The Englishwoman in Russia

by A lady

Let us now cast a look into the cellars below. If the first floor be dedicated to a Chinese deity, these are under the protection of a classic god that indeed ought to be the tutelar deity of the Russian people. The gigantic bunches of purple and white grapes on a gold field plainly indicate that “Votku is sold here,” and that Bacchus holds his reign in this subterraneous temple, even if we did not perceive the state of those reeling mujiks (peasants) and young boys continually going in and out, in danger of stumbling down the steps of the drinking-shop, the doors of which are happily closed, and thus prevent our being disgusted with what is passing within: we will therefore stand aside for a few minutes and remark the passers-by. If it be summer, we shall see the lemonade-boys with their large glass jugs and one glass for universal use. Sometimes, instead of this beverage, they vend a kind of drink made of cranberries. I dare say what they sell is very refreshing, but its purity cannot be depended on. The bread-merchants with their portable tray supported by a strap round their shoulders; the fruit-venders, whose treasures are crude enough and never ripen in this northern clime; the flower-girls with well-arranged nosegays; the begging monks and nuns, with their board covered with cloth, on which is embroidered a cross, and on which the pious are expected to place a trifle, which they pretend goes to their religious house—their disagreeable whine is the true tone of a hypocrite. All these are mixed up with an indefinite number of peasants and employés, of whom, with the exception of the military, the population at this season seems composed, for the “families” are all out of town, enjoying the short summer on their estates, or at the “Islands” in the environs of St. Petersburg. There seems no lack of uniforms, notwithstanding that the soldiers are “aux camps” some forty versts from the city: but this is the capital of a nation kept down by the knout and the sword. Yonder are four horsemen abreast: they are Cossacks. Remark their black sheepskin caps, their blue frock-coats tightly fastened by a narrow belt round the waist. By the bye, it must be a great misfortune if they grow stout, for the belt is only allowed to be of a certain length, as if even flesh and blood must obey military regulations. Their immensely long spears with red shafts are supported by a leathern strap; the hay is curiously twisted up into a kind of gigantic ring and fastened to the saddle-bow. They have good features, but are too small in size to be handsome figures. Those two soldiers that you see coming on horseback, looking round with ineffable disdain upon the people, are Circassians: their proud and stately bearing, their magnificent dress and ancient arms, recall to our remembrance the days of chivalry, when in the olden time the warriors of merry England went forth to fight Saladin in the plains of Syria. Their closely-fitting burnished helmets with little scarlet ornament at the top, their steel veil falling over their necks, their shirt of linked mail, the plate-armour on their legs, and their barbed steeds, make us imagine them to be some ancient knights of high renown ready caparisoned for the tournament. Their piercing black eyes and noble features do not belie what we have heard of the beauty of the Circassian race. These are probably some of a tribe that have been induced to swear fealty to the Czar, or perhaps are two of the hostages from Circassia. I remember a gentleman telling me that the Circassians were among the most faithful of the Emperor’s soldiers: perhaps the time may be near at hand in which their fidelity will be put to the test. You see those other soldiers opposite; they cut but a poor figure by the side of the Circassians. They are some of the infantry of the line; their downcast, inanimate look, their thin and miserable forms, tell of the many kicks and blows, the scanty rations of black bread and salt, the life of drudgery and the shameful ill-treatment to which, poor wretches! they are too much accustomed. “It is no wonder our soldiers are brave,” said a Russian official to me; “they have so little worth living for, that, as Grinion the author says, ‘they lose nothing when they lose their life:’ the only way to make a good trooper is to make him care nothing at all about his existence.” What abominable policy!

That little house at the corner of the street is inhabited by a butitchnick or stationary policeman; he is placed there to keep the streets in order: I am sorry to say he has not the reputation of being very honest himself. So many stories are told and known to be true concerning the police in Russia, that they really may be regarded as the wolves instead of the watch-dogs of the community. Among the many examples of what is here asserted, I remember two. The first was that of a servant-girl who was the slave of a lady with whom I was slightly acquainted, and who was one evening sent out to purchase something. The girl, like the generality of domestics in this country, was not of good character, and she stopped to talk with the butitchnick, who invited her into his house. She was never seen again alive, and several weeks passed before any trace of her was discovered. By chance, as the police-officer was going his rounds, he entered the man’s cabin, and looking round he caught sight of a very small portion of a cotton dress that was jammed between the boards of the floor. He instantly had them taken up, and beneath them was found the body of the wretched servant-girl: the butitchnick confessed that the silver rouble intrusted to her had tempted him to commit the murder. The second case was that of a lady who went to take a walk in the Strogonoff gardens, at a few versts’ distance from St. Petersburg. She was seen to enter them, but she never left them again. Nothing was heard of her during nine months, notwithstanding the untiring efforts of her friends and the large sum offered by them for some information concerning her fate. Many of her acquaintances were therefore reluctantly obliged to conclude that in some sudden fit of insanity she must have committed suicide by throwing herself into the water. The mystery was however, at length cleared up. It so happened that a gentleman, a friend of this lady’s, while taking a ride, was accosted by a butitchnick, who asked him if he would like to buy a parasol. It immediately struck him that it was very similar to the one which the unfortunate lady had in her hand when she so suddenly disappeared. He therefore told the man to keep it until his return, which would be soon, as he had only to call on an acquaintance. The policeman, suspecting nothing, promised to do as he was requested, and the gentleman rode on. The butitchnick’s surprise may be well imagined when he saw him come back with the police-master and two or three of his men to take him into custody. He soon met with the punishment he so well deserved: he was knouted, and, if he survived, was afterwards to be sent to the mines. No man in Russia can be punished unless he confess his crime, but means are resorted to for making him do so. This man’s reason for committing the murder was his being unable to withstand the temptation offered by the lady’s handsome dress, and he unconcernedly lifted up a part of the floor of his house and showed where he had buried her.

