As I wished to see this treasure, we went there and sent to the abbess to obtain permission to visit it; but, to my disappointment and vexation, it was refused. This was the only occasion on which doors were closed against me whenever I presented myself, either in European Russia or Siberia, to gratify my curiosity in visiting any public building.
The young student who accompanied me was disgusted at the scrupulosity or ill-nature of the abbess, and manifested his feelings in a way more significant than delicate—a way quite common with Russians—by spitting with great energy repeatedly on the ground. But in spite of this unseemly reception of the abbess’s message, he was most respectful and courteous towards the nun who bore it, and we went away exchanging bows, as if she had conferred on us the highest favour.
THE MOTHER-SUPERIOR OF KAZAN MONASTERY.
This dainty habit of expressing disapproval or protestation by salivary effusion is so common and popular that it finds its way even into literature. It was here, just in this city, that I was present at a play wherein the author tried to represent as effectively as possible how far domestic quarrels might go in a household composed of members who were not very accommodating to one another. The representation was perfectly intelligible to me from beginning to end, notwithstanding my ignorance of the Russian language, simply because the best arguments employed by the leading characters in the play consisted principally in repetitions of this gesture, certainly far more expressive than delicate.
And so far as regarded my young companion also, if anything would have withheld him from responding quite as demonstratively to the abbess herself on receiving her refusal, it would not have been any sentiment of reverence or scruples of piety, and for a very good reason: because the students of the university of Kazan pique themselves on being freethinkers.
But what is much more serious in the Russian territory is that they strain the theory of emancipation to embrace ideas of political liberty in its most liberal sense. The Government, however, knows how to suppress this excess of enthusiasm as soon as it manifests itself. At the time of the Polish insurrection, three students having a little too openly demonstrated their views, one was shot and the other two banished for life to the Siberian deserts.
The liberation of the serfs had naturally caused a great deal of bitter feeling towards the late Czar on the part of certain aristocratic landowners; and the Russian liberals have succeeded, in a great measure, in conciliating the latter by sympathizing with them in their imaginary wrong; thus it sometimes happens that nobles and liberals share the same hopes, and consequently draw closer to one another. With this spirit pervading these two classes, the reader will not be surprised to learn that I was introduced by a student of the university of Kazan to an important personage of the old Russian aristocracy.
He entertained me with an account of the enfranchisement of the serfs, and it was naturally from his own point of view; but since these views differ very widely among people with whom I have conversed on the subject, according to their interests or prejudices, I will give in his own words the opinion of this old Russian noble without making any comment on it. He thus began:
“Formerly all the Russian territory belonged to the nobles. The peasant, of course, was at the mercy of the lord on whose land he lived, and was obliged to give him a certain amount of work. The lord, however, never abused this privilege; on the contrary, he was in the habit of distributing every year among the peasantry a certain quantity of land to farm for their own benefit, as a recompense for their services. Under this arrangement, the peasant had an interest in working; he worked for his master, and the land consequently improved, and then he worked for himself, to obtain some comfort in his old age. The land under this system produced more, and the general prosperity could not fail to increase accordingly.