COOPER’S SHOP AND RESIDENCE.
With some difficulty, I succeeded at length in finding just such a place as I desired—clean and comfortable enough, considering the circumstances, and not unusually fertile in vermin for a city like St. Petersburg, which produces all kinds of troublesome insects spontaneously. There was this advantage in my quarters, in addition to their cheapness—that the proprietor and attendants spoke several of the Christian languages, including German, which, of all languages in the world, is the softest and most euphonious to my ear—when I am away from Frankfort. Besides, my room was very advantageously arranged for a solitary traveler. Being about eight feet square, with only one small window overlooking the back yard, and effectually secured by iron fastenings, so that nobody could open it, there was no possibility of thieves getting in and robbing me when the door was shut and locked on the inside. Its closeness presented an effectual barrier against the night air, which in these high northern latitudes is considered extremely unwholesome to sleep in. With the thermometer at 100 degrees Fahrenheit, the atmosphere, to be sure, was a little sweltering during the day, and somewhat thick by night, but that was an additional advantage, inasmuch as it forced the occupant to stay out most of the time and see a great deal more of the town than he could possibly see in his room.
Having deposited my knapsack and put my extra shirt in the wash, you will now be kind enough to consider me the shade of Virgil, ready to lead you, after the fashion of Dante, through the infernal regions or any where else within the bounds of justice, even through St. Petersburg, where the climate in summer is hot enough to satisfy almost any body. The sun shines here, in June and July, for twenty hours a day, and even then scarcely disappears beneath the horizon. I never experienced such sweltering weather in any part of the world except Aspinwall. One is fairly boiled with the heat, and might be wrung out like a wet rag. Properly speaking, the day commences for respectable people, and men of enterprising spirit—tourists, pleasure-seekers, gamblers, vagabonds, and the like—about nine or ten o’clock at night, and continues till about four or five o’clock the next morning. It is then St. Petersburg fairly turns out; then the beauty and fashion of the city unfold their wings and flit through the streets, or float in Russian gondolas upon the glistening waters of the Neva; then it is the little steamers skim about from island to island, freighted with a population just waked up to a realizing sense of the pleasures of existence; then is the atmosphere balmy, and the light wonderfully soft and richly tinted; then come the sweet witching hours, when
“Shady nooks
Patiently give up their quiet being.”
None but the weary, labor-worn serf, who has toiled through the long day in the fierce rays of the sun, can sleep such nights as these. I call them nights, yet what a strange mistake. The sunshine still lingers in the heavens with a golden glow; the evening vanishes dreamily in the arms of the morning; there is nothing to mark the changes—all is soft, gradual, and illusory. A peculiar and almost supernatural light glistens upon the gilded domes of the churches; the glaring waters of the Neva are alive with gondolas; miniature steamers are flying through the winding channels of the islands; strains of music float upon the air; gay and festive throngs move along the promenades of the Nevskoi; gilded and glittering equipages pass over the bridges and disappear in the shadowy recesses of the islands. Whatever may be unseemly in life is covered by a rich and mystic drapery of twilight. The floating bath-houses of the Neva, with their variegated tressel-work and brilliant colors, resemble fairy palaces; and the plashing of the bathers falls upon the ear like the gambols [!-- Illustration page --] of water-spirits. Not far from the Izaak Bridge, the equestrian statue of Peter the Great stands out in bold relief on a pedestal of granite; the mighty Czar, casting an eagle look over the waters of the Neva, while his noble steed rears over the yawning precipice in front, crushing a serpent beneath his hoof. The spirit of Peter the Great still lives throughout Russia; but it is better understood in the merciless blasts of winter than in the soft glow of the summer nights.
MERCHANT, PEDDLERS, AND COACHMAN.
Wander with me now, and let us take a look at the Winter Palace—the grandest pile, perhaps, ever built by human hands. Six thousand people occupy it during the long winter months, and well they may, for it is a city of palaces in itself. Fronting the Neva, it occupies a space of several acres, its massive walls richly decorated with ornamental designs, a forest of chimneys on top—the whole pile forming an immense oblong square so grand, so massive, so wonderfully rich and varied in its details, that the imagination is lost in a colossal wilderness of architectural beauties. Standing in the open plozchad, we may gaze at this magnificent pile for hours, and dream over it, and picture to our minds the scenes of splendor its inner walls have witnessed; the royal fêtes of the Czars; the courtly throngs that have filled its halls; the vast treasures expended in erecting it; the enslaved multitudes, now low in the dust, who have left this monument to speak of human pride, and the sweat and toil that pride must feed upon; and while we gaze and dream thus, a mellow light comes down from the firmament, and the mighty Czars, and their palaces, and armies, and navies, and worldly strifes, what are they in the presence of the everlasting Power? For “it is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers.”
But these dreamings and these wanderings through this city of palaces would be endless. We may feast our eyes upon the Admiralty, the Winter Palace, the Marble Palace, the Senate-house, the palace of the Grand-duke Michael, the Column of Alexander, the colleges, universities, imperial gardens and summer-houses, and, after all, we can only feel that they are built upon the necks of an enslaved people; that the mightiest Czars of Russia, in common with the poorest serfs, are but “as grasshoppers upon the earth.”