In winter the aspect of the streets of St. Petersburg is very different from what it is in summer. Instead of the venders of lemonade, &c., we see the itinerant tea-sellers furnished with a kettle well wrapped up in towels to preserve the heat, and a whole row of glasses in a kind of leathern rack in front of them, slung round their neck in some way or other: their tea finds a ready sale among the groups of red-faced, sheepskin-clad boys and men whom they meet in the street, and the shopmen in the Gostinoi Dwor. Instead of droshskies, the sledges filled with ladies, smartly dressed in gaily-coloured bonnets and fur-lined velvet or satin cloaks, glide swiftly along the streets. The Nevsky Perspective is crowded with belles and beaux, all anxious to display the newest fashions from Paris. The innumerable officers saunter along equally desirous of admiration. Here and there may be seen a nurse in the full splendour of the national costume—gold embroidered head-dress, the resplendent pavoinik and crasnoi sarafane, kasackan, and immense amber necklace, which they wear “pour guérir les humeurs froides,” as they say. The coachmen are conspicuous from their red velvet caps stuffed with wadding and trimmed with gold lace, and their long caftan with red scarf tied round their waist; their strangely cropped hair[2] and bushy beard, all covered with frozen breath, appear as if they were thickly powdered with snow; their horses’ backs are like fleece from the same cause, and icicles hang round their mouths and from their eyelids. The canals and river are frozen three feet deep, yet that does not prevent the washerwomen from still following their occupation of rinsing the linen in the holes made in the ice. One would think that their fingers would freeze, but the fact is, the water is so much warmer than the air, that they have no fear of that, yet they must surely suffer from standing so many hours on the ice: their loud laughter and rude jokes, however, seem to contradict this opinion. There is a crowd standing further down—what has happened? Let us ask this shopman.

“It is only a man in the water, Madam: he has slipped down through the hole in the ice, that is all.”

“But why do they not pull him out?”

“No one must touch him until the police arrive; it is their business.”

“Good heavens! the poor man will be drowned meanwhile.”

“Tchto delat?” (what is to be done?) answers the shopman, shrugging his shoulders. And there is nothing done, at least to the purpose; for, of course, in the quarter of an hour or twenty minutes expended in fetching the police, the poor creature has had ample time to be drowned, and his body, when at last fished up from the water by the accredited authorities, is set up on a droshsky with a butitchnick to hold it on, and so is driven, a horrid spectacle, through the streets to the station. This is one of the senseless regulations of the Russian police, that everything must be done by their agency; surely it ought to be lawful to save a fellow-creature’s life under any circumstances. When I was staying at Twer, one of the men-servants, in a fit of jealousy, thought proper to hang himself in an outhouse. One of his companions happened to enter and saw him struggling; he did not dare to cut the cord, but ran to fetch the authorities. They came, and poor Ivan was nearly cold. I recollect, on the road to Nova Derevna, seeing a carriage tear along the stones as if the horses were wild, and the coachman was lashing them like a madman. It appears that he had accidentally run over a drunken man, and was so afraid of the consequences of stopping a moment out of humanity to raise the poor wretch, whose leg was broken, that he thus frantically drove on. If the man had been killed he would have been punished as if for a murder, and the carriage and horses confiscated; but in any case, had he been caught, the latter part of the sentence would have been carried into effect, and he himself would have been severely beaten.

Another stupid regulation also exists. If one man should happen to see another lying murdered on the ground, and should be so unwary as to give information of the fact to the authorities, he is in danger of being himself detained until some trace of the real assassin be discovered. An English person informed me that he was one day crossing the river on foot at an early hour in the morning, and, to his horror, he saw the body of a murdered man lying close to a hole in the ice. Apparently, those who had committed the dreadful crime had been alarmed just as they were on the point of sinking their victim in the Neva, and had fled and left him. As for the Englishman, he did not dare to give information of it, as he knew too well the penalty. Who can tell how many wicked deeds are done in this gaudy capital between the setting and the rising of the sun on a long winter’s night, or how many of the murdered have floated beneath the ponderous ice, silently pursuing their frightful voyage towards the gulf! Alas! many, very many, I have been repeatedly assured by those who had every means of knowing the truth.