There is, in the first place, the pope (priest), and then the policeman.
The priests and the policemen are the handsomest persons in St. Petersburg. Although the flowing hair of the bearded priest, reaching to his shoulders, is not to be regarded as a characteristic peculiarity, since every third man in Russia displays long hair or profuse locks that would undoubtedly draw to their fortunate possessor in our land the attention of the street boys, still they are carefully chosen human material, tall, graceful men with handsome heads and proud mien. Notwithstanding this they are accorded but little reverence even among the bigoted Russians, for no matter how often and copiously these may cross themselves before every sacred image, they quite often experience, behind the priest, a sort of salvation which compels them suddenly to empty their mouths in a very demonstrative manner. This may be due to various kinds of superstition, which regard the meeting with a priest as very undesirable, but it finds its explanation also in the not always exemplary life of this servant of the Lord. He is especially accredited with a decided predilection for various distilled liquors that at times exert a doubtful influence on a man's behavior. One may see in St. Petersburg men wrapped in costly sable furs make the acquaintance of the street pavements, especially during the "butter-week," yet for spiritual garments the gutter is even less a place of legitimate rest, and, at any rate, it is difficult to acknowledge as the appointed interpreter of God's will a man whose mouth savors of an entirely different spirit than the "spiritus sanctus."
For all this, however, the Russian is filled, outwardly at least, and during divine services, with a devotion which, to us, is scarcely comprehensible. With fanatical fervor he kisses in church the hand of the same priest behind whose back he spat at the church door. His body never rests. As with the orthodox Jew and the howling dervish, his praying consists in an almost unceasing bowing, and a not at all inconsiderable application of gymnastics. He is perpetually crossing himself. Particularly fervent suppliants, of the female gender especially, can hardly satisfy themselves by kissing again and again the stone flags of the floor, the hem of the priest's coat, the sacred images, and the numberless relics. But how effective and mind-ensnaring is the orthodox church service. The glimmer of the innumerable small and large wax candles brought by most of the congregants fills the golden mist of the place with an unearthly light. Rubies, emeralds, and diamonds shine from the silver and gold crowns on the sacred images. The gigantic priest in his gold-embroidered vestments lets sound his deep, powerful, bass voice, and wonderful choirs answer him from both sides of the "ikonostas." Clouds of incense float through the high nave. The faithful, ranged one after another, intoxicate and carry one another by their devotion—a huge general hypnosis in which education and priestly art are equally concerned. The orthodox cult is not to be compared, at least in my opinion, with that of the Roman Catholics in the depth and nobility of the music and in the artistic arrangement of the service. But in its archaic monotony, in its use of the coarsest material stimuli, it is perhaps even more suggestive for the Eastern masses than is the other for the civilized peoples of the West. The quantity of gold, silver, and precious stones offered up, especially in the Isaac cathedral and in the Kazan cathedral—fashioned after that of St. Peter's in Rome—to give the faithful a conception of the just claims of Heaven on treasure and reverence, is beyond the belief of Europeans. The artistically excellent silver ornaments of the Isaac cathedral weigh not less than eleven thousand kilograms. A single copy of the New Testament is bound in twenty kilograms of gold. The sacred image made in commemoration of the catastrophe of Borki is almost entirely covered with diamonds. These endowments came, for the most part, from members of the imperial house. The union of church and state is more intimate here than elsewhere, and, apparently, even more profitable for the guardians of the altar. Among all the sacred relics and trophies of the St. Petersburg church, one impresses the foreigner above the others. It is a collection of silver gifts from the French, ranged along the wall of the Peter-and-Paul cathedral. By the side of the coffins of the Russian emperors and empresses, from Peter the Great to Alexander III., which one cannot pass without a peculiar feeling of historical respect, under innumerable flags and war trophies, there stand, as the greatest triumph that the despotic barbarian state has won from civilized Europe, the silver crowns and the shields of honor which Félix Faure, Casimir-Périer, the senate, the chamber, and the Parisian press presented to the Russian ally of France.
"You see here the greatest misfortune that has befallen us in this century," said my companion, an orthodox Russian of nothing less than radical views. "Until then, until this alliance, with all our boastfulness we still felt some shame before Europe for our barbarous and shameful rule. But since the most distinguished men and corporations of the most enlightened republic have begun prostrating themselves before us, the knout despotism has received the consecration of Europe and has thrown all shame to the winds."
"But the French have lent you eight milliards for it," I replied.
"A part of which has gone into Heaven knows whose pockets; the other supports our police against us, and the remainder was sunk in a worthless railroad, while we, in order to provide the interest, must take the horse from our peasant's plough and the cow from its stable, until even that shall come to an end, for nothing else will be left for the executor."
"A Jesuit trick," I said. "You owe the alliance to the diplomacy of Rampolla."
"The sword and the holy-water sprinkler," answered the Russian, as he pointed his hand in a circle from the war trophies to the "ikonostas," "they go everywhere hand-in-hand and enslave and plunder the nations."
The leaden, snowy skies looked down on us oppressively as with a deep shudder at the prison gratings of the Peter-and-Paul fortress we hastened back to the city. I heard in my mind the notes of the "Marseillaise," and before my eyes there stood the gifts of honor from the French nation brought to the despot of the fortress. They are very near each other, cathedral and prison. In the still of the night the watchman of the French offerings may often hear the groans and the despairing cries of the poor souls who had dreamed of freedom and brotherhood and had paid for their dreams behind the heavy iron bars, deep under the mirror-like surface of the Neva, in the dungeons of the Peter-and-Paul fortress.