My last day at St. Petersburg is even more crowded than the rest of the week has been. Calls of farewell, final preparations, leaving cards and inscribing my name in visiting-books, occupy the greater part of it. But this going to and fro gives me opportunity of seeing it again from end to end in all its immensity before I leave. What an extraordinary idea to build a town in the midst of a marsh! to dig canals where one cannot build roads, and to be surrounded with a plain as flat as a table. Peter the Great must have been very much impressed by Amsterdam! There are corners in St. Petersburg drenched and misty as on the borders of the Zuyder Zee. But if it has reminiscences of quiet, home-like Holland, again there are brilliant thoroughfares like a Parisian boulevard. The Nevsky Prospect, in its bustle and traffic, full of colour and of life, is unique. Nevsky is the main artery of the capital—palaces belonging to the Imperial family and the grandees, public buildings, bazaars, workshops, and every edifice you can think of. And each is of different style, each of different height, and each is painted in a different hue of the rainbow. Its main feature—I dare say attraction—is its incoherence.
During this last week the Russian metropolis presented itself to me from a thousand different sides, and in how many different lights too! Trying to remember them all before I depart for good, I do so with preference for what was pleasant, instructive, and good. Besides, I do not come to criticize, I merely come to pass through, and so I prefer to put down in my diary what might prove instructive. I fully understand the great attraction which St. Petersburg always has for foreigners. I admit it also, though I should not choose it for my residence or for my sphere of labour. The polish is perfect, and of course, if one does not belong to a country, as a passing visitor one scarcely requires more. The conditions of life—at least, for the well-to-do—are most agreeable; manners all that can be desired; refinement exquisite. I do not think you can come in contact anywhere with better informed and more richly equipped people than here. Some of the scientific institutions, like the Naval Academy and the Public Library, are quite remarkable; and the new Polytechnic School—a regular town in itself, with its five faculties and its laboratories—stands alone. Then the museums and galleries contain the most celebrated art treasures. The famous Hermitage, large as it is, can scarcely hold them all. Antiques, gems, jewels, weapons, vases, engravings, and pictures, all of the first order; and I must say they appreciate what they do possess, and the arrangements of the museums are excellent. Unquestionably there is a highly intellectual current, or, if you would prefer to call it so, undercurrent, which comes to brilliant manifestations here and there; sometimes most unexpectedly, amid squalor and débris.
The huge electric globes cast a cold and glaring light over the gloomy square in front of the Moscow station. A dense crowd invades passages, halls, and waiting-rooms, and, like the swelling tide, groans, surges, and finally overflows the platforms. Travelling in Russia has a different meaning altogether from that which it possesses elsewhere—it really means a removal: a regular déplacement. Then, people seem to leave for ever: all their belongings appear to follow them, so enormous and so diverse is their kit. From simple boxes and knapsacks to kitchen utensils and even furniture, it embraces everything one could desire in one's own abode. And afterwards, when they take leave, their shaking of hands, embracing, and tears, give the impression that they never are to meet again. And this is only the local train, taking me as far as Moscow. What will it be there, at the Siberian terminus?
The journey lasts only one night, across the famous wheat-growing plains, and to-morrow, in the early hours of the morn, I hope to reach the ancient capital of the Tsars. I want to break my journey to see the ancient metropolis of the mighty rulers, to revisit all the famous scenes where so many important chapters of eastern history were once displayed to view. I want to see again the towering Kremlin, with its mosaic basilicas and treasure-houses, slumbering at present in quiet dreams of the past under their golden domes. And I want to get prepared and acclimatized to a certain extent for Siberia; for Moscow belongs altogether to the other continent; it is really the capital of Asia.
III
THROUGH EUROPEAN RUSSIA
The fading disc of the sinking sun disappears slowly beneath the horizon of the waving corn-fields. The first day of the journey is over. It was uneventful, calm, but it has not lacked interest. We have ploughed through endless fields of rich land, with a peaceful agricultural aspect. Here and there a few scattered villages of dark mud huts, and large white churches. Sometimes there is a country seat of some landed gentleman, buildings which remind me very much of an Indian bungalow. They are very long and of only one storey high, half hidden by ancient trees. On the high roads peasants are just returning in endless streams, with carts and kettles, from their daily work. However far off they may have been working, they always return home for the night, for Russian peasants seldom live on their farms. The whole picture speaks of such perfect peace: the slowly moving and singing workmen, and the little villages bathed in the afterglow, express such simple happiness, that I can scarcely realize that some of those very districts have been the scene of violence and cruel outrages. It is indeed difficult to believe the reports of the latest troubles and dissatisfaction which have burst forth in the midst of the quietest of mujiks. How difficult it is to understand the inner feelings of these quaint folk! Sleepy as they may look, uncultured, and a couple of centuries behind the rest of the world, they can yet occasionally awaken; and when they awake, their passions burst out like as a stream of lava without restraint.
During the day we stop at many smaller and larger places, nearly all insignificant, and generally very far from the station—sometimes so far that I can scarcely understand the reason of our stopping. For miles and miles around there is no human habitation, and we wonder by whose hands all those fields are worked. The most important township seemed to be Marsanka. It is a typical Russian country town, with its wooden houses, each surrounded by a flower-garden, and each garden fenced by lattice-work. The houses and gates are all painted in bright colours. A river encloses the entire place like a loop, and beyond the river are low-lying hills. The main feature of the place is given by innumerable windmills, of all sizes and of every imaginable construction—all equally conspicuous, equally high, and equally equipped with gigantic sails. They all whirl—they all work as if they would never stop. I do not think I ever saw so many windmills within view at one time; I counted more than a hundred. What a fertile country it must be, to keep so many busy!
MARSANKA
After a Water Colour Drawing by the Author
"The main feature of the place is given by innumerable windmills"
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It is night as we arrive at Pienza, and we can see nothing except the railway station; but, as I hear, this is the main sight of the place. A fine building, though constructed of wood. I must also add that the stations all along the line are fine and convenient. They are well kept, a great many have restaurants, abundantly stocked, with richly laid out tables, and fair attendance. Prices are high, but this is to be expected, considering the distance from which they sometimes procure their provisions. Here at Pienza I find even luxury. Grapes and peaches from the Crimea, wine from Germany and France, and all kinds of American and English conserves; and, as ornamentation, fine old French candelabra, derived probably from some ruined noble's residence.