But to return to the Russian ladies. I remember I once went to call on the Princess O——ff: she was of very good family, but extremely poor, yet of course she could not do without a carriage, horses, a footman, and maid-servants, but the state of dirt and misery in which she lived would disgust almost a beggar amongst us. A very filthy lacquey, in livery the facings of which were scarcely visible, so discoloured were they with long use, ushered me through a room quite as dirty as himself to a second apartment, in which was seated the princess. She was at breakfast, it being twelve o’clock. The abominably filthy room, her equally disgusting attire, and the super-dirtiness of a miserable little maid who brought her some rusks, made me almost afraid to take a seat on the chair placed for me. She very politely requested me to partake of her refreshment, which I, as politely, declined: but imagine, gentle reader, how infinitely I was disgusted when she took up a piece of paper from the table, spat in it, and then replaced it near the bread she was eating! She begged me to come and see her again, as she assured me she was very fond of the English: I need not say that I did not repeat my visit. Candidly speaking, this was the only instance I met of such an extremely filthy ménage, therefore I hope it formed a rare exception. I must, however, say that in St. Petersburg I once called at a house where the footman who opened the door presented so dirty an appearance that I would not enter it, and therefore cannot say whether it was his own fault or that of his master. In order to give an example of the state of moral feeling in the country, I will narrate a little incident that occurred one evening at the house of a lady of very high rank: a Madame ——, the wife of a governor of a large province, was present; and Prince T——koi, who had been ordered to join his regiment, had come to take leave of his friends: to my astonishment, Madame —— burst into a violent flood of tears, and “refused to be comforted,” when she bid him adieu. On my inquiring why she was so affected, the prince being no relation of hers, I was informed that, “poor thing! she was so deeply in love with him that she was unable maîtriser son émotion.” I ventured to remark that it was rather disagreeable to her husband that she should make so public a display of her preference for another. For my pains I was told that I had no heart, and that, like all the English, I was quite destitute of feeling. I do believe that not a lady was there present who did not regard her as quite a martyr of sensibility.
Many of the noblesse are extremely poor; indeed, it is almost a wonder how they can exist. A great cause of their indigence is the equal division of the family estates among all the children. M. M——ff, a gentleman belonging to one of the most ancient houses in Russia—indeed, he used to boast of his descent from Rurick, the founder of the empire—often bitterly lamented the subdivision of the property. “My father,” said he, “had eight children; he was possessed of a fortune of four thousand slaves, a very handsome estate; when he died we each had five hundred as our share; I have four sons and a daughter, among whom my patrimony must be again subdivided; if they marry, they must be very poor, and, if they have families, still more so; by this means my descendants will eventually become mere beggars.” Another common cause of their poverty is their propensity for gambling, which ruins many. One day an old gentleman called on Madame P——ska, a lady with whom I was well acquainted in St. Petersburg; he came to borrow a few rubles, which she kindly gave him. On his leaving the room I begged to know what had thus reduced him. “Ah! poor man,” said my friend, “think how unfortunate he has been; he once possessed fourteen thousand slaves, and he lost them all at cards.” I said I was sorry that a man of his years should have rendered himself miserable by such a vice. “How old do you think him?” asked my friend. “Oh, sixty at the least.” “Sixty!” answered she, “he is past eighty, only he wears a wig, paints his eyebrows, and rouges to make himself look younger.” Wretched old man! he died soon after I saw him, on his return from a card-party; he was found lifeless on his bed, and did not leave a single ruble to defray the expenses of his interment.
CHAPTER V.
Our journey—Kabitkas—Russian custom—Endless forests and morasses—Desolation of the country—Musical yemstchick—Scarcity of inhabitants—Criminals: their aspect—A bad mother—Monastery of Seea—Visit to the abbot—The church—A saint’s shrine—Peasants—Change in the scenery—Accidents—The driver—A contented veteran—Love of country—Soldiers’ songs—Russian melodies—Yemstchick’s gratitude—Another driver: his prospects in life—Beautiful effect—Ladinapol—Schlusselberg—A village inn in Russia.
After our return to Archangel we had to wait there some weeks, until the winter roads had become sufficiently hard to render sledge-travelling pleasant. We procured a kabitka—a kind of Russian vehicle much resembling a large cradle on slides—bought a mattress to fit into it, and provided ourselves with enough provisions for our long journey, such as frozen fowls, soups, &c., which we were to thaw at the different stations. As it was quite unsafe to traverse roads so unfrequented alone, we agreed to join a party of Russians and Germans who were going to visit the capital. It was arranged that our kabitka was to precede those of our acquaintances, as we were strangers to the country. On the morning of our departure we assembled at a house belonging to one of our acquaintances: a great many friends had met there in order to see us set out, and to bid us God speed on the journey. We seated ourselves, conformably to the Russian custom, a few moments in silence: champagne was handed round to drink to our success; the whole company then arose, and assembled at the gate to see us comfortably seated in our sledges; some of them even escorted us beyond the barriers of the town before they would bid us adieu; nor was it without regret on our side that we took leave of those kind-hearted people, whom in all probability we should never see again.
Once fairly on our journey, we found ourselves surrounded by those dreary forests and boundless morasses (now hidden by the deep snow) of which we had so recently had so much experience. I do not know whether this wild region is not more agreeable in the winter-season, as then its barrenness is concealed. It is not an exaggeration to say that four-fifths of the northern portions of Russia consist of the sandy plains and marshy forest-land I have already described, but, in the winter, it matters little what lies underneath the frozen snow.
From Archangel to St. Petersburg we passed hundreds of versts of this description of country. In these districts utter desolation reigns, scarcely a living thing is seen; even the birds have deserted them, and have flown to the neighbourhood of the towns, to find there the food their native woods can no longer afford them. A solitary wolf or fox may occasionally be descried, either skulking among the bushes or sitting watchfully by the wayside, in faint hopes, perhaps, of some weary horse being left on the road to die and to become the victim of the hungry droves now lying perdus in the forest depths, and only scared from the traveller’s path by the tinkling of the bell attached to the sledge. No other sound breaks the weary silence but the yell of the yemstchick inciting his team to greater speed, or his wild voice chanting forth the songs of the people, which echo far away through those melancholy forests, and only serve to awaken the heart to a still greater sense of the utter desolation around. Yet Nature is always grand, and perhaps never more so than in the wilderness!
No inhabitants dwell in these tracts, with the exception of the few poor peasants whose huts surround the government post-stations; it is a rare occurrence indeed to meet a human being, and for hours one travels on, and the only sign of being in a civilized country is the wooden cross, gray with age, placed here and there by the wayside. Several times on the journey we met gangs of wretched criminals, heavily chained, and escorted by soldiers, whose duty it is to conduct them from station to station. Along the roads in Russia the traveller may remark small brick houses, placed at intervals of about twenty or twenty-five versts; these are the places at which these gangs rest on their way to Siberia. One of these miserable escorts was standing still as we were changing horses, which gave us the opportunity of examining their countenances. Features more debased or expressions more frightful it is impossible to conceive. Crime and every evil thought seemed to have deprived them almost of even the traces of human beings; I shuddered as I gazed on them. Among the convicts was a woman with a face, if possible, more horrible than that of the men; she had a child with her, a poor little thing of scarcely five years old, that was suffering dreadfully from the hooping-cough; instead of treating it with kindness and compassion, its wicked mother was treating it unmercifully, until even the men, her companions in crime, brutalized though they were, called out shame on her, and begged her to desist. I never felt so convinced that punishment was justly deserved as in the case of this wretched woman.