“Without being base, it is impossible to get on,” was the remark of another Russian to me one day.
The general rule certainly seems to be, that every encouragement shall be given to slavishness, and none to nobility of soul. “Do you know,” said Dmitri Ivanowitch one day, “do you know why there are so many mean people? It is this: a young man, for example, enters the service with the determination to keep up a character for honour and integrity, and he does so for some time, and lives in poverty; in the mean while he sees those whose meanness he despises rise over his head in reward for their cringing; he gets no credit for being honourably poor; he wearies of the pursuit of honour, and so gradually becomes as debased as the others.”
There is a senate of the empire; the senators assemble at the ministerial department in St. Petersburg. Their duties cannot be very fatiguing, as they consist in saying, “Sa Majesté a parfaitement raison” to everything that is proposed. One would be apt to think, also, that the law must be an easy study, as on the first page of the statute-book it is announced that everything is according to the will of the Emperor.
I am certain that the dishonourable actions to which many of these employés are addicted, and which I myself have witnessed, would scarcely be credited in England, where officers and gentlemen are synonymous terms. One day we saw an officer boldly pocket some money belonging to his neighbour, at cards. Another slipped some concert tickets up his sleeve, that were the property of my friend. We both saw him do it, but neither of us could accuse him to his face. Many a time things were missing that could have been missing in no other way. One day a young officer called while the family were at dinner. The footman very carelessly had requested him to enter one of the drawing-rooms whilst he went and informed his master. He came back in a minute or two, and begged him to wait a little, but the officer politely said that he did not wish to derange the dinner-party, and, as he had to call elsewhere, he would shortly return. He then went away. No sooner had he done so than the servant discovered that his lady’s watch had disappeared. The police were not informed of it, out of respect to his uncle, who was of rank.
Bribery is everywhere practised. There are some honourable men among the employés undoubtedly, but they are generally so wretchedly poor, that really the temptation must be almost irresistible. Their pay from the government is so small that they can scarcely supply themselves with shoes and gloves out of it; so the money must be obtained somehow to enable them to make a genteel appearance. A few have perhaps private property, but the major part have only their appointment.
From all that is told concerning them, the Russo-Germans seem to be the most rapacious of any people in the country: they are the most cringing when in an inferior station, and the most tyrannical and merciless when in power.
“Immense numbers of our officers are Germans,” said a nobleman to me. “They enter the service, and, as they have their fortune to make, they will submit to all sorts of insults, cringe and curry favour with their superiors, and do anything to get on. Now, a Russian will not do that; he will throw up his commission and leave the service upon a very slight provocation.” My experience did not enable me to agree with him.
“Every man has his price,” is said to have been one of Sir Robert Walpole’s axioms; had he lived in Russia, he would have nearly hit the truth, and, he might have added, “every woman” too.
A lady in St. Petersburg, whose husband was indebted to the crown in the sum of about ten thousand silver roubles, and had not the means, or perhaps the will, to pay it, hit upon the following expedient:—It was the anniversary of the marriage of a personage of the most exalted rank, so she thought fit to address a letter of humble congratulations on the occasion. Humble enough! for it began thus:—“If a worm crawling upon the earth dare to offer,” &c. &c., through a couple of pages, all in the same style. The letter deserved to be kept, were it only as a curiosity of literature, and to preserve it as an existing proof to what grovelling meanness a human being can descend. It was not in this light, however, that it was regarded by the personage to whom it was sent, or by those who had the pleasure of perusing it. The entire household was in an extasy of admiration for three whole days concerning Madame K—ska’s beautiful address to the E——. The writer obtained what she so ardently desired; the debt was remitted. When I state that this was the person mentioned in a former chapter as having caused her poor servants’ hair to be cut off, her character can be justly appreciated.