including India, China, and Turkey. There were grounds for this article of faith, for in 1880 Russia's bloodless absorption of vast territories in Central Asia had been astounding. It was not until the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905 that the friable clay feet of the Northern Colossus were revealed to the outside world, though those with a fairly intimate knowledge of the country quite realised how insecure were the foundations on which the stupendous structure of modern Russia had been erected.
I am deeply thankful that the great majority of my old friends had passed away in the ordinary course of nature before the Great Catastrophe overwhelmed the mighty Empire in which they took such deep pride; and that they were spared the sight and knowledge of the awful orgy of blood, murder, and spoliation which followed the ruin of the land they loved so well. Were they not now at rest, it would be difficult for me to write of those old days.
To grasp the Russian mentality, it must be remembered that they are essentially Orientals. Russia is not the most Eastern outpost of Western civilisation; it is the most Western outpost of the East. Russians have all the qualities of the Oriental, his fatalism, his inertness, and, I fear, his innate pecuniary corruption. Their fatalism makes them accept their destiny blindly. What has been ordained from the beginning of things is useless to fight against; it must be accepted. The same inertness characterises every Eastern nation, and the habit of "baksheesh" is ingrained in the Oriental blood. If the truth were known, we should probably find that the real reason why Cain killed Abel was that the latter had refused him a commission on some transaction or other. The fatalism and lack of initiative are not the only Oriental traits in the Russian character. In a hundred little ways they show their origin: in their love of uncut jewels; in their lack of sense of time (the Russian for "at once" is "si chas," which means "this hour"; an instructive commentary); in the reluctance South Russians show in introducing strangers to the ladies of their household, the Oriental peeps out everywhere. Peter the Great could order his Boyards to abandon their fur-trimmed velvet robes, to shave off their beards, powder their heads, and array themselves in the satins and brocades of Versailles. He could not alter the men and women inside the French imported finery. He could abandon his old capital, matchless, many-pinnacled Moscow, vibrant with every instinct of Russian nationality; he could create a new pseudo-Western, sham-classical city in the frozen marshes of the Neva; but even the Autocrat could not change the souls of his people. Easterns they were, Easterns they remained, and that is the secret of Russia, they are not Europeans. Peter himself was so fully aware of the racial limitations of his countrymen that he imported numbers of foreigners to run the country; Germans as Civil and Military administrators; Dutchmen as builders and town-planners; and Englishmen to foster its budding commerce. To the latter he granted special privileges, and even in my time there was a very large English commercial community in Petrograd; a few of them descendants of Peter the Great's pioneers; the majority of them with hereditary business connections with Russia. Their special privileges had gradually been withdrawn, but the official name of the English Church in Petrograd was still "British Factory in St. Petersburg," surely a curious title for a place of worship. The various German-Russian families from the Baltic Provinces, the Adlerbergs, the Benckendorffs, and the Stackelbergs, had served Russia well. Under their strong guidance she became a mighty Power, but when under Alexander III the reins of government were confided to purely Russian hands, rapid deterioration set in. This dreamy nation lacks driving power. In my time, the very able Minister for Foreign Affairs, M. de Giers, was of German origin, and his real name was Hirsch. His extremely wily and astute second in command, Baron Jomini, was a Swiss. Modern Russia was largely the creation of the foreigner.
I saw a great deal, too, of a totally different stratum of Russian society. Mr. X., the head of a large exporting house, was of British origin, the descendant of one of Peter's commercial pioneers. He himself, like his father and grandfather, had been born in Russia, and though he retained his English speech, he had adopted all the points of view of the country of his birth. Madame X. came of a family of the so-called "Intelligenzia." Most of her relatives seemed to have undertaken compulsory journeys to Siberia, not as prisoners, but for a given term of exile. Madame X.'s brother-in-law owned and edited a paper of advanced views, which was being continually suppressed, and had been the cause of two long trips eastward for its editor and proprietor. Neither Mr. nor Madame X. shared their relatives' extreme views. What struck me was that behind the floods of vehement invective of Madame O—— (the editor's wife) there was never the smallest practical suggestion. "You say, Madame O——," I would hazard, "that the existing state of things is intolerable. What remedy do you suggest?" "I am not the Government," would retort Madame O—— with great heat. "It is for the Government to make suggestions. I only denounce an abominable injustice." "Quite so, Madame O——, but how can these conditions be improved. What is your programme of reform?" "We have nothing to do with reforms. Our mission is to destroy utterly. Out of the ruins a better state of things must necessarily arise; as nothing could possibly be worse than present conditions." And so we travelled round and round in a circle. Mr. O——, when appealed to, would blink through his spectacles with his kindly old eyes, and emit a torrent of admirable moral aphorisms, which might serve as unimpeachable copy-book headings, but had no bearing whatever on the subject we were discussing. Never once amidst these floods of bitter invective and cataracts of fierce denunciation did I hear one single practical suggestion made or any outline traced of a scheme to better existing conditions. "We must destroy," shouted Madame O——, and there her ideas stopped. I think the Slavonic bent of mind, like the Celtic, is purely destructive, and has little or no constructive power in it. This may be due to the ineradicable element of the child in both races. They are "Peter Pans," and a child loves destruction.
