Manners of the Great Russian Nobility.
I went to spend a day at the country seat of prince Narischkin, great chamberlain of the court, an amiable, easy and polished man, but who cannot exist without a fete; it is at his house that you obtain a correct notion of that vivacity in their tastes, which explains the defects and qualities of the Russians. The house of M. de Narischkin is always open, and if there happen to be only twenty persons at his country seat, he begins to be weary of this philosophical retreat. Polite to strangers, always in movement, and yet perfectly capable of the reflection required to stand well at court: greedy of the enjoyments of imagination, but placing these only in things and not in books; impatient every where but at court, witty when it is to his advantage to be so, magnificent rather than ambitious, and seeking in everything for a certain Asiatic grandeur, in which fortune and rank are more conspicuous than personal advantages. His country seat is as agreeable as it is possible for a place of the kind to be, created by the hand of man: all the surrounding country is marshy and barren; so as to make this residence a perfect Oasis. On ascending the terrace, you see the gulph of Finland, and perceive in the distance, the palace which Peter I. built upon its borders; but the space which separates it from the sea and the palace is almost a waste, and the park of M. Narischkin alone charms the eye of the observer. We dined in the house of the Moldavians, that is to say, in a saloon built according to the taste of these people; it was arranged so as to protect from the heat of the sun, a precaution rather needless in Russia. However the imagination is impressed to that degree with the idea that you are living among a people who have only come into the North by accident, that it appears natural to find there the customs of the South, as if the Russians were some day or other to bring to Petersburg the climate of their old country. The table was covered with the fruits of all countries, according to the custom taken from the East, of only letting the fruits appear, while a crowd of servants carried round to each guest the dishes of meat and vegetables they required.
We were entertained with a concert of that horn music which is peculiar to Russia, and of which mention has been often made. Of twenty musicians, each plays only one and the same note, every time it returns; each of these men in consequence bears the name of the note which he is employed to execute. When one of them is seen going along, people say: that is the sol, that is the mi, or that is the re of M. Narischkin. The horns go on increasing from rank to rank, and this music has been by some one called, very properly, a living organ. At a distance the effect is very fine: the exactness and the purity of the harmony excite the most noble ideas; but when you come near to these poor performers, who are there like pipes, yielding only one sound, and quite unable to participate by their own emotions in the effect produced, the pleasure dies away: one does not like to see the fine arts transformed into mechanical arts, to be acquired by dint of strength like exercise.
Some of the inhabitants of the Ukraine, dressed in scarlet, came afterwards to sing to us some of the airs of their country, which are singularly pleasing: they are sometimes gay and sometimes melancholy, and sometimes both united. These airs sometimes break off abruptly in the midst of the melody, as if the imagination of the people was tired before finishing what at first pleased them, or found it more piquant to suspend the charm at the very moment its influence was greatest. It is thus that the Sultana of the Arabian Nights always breaks off her story, when its interest is at the height.
M. Narischkin in the midst of this variety of pleasures, proposed to us to drink a toast to the united arms of the Russians and English, and gave at the same moment a signal to his artillery, which gave almost as loud a salute as that of a sovereign. The inebriety of hope seized all the guests; as for me, I felt myself bathed in tears. Was it possible that a foreign tyrant should reduce me to wish that the French should be beat? I wish, said I then, for the fall of him, who is equally the oppressor of France and Europe; for the true French will triumph if he is repulsed. The English and the Russian guests, and particularly M. Narischkin, approved my idea, and the name of France, formerly like that of Armida in its effects, was once more heard with kindness by the knights of the east, and of the sea, who were going to fight against her.
Calrnucks with flat features are still brought up in the houses of the Russian nobility, as if to preserve a specimen of those Tartars who were conquered by the Sclavonians. In the palace of Narischkin there were two or three of these half-savage Calmucks running about. They are agreeable enough in their infancy, but at the age of twenty they lose all the charms of youth: obstinate, though slaves, they amuse their masters by their resistance, like a squirrel fighting with the wires of his cage. It was painful to look at this specimen of the human race debased; I thought I saw, in the midst of all the pomp of luxury, an image of what man may become, when he derives no dignity either from religion or the laws, and this spectacle was calculated to humble the pride which the enjoyments of splendor may inspire.
