Though Moscow may appear a dream-city when viewed from the Kremlin, it is an eminently practical city as well. It was, in my time, the chief manufacturing centre of Russia, and Moscow business-men had earned the reputation of being well able to look after themselves.
Another side of the life of the great city could be seen in the immense Ermitage restaurant, where Moscow people assured you with pride that the French cooking was only second to Paris. The little Tartar waiters at the Ermitage were, drolly enough, dressed like hospital orderlies, in white linen from head to foot. There might possibly be money in an antiseptic restaurant, should some enterprising person start one. The idea would be novel, and this is an age when new ideas seem attractive.
A Russian merchant in Moscow, a partner in an English firm, imagined himself to be under a great debt of gratitude to the British Embassy in Petrograd, on account of a heavy fine imposed upon him, which we had succeeded in getting remitted. This gentleman was good enough to invite a colleague and myself to dine at a certain "Traktir," celebrated for its Russian cooking. I was very slim in those days, but had I had any idea of the Gargantuan repast we were supposed to assimilate, I should have borrowed a suit of clothes from the most adipose person of my acquaintance, in order to secure additional cargo-space.
In the quaint little "Traktir" decorated in old-Russian style, after the usual fresh caviar, raw herrings, pickled mushrooms, and smoked sturgeon of the "zakuska," we commenced with cold sucking-pig eaten with horse-radish. Then followed a plain little soup, composed of herrings and cucumbers stewed in sour beer. Slices of boiled salmon and horse-radish were then added, and the soup was served iced. This soup is distinctly an acquired taste. This was succeeded by a simple dish of sterlets, boiled in wine, with truffles, crayfish, and mushrooms. After that came mutton stuffed with buckwheat porridge, pies of the flesh and isinglass of the sturgeon, and Heaven only knows what else. All this accompanied by red and white Crimean wines, Kvass, and mead. I had always imagined that mead was an obsolete beverage, indulged in principally by ancient Britons, and drunk for choice out of their enemies' skulls, but here it was, foaming in beautiful old silver tankards; and perfectly delicious it was! Oddly enough, the Russian name for it, "meod," is almost identical with ours.
Only once in my life have I suffered so terribly from repletion, and that was in the island of Barbados, at the house of a hospitable planter. We sat down to luncheon at one, and rose at five. The sable serving-maids looked on the refusal of a dish as a terrible slur on the cookery of the house, and would take no denial. "No, you like dis, sar, it real West India dish. I gib you lilly piece." What with turtle, and flying-fish, and calipash and calipee, and pepper-pot, and devilled land-crabs, I felt like the boa-constrictor in the Zoological Gardens after his monthly meal.
I was not fortunate enough to witness the coronation of either Alexander III or that of Nicholas II. In the perfect setting of "the Red Staircase," of the ancient stone-built hall known as the "Granovitaya Palata," and of the "Gold Court," the ceremonial must be deeply impressive. On no stage could more picturesque surroundings possibly be devised. During the coronation festivities, most of the Ambassadors hired large houses in Moscow, and transferred their Embassies to the old capital for three weeks. At the coronation of Nicholas II, of unfortunate memory, the French Ambassador, the Comte de Montebello, took a particularly fine house in Moscow, the Shérémaitieff Palace, and it was arranged that he should give a great ball the night after the coronation, at which the newly-crowned Emperor and Empress would be present. The French Government own a wonderful collection of splendid old French furniture, tapestries, and works of art, known as the "Garde Meubles." Under the Monarchy and Empire, these all adorned the interiors of the various palaces. To do full honour to the occasion, the French Government dispatched vanloads of the choicest treasures of the "Garde Meubles" to Moscow, and the Shérémaitieff Palace became a thing of beauty, with Louis Quatorze Gobelins, and furniture made for Marie-Antoinette. To enhance the effect, the Comte and Comtesse de Montebello arranged the most elaborate floral decorations, and took immense pains over them. On the night of the ball, two hours before their guests were due, the Ambassador was informed that the Chief of Police was outside and begged for permission to enter the temporary Embassy. Embassies enjoying what is known as "exterritoriality," none of the police can enter except on the invitation of the Ambassador; much as vampires, according to the legend, could only secure entrance to a house at the personal invitation of the owner. It will be remembered that these unpleasing creatures displayed great ingenuity in securing this permission; indeed the really expert vampires prided themselves on the dexterity with which they could inveigle their selected victim into welcoming them joyfully into his domicile. The Chief of Police informed the French Ambassador that he had absolutely certain information that a powerful bomb had been introduced into the Embassy, concealed in a flower-pot. M. de Montebello was in a difficult position. On the previous day the Ambassador had discovered that every single electric wire in the house had been deliberately severed by some unknown hand. French electricians had repaired the damage, but it was a disquieting incident in the circumstances. The policeman was positive that his information was correct, and the consequences of a terrific bomb exploding in one's house are eminently disagreeable, so he gave his reluctant permission to have the Embassy searched, though his earlier guests might be expected within an hour. Armies of police myrmidons appeared, and at once proceeded to unpot between two and three thousand growing plants, and to pick all the floral decorations to pieces. Nothing whatever was found, but it would be unreasonable to expect secret police, however zealous, to exhibit much skill as trained florists. They made a frightful hash of things, and not only ruined the elaborate decorations, but so managed to cover the polished floors with earth that the rooms looked like ploughed fields, dancing was rendered impossible, and poor Madame de Montebello was in tears. As the guests arrived, the police had to be smuggled out through back passages. This was one of the little amenities of life in a bomb-ridden land.
During the summer months I was much at Tsarskoe Selo. Tsarskoe is only fourteen miles from Petrograd, and some of my Russian friends had villas there. The gigantic Old Palace of Tsarskoe is merely an enlarged Winter Palace, and though its garden façade is nearly a quarter of a mile long, it is uninteresting and unimpressive, being merely an endless repetition of the same details. I was taken over the interior several times, but such a vast quantity of rooms leaves only a confused impression of magnificence. I only recall the really splendid staircase and the famous lapis-lazuli and amber rooms. The lapis-lazuli room is a blaze of blue and gold, with walls, furniture, and chandeliers encrusted with that precious substance. The amber room is perfectly beautiful. All the walls, cabinets, and tables are made of amber of every possible shade, from straw-colour to deep orange. There are also great groups of figures carved entirely out of amber. Both the lapis and the amber room have curious floors of black ebony inlaid with mother-of-pearl, forming a very effective colour scheme. I have vague memories of the "gold" and "silver" rooms, but very distinct recollections of the bedroom of one of the Empresses, who a hundred years before the late Lord Lister had discovered the benefits of antiseptic surgery had with some curious prophetic instinct had her sleeping-room constructed on the lines of a glorified modern operating theatre. The walls of this quaint apartment were of translucent opal glass, decorated with columns of bright purple glass, with a floor of inlaid mother-of-pearl. Personally, I should always have fancied a faint smell of chloroform lingering about the room.
Catherine the Great had her monogram placed everywhere at Tsarskoe Selo, on doors, walls, and ceilings. It was difficult to connect her with the interlaced "E's," until one remembered that the Russian form of the name is "Ekaterina." How wise the Russians have been in retaining the so-called Cyrillian alphabet in writing their tongue!
In other Slavonic languages, such as Polish and Czech, where the Roman alphabet has been adopted, unholy combinations of "cz," "zh," and "sz" have to be resorted to to reproduce sounds which the Cyrillian alphabet could express with a single letter; and the tragic thing is that, be the letters piled together never so thickly, they invariably fail to give the foreigner the faintest idea of how the word should really be pronounced. Take the much-talked-of town of Przemysl, for instance.