“This,” said our guide, following the direction of my eyes, “is the Spass Preobrashenskoi Sabor; a church greatly adorned with the spoils of nations vanquished by Russia.”
“Well,” said Whiskerandos, who in the course of his adventurous life had both seen cannon and learnt their use, “perhaps those big instruments of war are just as well up there, where they are seen, and not heard or felt. Man is the only creature, I fancy, who, not content with what powers of destruction nature has given him, cuts down trees from the forest, digs iron from the mine, sets the furnace glowing, and the engine working, to fashion means of killing his brothers in a wholesale manner.”
“Yonder,” said Wisky, pointing with his nose, “are the father of the Russian fleet and the grandmother of the houses of St. Petersburg.”
“Let’s see them by all means!” I exclaimed; “I have viewed plenty of Russian ships and Russian houses, and I have a lively curiosity to see the father and the grandmother of so famous a family!”
Wisky rapidly led the way to a hut, into which with little difficulty we entered, for locks and bars do not keep out rats, nor surly porters refuse them admission.
“Is this the father of the Russian fleet!” exclaimed Whiskerandos rather contemptuously, running, audacious rat that he was, along the edge of a boat about thirty feet long. “Is Russia a child, that she should amuse herself with a toy, and keep a big boat under a roof where there is no water to float it, as if it were some delicate jewel!”
“On no jewel in the Emperor’s crown,” replied Wisky, “would a Russian look with the same interest as on that poor boat. Peter the Great helped to fashion it himself! He found his country without a navy, and he gave her one; he laboured himself as a common ship-wright: and now, as a mighty oak springs from a single acorn, in that one boat his people view with reverence “The father of the Russian fleet.”
“And where is the grandmother of the houses?” inquired I.
“That is hard by,” replied Wisky. “It is nothing but a small wooden cottage which Peter built for himself by the Neva, before a single street stretched across the dreary bog upon which he founded this city of palaces!”
And so we rambled on, light-hearted rats that we were, picking up scraps here and there, and exchanging observations, till a faint blush in the eastern sky warned us that it was time to go home. Before we reached the house already criers were abroad in the streets, screaming, “Boots from Casan!”—“Pictures from Moscow!”—“Flowers, fine flowers!” as they wandered on, carrying their wares on their heads. Fierce-looking fellows, with long shaggy hair and beards, wrapped up in skins were passing about, exchanging good-natured greetings, strangely in contrast with their appearance. “Good-day, brother! how goes it? what is your pleasure? how can I serve you?” Smiling, bowing, baring their rough heads to each other, these poor Russians appeared the very pictures of politeness shrouded in sheepskin. But remembering that even amongst the most civilized nations of the world, rats are considered as quite beyond the pale of courtesy, and that the most good-natured Musjik in this city would have thought nothing of hitting one of us over with his shoe, we thought it better to retreat while our skins were whole, and regain our comfortable quarters in the kitchen.