One day we went to pay a visit to an old lady. As all the drawing-rooms were thrown open for the reception of visitors, I committed no solecism of etiquette in rising to take a nearer view of some beautiful English engravings of which I caught a glimpse in the next room. I was surprised and rather annoyed to find that I was followed step by step by the old lady herself, and that every movement of mine was closely watched by her. I was so vexed that I returned to my seat without having had the pleasure I expected. On going home I mentioned the circumstance to my friend. “You must not be surprised at it, ma chère,” answered she, “for really you do not know how many things are lost in such parties from the too great admiration of the visitors.” At a ball it is quite disgraceful to see the quantities of sweetmeats and fruit the ladies and gentlemen put into their pockets. The rush into the refreshment-room, when it is thrown open, is quite disgusting; it can be compared to nothing else than a swarm of locusts, and they leave the same desolation behind them. When the ladies go into the dressing-room they will often actually take the packet of white gloves or hair-pins which it is the custom to place on the toilette-table in case any of the visitors should require them. It would really be an insult to the lowest peasant in England to suspect him of such meanness as one meets with every day among the employés and soi-disant gentlemen and ladies in Russia. Dmitri Ivanowitch was perhaps right in saying that nothing but the hurricane of revolution could clear the social atmosphere of its corruption. Perhaps the figure of Justice on the outside of the ministerial department in St. Petersburg is an unintentional satire upon the state of affairs within.
Everybody seems to think that he is placed in an office for no other purpose than to fill his own pockets; and it is astonishing with what rapidity he manages to do so, especially if there be any public work on hand. We were staying in one of the provinces through which the railway from Moscow to St. Petersburg runs. While it was being constructed, the fortunes made by the engineers and employés were astonishing: from having nothing at all, they soon acquired estates, and became quite rich, and that at the expense of the crown and of the miserable serfs that laboured on the road. Once, when the trains began to run, we went to a picnic by one of them. When we stopped at the station we found about four hundred of the workmen assembled. They eagerly asked if the governor were of the party. Being told that he was not, but that his lady was among us, they earnestly begged to see her. She very kindly came at their request. We then heard a sad story, showing the way in which these poor people were treated: they had not been paid any wages for six weeks; their rations were bad; and, more than that, a dreadful fever, something like the plague, had broken out among them, which had not been reported, and they said that their companions had perished by scores, and had been buried, like so many dogs, in the morasses along the line. The wretched looks and half-clad bodies of these ill-used men bore witness to their unhappy state, and showed too plainly how they had been wronged by the rapacity of the government employés.
The police-master and the officer of gensdarmes, with some of the chief engineers, were of the party. They pretended utter ignorance of the whole affair, and wished to make every one believe that they were quite shocked to hear of it; but undoubtedly they knew well whither the money had gone. They made so plausible a tale, and put so fair a face on the matter, telling the poor serfs that they would see it all righted, that one would have deemed them their guardian angels, instead of their robbers: not so thought the unhappy peasants, if one might judge by the look of despair and hopelessness that they cast on each other. They too well knew that vengeance would fall on them for daring to make the complaints we had heard, and that they had only rendered their condition infinitely more wretched than before.
At another time a large body of the serfs from the railway came to the governor’s house, and made similar complaints; they waited and saw his excellency themselves, and he immediately caused their wages to be paid.
As for the police, they have been spoken of elsewhere, but I cannot avoid mentioning in what manner the chief master of the provincial police is regarded by the governor. He seems to be a kind of head lacquey, who is expected to run about as an errand-boy, and to perform all the dirty work of the government.
The police-master of a provincial capital in which we were residing was a colonel in the army, six feet high and stout in proportion; yet, when he used to come to make the daily reports, he stood with the humility of a servant before his master, and bore all the insulting speeches and all the opprobrious names that the governor chose to bestow upon him, without showing the least indignation at them. He looked just like a great overgrown schoolboy being scolded by a little old pedagogue.
In regard to the military, if they are gentlemen by education and fortune, they behave as such; but the major part, having nothing but their pay, resort to the same unjust means as the government officials, and the poor soldiers suffer dreadfully from the injustice of their superiors. I believe their lot is not quite so miserable in the capital as in the provinces, because by chance abuses may come to the Emperor’s knowledge; but it is a fact that sentinels on duty have frequently as we were passing begged in an under-tone a few copecks to buy themselves bread; they saw perhaps, poor men! that we were foreign ladies, and not likely to tell. One of them assured us (and from all that I know to be true there is no reason to think he spoke falsely) that he was really more than half-starved, and was so continually tormented by incessant craving, that it nearly drove him mad.
How many of the grand dinners given by the colonel are paid for by the hunger of the unhappy soldiers of his regiment, his conscience (if a Russian colonel have one) can best decide. Russians have often said in my hearing that they would prefer being colonels to having the rank of general, because the former have so many more advantages in a pecuniary view. It is true that there is an army regulation, that, when a general is sent down from St. Petersburg into the provinces (which takes place at certain intervals) to review the troops and to inspect military matters, he can call any man he pleases out of the ranks, and, taking him aside, ask him questions as to whether he has any cause for complaint regarding his rations, clothing, &c., against his colonel or commanding officer. It is supposed to be strictly confidential, and to be kept a great secret. The plan is certainly a good one, and was established for a humane purpose, to remove abuses as much as possible, and would doubtlessly act as a check if there were any trust to be reposed in the generals; but, from all that we have heard, that man must be a bold one who would dare to tell the truth: there would be too many opportunities to make him feel his commander’s vengeance in case it should be believed. I have heard Russians relate the most dreadful tales of the way in which the poor soldiers in the Caucasus are treated. Some years since the brother of a lady we knew in St. Petersburg (it was the same who suffered from the birch in Orloff’s office) was under judgment for his conduct in the Caucasus; he had so starved his miserable regiment, and given such bad food for the men’s use, that a pestilence broke out among them, and ils se mouraient comme des mouches, as it was said. It took half his fortune to bribe the authorities to hush the matter up. In fact, from all that is seen and heard in Russia, one would think that the lower classes are created expressly to become the prey of the upper, just as we see the smaller fish serve to support the larger, or to be regarded merely as a breed of sheep whose fleece the farmer takes whenever he pleases to do so.