In a corner of the room where I am now writing, just below the ceiling, is a framed, silver-gilt picture of the Saviour facing the east. The Virgin and Child look down from a similar position in the adjoining bedchamber. Every room in this great labyrinth of a hotel has just such an object of reverence which the pious Russian can not fail to see as he crosses the threshold. To this he pays his homage of signs and bows. He does it a thousand times a day in the streets, where these emblems confront him at every turn. He does not expect people of other religions to conform to any of his notions. He allows them to walk freely about the churches and stare through opera-glasses, in a languid way, at objects which to him are sacred, and to be approached only in a spirit of abasement and veneration. But there is one shrine in this city before which it is expected that every foreigner will remove his hat. If he fails to do so, he is thought an ignorant, boorish fellow, and may be hissed and hooted. It is the fine, large Icon of the Master, which hangs above the Redeemer’s gate (Spasköi Vorota)—one of the entrances of the Kremlin. Immemorial custom has made it obligatory to take off the hat when entering this gate and keep it off till the entire width of the wall is traversed. The cabman would let his horses run away before he would neglect this hallowed usage; and if the Tsar himself should fail to comply with it, he would start a revolution.
CHAPTER XXIII. THE MOSCOW FOUNDLING ASYLUM.
The foundling asylum (Vospitàtelny Dom) is as well known in Moscow as the Tsar Kolokol. Any droschky-driver can take you there by the shortest cut, if you engage him by the “course.” Every mujik in the streets can and will direct you to it with the greatest pleasure. He may think that you want to adopt a child out of it, or to put one into it. As a man of Moscow, he is interested in both those operations. Let me not be misunderstood. The foundling asylum is not intended to receive only children born out of wedlock. It is indeed a refuge for those poor little waifs. Many a baby, over whom the Moskwa would otherwise close its dark and swift waters, is saved to become a good soldier for the Tsar or a modest and prettily dressed house-maid, simply because the newborn could be put by the mother within the folds of the foundling asylum and none be the wiser. She has only, in the darkness of night, to place the child in a sort of cradle attached to a door outside of the building, and pull a bell. This gives a signal and starts some machinery. The door revolves on its hinges, landing the little stranger on the inside. At the same time, a nurse responds to the summons and takes charge of the baby. If the mother has left any bit of a trinket tied around its neck, or a letter, or a card pinned to its dress, or anything else to identify it, she can claim her own at any time afterward, on proving her maternal rights. If she wants to keep her painful secret forever to herself, she may be sure that her child will be well fed, neatly clothed, taught to read and write, cared for in health and morals, and trained in the religion of the Greek Church, till he or she is old enough to be apprenticed, or adopted out by some respectable citizen, and put in the way of an honest living.
But the most frequent patrons of the asylum are married folk. If they have more children than they can rear, they turn over the surplus to the state—more often as a loan than a gift. They know that the good doctors and nurses of the institution will do all in their power to preserve the little lives unharmed. At the end of five or six years they are more likely to find their Nicolaievitch or Feodorovna well and happy, than if it had run the dreadful gantlet of scarlet fever, cholera infantum, and diphtheria in their own squalid homes. It is a misfortune to feel obliged to surrender a child to such a corporation, though the biggest of souls animates it. The parents are to be pitied—perhaps blamed—but it is not a disgrace to them.
I said that anybody in Moscow could pilot you to the foundling asylum, but you must know the Russian word for it. The landlord of your hotel will give it to you, and you may commit it to memory, or write it down by the sounds. It will not bear the slightest resemblance to the name of a foundling asylum in French, German, Italian, or any other language of which you may have a smattering. The surname of the present writer has always appeared, when chalked in script on the blackboard directories of Russian hotels, as “Tymour,” or something to that effect. It reminded him of that monster in history—Timour the Tartar—and such a liberty taken with his patronymic was not at all agreeable.
But to get on to the foundling asylum. Before presenting myself at the visitors’ door of the vast building, I took an admission-ticket from my pocket-book. This ticket is made of flimsy paper, about four inches long by three wide; it bears a portrait of the Tsar, a number of Russian words, and a facsimile of somebody’s signature. It is popularly known as the “ruble.” When a man has this between his thumb and finger, so that it can be seen of men, it will take him through doors that are locked and bolted to all other forms of passport. The same gratifying effects follow the exhibition of the shilling in England, the franc in France, the lira in Italy, the mark in Germany, and the florin in Austria. The door was opened by a dignified person. He loomed up so very large that I thought my ruble was a little too small for his measure; so I did not offer it, but crumpled it suddenly in the palm of my hand. The tall man looked as if he did not expect or desire a “tip.” Speaking in French, he kindly asked me in, and I followed him.
I was just in time to see something very interesting. We entered a room at the end of a short passage. At that moment a poorly dressed old woman was in the act of unrolling a huge bundle of shawls and wraps. Over her was bending a matronly person with a very sympathetic face. My polite guide drew near to this group of two, and I stood at his elbow. The old woman peeled off the clothes as if she were unrolling a mummy. Nobody spoke a word, but I heard a faint cry from the center of the mysterious bundle. Then I knew that this was the reception-room for babies, and that here was the newest of the comers. A moment more, and a child was sprawling before us in its unadorned beauty. It lay in the middle of the heap of shawls as in a soft nest, which it was loath to quit. As it made another little piping cry, a tear moistened the old woman’s eye, but she showed no other sign of agitation. I surmised that she was the grandmother of the baby, and had come to discharge a duty for which the mother was ashamed. The secret—whatever it was—was confided to the care of the good matron alone, not even my guide being allowed to share it. Then a little Greek cross of filigree silver was handed over as a keepsake and means of identifying and reclaiming the child.
These preliminaries over, the matron touched a bell. In response, there came a woman bearing a steelyard scale, and a measuring-tape. She held the scale aloft with a firm hand, and the matron lifted the baby gently from its nest and placed it in the large bowl-like receptable for weighing. Between its bare pink flesh and the cold metal there was a thin sheet of soft cloth. The baby performed its part bravely, for it lay perfectly quiet, while the matron rapidly adjusted the weight till the beam hung true. She could not have done the job more carefully if she had been selling the baby at a hundred rubles a pound. The exact weight was then entered in a great ledger.