The Alhambra and the Kremlin: The South and the North of Europe

by Samuel Irenæus Prime

At Tver, on the Volga, we halted for a few moments only. A little girl, four or five years old, barefoot and poorly clad, came before the car window begging. She bowed to us as if before a picture of the Virgin, crossed herself, touched her forehead, bent her head low, the hair falling over her face, and then, raising her head quickly, threw the hair back, and so amused the people. We threw her money, which she caught in her lap, crossed herself, blessed us, and asked for more. Three girls came up and joined her, going through the same motions, and got some coppers; and now a big boy made his appearance and put in his claims which proved unsuccessful. Then he turned upon the little girl, knocked her about for a minute, robbed her of her alms and fled. Boys are boys all the world over. I wish the cars would wait long enough for me to catch the little rascal, and recover the money for the girl.

This is a city of nearly 30,000 inhabitants; its splendid domes and beautiful Greek temples, as seen in passing, speak of a city of unusual culture.

Night came, according to the watch, but no darkness. Nine, ten, twelve, no signs of night, except that sunshine was gone. We wished to go to sleep. But here an unexpected difficulty arose. The two ladies declared it to be impossible for them to sleep in the cars, and therefore they did not wish the seats disturbed. We proposed to the conductor to arrange ours into berths, and let the others remain in statu quo ante bellum. He said they must be worked together: all or none. In vain we argued the case with these implacable women; and, when we found that our appeals to their pity and their sense of justice were alike without avail, we gave it up. Each of us four settled into a corner, and the two ladies soon gave certain infallible signs that they were sound asleep, and so they continued until long after the break of day. The truth was, and the conductor understood it, but we did not, there was an extra charge for making up the berths, and the ladies saved the money by sleeping perpendicularly.

At midnight it was as light as noon often is with us. I could write at any hour, and these lines you are now reading are written at half-past two o’clock in the morning. At three, the east began to glare with the rising splendor of another day. The heavy clouds that skirt the horizon are robes of fire. Gorgeously the colors of the rainbow are painted one by one on these shifting scenes,—orange, red, purple, violet, I could count them all. How mean, tame, pale, all earthly pageants seem: the domes, the minarets, the golden-jewelled orbs and crowns of Czars, compared with this wasted wealth of glory that the King of kings scatters from his full hand with the rising of each day’s sun. I had never seen the sun rise in a latitude so far north. Its splendors charmed me out of all my hard feelings towards these sleeping Russian dames, who deprived me of a night’s repose and gave me such a magnificent morning.

Sitting up all night with a couple of Russian ladies might, or might not, suggest the idea of telling you something of the marriage customs of this strange country. A French writer, whose name I forget, has said “the Russians are a nation of polite savages,” a remark that is not very apt, but it helps us toward a proper understanding of the social condition of the people. The rich are very rich; the poor are very poor. The nobles are courtly, polite, and as refined in manners as those of the same social class in Germany; but the serfs, or those who belonged to the nobles with the soil, before the emancipation, are rude, and not half civilized. The two classes, or rather the extremes of the two classes, would justify the description of the Frenchman, who, like many writers of his country, would not be specially tied by the truth, if he wished to point an epigram.

It was no uncommon thing in those days of serfdom for the proprietor to order this matter of marriage among his people, telling the young men to get a wife when he thought it time, and providing them, if the young men were slow in making their choice. And in the peasant class the marriage was liable to all the caprices and irregularities to be expected in a state of things where the will of the master was scarcely restrained by law or custom, so that he had the social happiness of his people very much in his own hands. In such a country, and under such circumstances, it would not be strange if some social evil was suffered.

Almost as soon as a girl is born, in the better ranks of society, her parents begin to prepare the dowry she must have when she goes to her husband. For this is indispensable in the eyes of any Russian young gentleman who proposes to be married. She must furnish every thing for an outfit in life, even to a dozen new shirts for her coming husband.

I have just heard of a lady of rank and wealth who had prepared a costly dowry of silks, linen, jewels, plate, &c., for her beloved daughter, who died as she came to be twenty years old. The mother resolved to endow six girls with these riches, and actually advertised for them. A host of applicants came, and she selected six. None of them had lovers. But now they had a respectable dowry secured, each girl was speedily engaged, and with the husband took the dowry, and paid the rich lady by promising to pray for the repose of her daughter’s soul.

In no country is this arrangement of terms carried on with more caution and completeness than in Russia. The young man goes to the house of his proposed bride, and counts over the dresses, and examines the furniture, and sees to the whole with his own eyes, before he commits himself to the irrevocable bargain. In high life such things are conducted with more apparent delicacy, but the facts are ascertained with accuracy, the business being in the hands of a broker or a notary. The trousseau is exposed in public before the wedding day. And this publicity has long been as unblushing as the customs that are now becoming fashionable in New York. The publication in the newspapers of intended marriages; of descriptions of bridal dresses and presents; of the names and toilettes of guests at fashionable parties; the value of jewels worn, &c., now common and approved in the highest circles of American society, is the same thing with the exposure to the public gaze of a bride’s dowry in Russia.

At Whitsunday there is a curious custom, which is gradually giving way with the advance of civilization. The young people of a neighborhood come together, and the girls stand in a row, like so many statues, draped indeed, and not only draped, but dressed in their best, and painted too; for the young ladies, and the older ones also, of this country use cosmetics freely, and a box of lady’s paint is a very common present for a young man to make to the girl he likes. Behind the row of girls are their mothers; the young men having made known their choice, the terms are settled between the parents of the parties.