Poor dreamy, emotional, hopelessly unpractical Russia! Madame O——'s theories have been put into effect now, and we all know how appalling the result has been.
These conversations were always carried on in French for greater safety in order that the servants might not overhear, but when Mr. and Madame O—— found difficulties in expressing themselves in that language, they both broke into torrents of rapid Russian, to poor Madame X.'s unconcealed terror. The danger was a real one, for the O——'s were well known in police circles as revolutionists, and it must have gone hard with the X.'s had their servants reported to the police the violent opinions that had been expressed in their house.
Many of the Diplomatic Body were in the habit of attending the midnight Mass at St. Isaac's on Easter Day, on account of the wonderfully impressive character of the service. We were always requested to come in full uniform, with decorations and we stood inside the rails of the ikonostas, behind the choir. The time to arrive was about 11.30 p.m., when the great church, packed to its doors by a vast throng, was wrapped in almost total darkness. Under the dome stood a catafalque bearing a gilt coffin. This open coffin contained a strip of silk, on which was painted an effigy of the dead Christ, for it will be remembered that no carved or graven image is allowed in a church of the Eastern rite. There was an arrangement by which a species of blind could be drawn over the painted figure, thus concealing it. As the eye grew accustomed to the shadows, tens of thousands of unlighted candles, outlining the arches, cornices, and other architectural features of the cathedral, were just visible. These candles each had their wick touched with kerosine and then surrounded with a thread of guncotton, which ran continuously from candle to candle right round the building. When the hanging end of the thread of gun-cotton was lighted, the flame ran swiftly round the church, kindling each candle in turn; a very fascinating sight. At half-past eleven, the only light was from the candles surrounding the bier, where black-robed priests were chanting the mournful Russian Office for the Dead. At about twenty minutes to twelve the blind was drawn over the dead Christ, and the priests, feigning surprise, advanced to the rails of the ikonostas, and announced to an Archimandrite that the coffin was empty. The Archimandrite ordered them to search round the church, and the priests perambulated the church with gilt lanterns, during which time the catafalque, bier, and its accessories were all removed. The priests announced to the Archimandrite that their search had been unsuccessful, whereupon he ordered them to make a further search outside the church. They went out, and so timed their return as to arrive before the ikonostas at three minutes before midnight. They again reported that they had been unsuccessful; when, as the first stroke of midnight pealed from the great clock, the Metropolitan of Petrograd announced in a loud voice, "Christ is risen!" At an electric signal given from the cathedral, the great guns of the fortress boomed out in a salute of one hundred and one guns; the gun-cotton was touched off, and the swift flash kindled the tens of thousands of candles running round the building; the enormous congregation lit the tapers they carried; the "Royal doors" of the ikonostas were thrown open, and the clergy appeared in their festival vestments of cloth of gold, as the choir burst into the beautiful Russian Easter anthem, and so the Easter Mass began. Nothing more poignantly dramatic, more magnificently impressive, could possibly be imagined than this almost instantaneous change from intense gloom to blazing light; from the plaintive dirges of the Funeral Service to the jubilant strains of the Easter Mass. I never tired of witnessing this splendid piece of symbolism.
It sounds almost irreverent to talk of comical incidents in connection with so solemn an occasion, but there are two little episodes I must mention. About 1880 the first tentative efforts were made by France to establish a Franco-Russian alliance. Ideas on the subject were very nebulous at first, but slowly they began to crystallise into concrete shape. A new French Ambassador was appointed to Petrograd in the hope of fanning the faint spark into further life. He, wishing to show his sympathy for the nation amie, attended the Easter Mass at St. Isaac's, but unfortunately he was quite unversed in the ritual of the Orthodox Church. In every ikonostas there are two ikons on either side of the "Royal doors"; the Saviour on one side, the Madonna and Child on the other. The new Ambassador was standing in front of the ikon of the Saviour, and in the course of the Mass the Metropolitan came out, and made the three prescribed low bows before the ikon, previous to censing it. The Ambassador, taking this as a personal compliment to France, as represented in his own person, acknowledged the attention with three equally low bows, laying his hand on his heart and ejaculating with all the innate politeness of his nation, "Monsieur! Monsieur! Monsieur!" This little incident caused much amusement, as did a newly-arrived German diplomat, who when greeted by a Russian friend with the customary Easter salutation of "Christ is risen!" ("Kristos voskress!") wished to respond, but, being ignorant of the traditional answer, "He is verily risen," merely made a low bow and said, "Ich auch," which may be vulgarly Englished into "The same here."