Long carriages for promenade, drawn by the most beautiful horses, conducted us, after dinner, into the park. It was now the end of August, but the sun was pale, the grass of an almost artificial green, because it was only kept up by unremitting attention. The flowers themselves appeared to be an aristocratic enjoyment, so much expense was required to have them. No warbling of birds was heard in the woods, they did not trust themselves to this summer of a moment; neither were any cattle observable in the meadows: one could not dare to give them plants which had required such pains to cultivate. The water scarcely flowed, and only by the help of machines which brought it into the gardens, where the whole of this nature had the air of being a festival decoration, which would disappear when the guests retired. Our caliches stopped in front of a building in the garden, which represented a Tartar camp; there, all the musicians united began a new concert: the noise of horns and cymbals quite intoxicated the ideas. The better to complete this entire banishment of thinking, we had an imitation, during summer, of their sledges, the rapidity of which consoles the Russians for their winter; we rolled upon boards, from the top of a mountain in wood with the quickness of lightning. This amusement charmed the ladies as much as the gentlemen, and allowed them to participate a little in those pleasures of war, which consist in the emotion of danger, and in the animated promptitude of all the movements. Thus passed the time; for every day saw a renewal of what appeared to me to be a fete. With some slight differences, the greater part of the great houses of Petersburg lead the same kind of life: it is impossible, as one may readily see, for any kind of continued conversation to be kept up in it, and learning is of no utility in this kind of society; but where so much is done only from the desire of collecting in one's house a great multitude of persons, entertainments are after all the only means of preventing the ennui which a crowd in the saloons always creates.
In the midst of all this noise, is there any room for love? will be asked by the Italian ladies, who scarcely know any other interest in society than the pleasure of seeing the person by whom they wish to be beloved. I passed too short a time at Petersburg to obtain correct ideas of the interior arrangements of families; it appeared to me, however, that on one hand, there was more domestic virtue than was said to exist; but that on the other hand, sentimental love was very rarely known. The customs of Asia, which meet you at every step, prevent the females from interfering with the domestic cares of their establishment: all these are directed by the husband, and the wife only decorates herself with his gifts, and receives the persons whom he invites. The respect for morality is already much greater than it was at Petersburg in the time of those emperors and empresses who depraved opinion by their example. The two present empresses have made those virtues beloved, of which they are themselves the models. In this respect, however, as in a great many others, the principles of morality are not properly fixed in the minds of the Russians. The ascendancy of the master has always been so great over them, that from one reign to another, all maxims upon all subjects may be changed. The Russians, both men and women, generally carry into love their characteristic impetuosity, but their disposition to change makes them also easily renounce the objects of their choice. A certain irregularity in the imagination does not allow them to find happiness in what is durable. The cultivation of the understanding, which multiplies sentiment by poetry and the fine arts, is very rare among the Russians, and with these fantastic and vehement dispositions, love is rather a fete or a delirium than a profound and reflected affection. Good company in Russia is therefore a perpetual vortex, and perhaps the extreme prudence to which a despotic government accustoms people, may be the cause that the Russians are charmed at not being led, by the enticement of conversation, to speak upon subjects which may lead to any consequence whatever. To this reserve, which, under different reigns, has been but too necessary to them, we must attribute the want of truth of which they are accused. The refinements of civilization in all countries alter the sincerity of character, but when a sovereign possesses the unlimited power of exile, imprisonment, sending to Siberia, &c. &c. it is something too strong for human nature. We may meet with men independent enough to disdain favor, but heroism is required to brave persecution, and heroism cannot be an universal quality.
None of these reflections, we know, apply to the present government, its head being, as emperor, perfectly just, and as a man, singularly generous. But the subjects preserve the defects of slavery long after the sovereign himself would wish to remove them. We have seen, however, during the continuance of this war, how much virtue has been shown by Russians of all ranks, not even excepting the courtiers. While I was at Petersburg, scarcely any young men were to be seen in company; all had gone to the army. Married men, only sons, noblemen of immense fortunes, were serving in the capacity of simple volunteer, and the sight of their estates and houses ravaged, has never made them think of the losses in any other light than as motives of revenge, but never of capitulating with the enemy. Such qualities more than counterbalance all the abuses, disorders, and misfortunes which an administration still vicious, a civilization yet new, and despotic institutions, may have introduced.