The universal Easter suppers at the conclusion of the Mass play an important part in Russian life, for they mean the breaking of the long and rigorous Lenten fast of the Eastern Church, during which all meat, butter, milk, and eggs are prohibited. The peasants adhere rigidly to these rules, so the Easter supper assumes great importance in their eyes. The ingredients of this supper are invariable for high and low, for rich and poor—cold ham, hard-boiled eggs dyed red, a sort of light cake akin to the French brioche, and a sour cream-cheese shaped into a pyramid and decorated with little crosses of dried currants. I think that this cake and cream cheese (known as "Paskva") are prepared only at Easter-time. Even at the Yacht Club during Holy Week, meat, butter, milk, and eggs were prohibited, and still Armand, our incomparable French chef, managed to produce plats of the most succulent description. Loud praises were lavished upon his skill in preparing such excellent dishes out of oil, fish, flour, and vegetables, the only materials allowed him. I met Armand in the passage one day and asked him how he managed to do it. Looking round to see that no Russians could overhear, Armand replied with a wink, "Voyez-vous Monsieur, le bon Dieu ne regarde pas d'aussi près." Of course he had gone on using cream, butter, and eggs, just as usual, but as the members of the Club did not know this, and thought that they were strictly obeying the rules of their Church, I imagine that no blame could attach to them.
On Easter Eve the two-mile-long Nevsky Perspective was lined with humble folks standing by white napkins on which the materials for their Easter supper were arranged. On every napkin glimmered a lighted taper, and the long line of these twinkling lights produced a very charming effect, as of myriads of glow-worms. Priests would pass swiftly down the line, each attended by an acolyte carrying a pail of holy water. The priest would mutter a rapid blessing, sprinkle the food and its owner with holy water, pocket an infinitesimally small fee, and pass on again.
A friend of mine was once down in the fruit-growing districts of the Crimea. Passing through one of the villages of that pleasing peninsula, he found it decorated in honour of a religious festival. The village priest was going to bless the first-fruits of the orchards. The peasants stood in a row down the village street, each one with the first crop of his orchard arranged on a clean napkin before him. The red-bearded priest, quite a young man, passed down the street, sprinkling fruit and grower alike with holy water, and repeating a blessing to each one. The young priest approached, and my friend could hear quite plainly the words of his blessing. No. —— it was quite impossible! It was incredible! and yet he could not doubt the evidence of his own ears! The young priest was speaking in good Scots, and the words of the blessing he bestowed on each parishioner were, "Here, man! tak' it. If it does ye nae guid, it canna possibly dae ye any hairm." The men addressed, probably taking this for a quotation from Scripture in some unknown tongue, bowed reverently as the words were pronounced over them. That a Russian village priest in a remote district of the Crimea should talk broad Scots was a sufficiently unusual circumstance to cause my friend to make some further inquiries. It then appeared that when the Government dockyard at Sebastopol was reopened, several Scottish foremen from the Clyde shipbuilding yards were imported to supervise the Russian workmen. Amongst others came a Glasgow foreman with his wife and a son who was destined for the ministry of the Free Church of Scotland. Once arrived in Russia, they found that facilities for training a youth for the Presbyterian ministry were somewhat lacking in Sebastopol. Sooner than sacrifice their dearest wish, the parents, with commendable broadmindedness, decided that their offspring should enter the Russian Church. He was accordingly sent to a seminary and in due course was ordained a priest and appointed to a parish, but he apparently still retained his Scottish speech and his characteristically Scottish independence of view.
After a year in Petrograd I used to attempt to analyse to myself the complex Russian character. "We are a 'jelly-folk,'" had said one of my friends to me. The Russian term was "Kiselnui narod," and I think there is truth in that. They are an invertebrate folk. I cannot help thinking that Peter the Great was one of the worst enemies of his own country. Instead of allowing Russia to develop naturally on lines suited to the racial instincts of her people, he attempted to run the whole country into a West European mould, and to superimpose upon it a veneer imported from the France of Louis Quatorze. With the very few this could perhaps succeed, with the many it was a foregone failure. He tried in one short lifetime to do what it had taken other countries centuries to accomplish. He built a vast and imposing edifice on shifting sand, without any foundations. It might stand for a time; its ultimate doom was certain.
From the windows of our Embassy we looked upon the broad Neva. When fast bound in the grip of winter, sledge-roads were made across the ice, bordered with lamp-posts and marked out with sawn-off fir trees. Little wooden taverns and tea-houses were built on the river, and as soon as the ice was of sufficient thickness the tramcar lines were laid across it. A colony of Laps came yearly and encamped on the river with their reindeer, for the temperature of Petrograd rarely falling more than ten degrees below zero, it was looked upon as a genial winter climate for invalids from Lapland. A stranger from another planet might have imagined that these buildings were permanent, that the fir trees were really growing, and that all the life on the frozen river would last indefinitely. Everyone knew, though, with absolute certainty that by the middle of April the ice would break up, and that these little houses, if not removed in time, would be carried away and engulfed in the liberated stream. By May the river would be running again as freely as though these temporary edifices had never been built on it.
I think these houses built on the ice were very typical of Russia.