This interesting mining engineer then turned from finance to the more comprehensive subject of politics in general, and added: “It is impossible for a single man to know all that takes place over such an immense territory. But if the Emperor could indeed be enlightened through the interpolations of a wise and intelligent opposition, he would still take good care not to introduce this element into the Constitution. To give you an instance of the ignorance of the high administration of the empire, I will only tell you that I regularly receive every year four thousand roubles, officially as engineer, for superintending the working of a Government manufactory that has been closed for five years!”
I could not help smiling at this candid avowal; and on learning this significant fact it seemed to me conclusive and peremptory.
I thanked my visitor for his agreeable society, and thought that this Russian proverb might justly be applied to him: “No one lets a bird of the Government escape without plucking out some feathers.” I begged him to introduce me in the evening to a sitting of the Council General, and then went with Constantine to visit an important cannon foundry situated at about three miles from Perm.
The director of this foundry pretends that the cannon turned out here are superior to anything that has been hitherto made in Prussia.
This sitting of the Council General was void of interest, and soon ended from default of speakers. The members, having replied to their names, left at once to be present at a concert given by a company of travelling musicians under the direction of Monsieur Slavenski.
The Russian people, essentially musical, sing on all occasions. After a marriage ceremony the guests mount into eight or ten sledges and then make an excursion, following one after the other in line, singing all the time. They do the same at funerals and baptisms; sometimes—provided the season is not too severe—for no other reason than because it is winter and there is no work to do. These songs, which were executed by a company of forty artistes, who travel over the country to give their popular airs, constituted the entire entertainment: their voices united an exuberant richness to a remarkable simplicity of harmony.
The nearer one approaches an object he is intent on, the more impatient he becomes; I was longing, therefore, to tread at last on Siberian ground. As the distance was not very great that separated me from Catherineburg, I imagined I should get over it very speedily. But, alas! the Councillor was quite right. The road was, indeed, in a deplorable state. I do not know, indeed, how they could give the name of road to a long course of land whose surface was not level for a single yard, and where wide pits succeeded each other without interruption—not simple ruts, but pits three, four, nay, five feet deep! The yemschik has to calculate very nicely the fall of the sledge into these pits, that the horses’ legs be not broken by the shock of the vehicle shooting forward against them; then he has to climb up the other side of the ditch, but not without great efforts, and no sooner does he get out of it than he has to prepare to dive into another.
The reader may easily conceive what the result of such a locomotion must be to a poor traveller: he is doubly wearied on account of the creeping pace accompanying the usual fatigue. It took me twenty-four hours to get over twenty-eight English miles! I was exasperated. My hope was to get a glimpse at the chain of the Ural Mountains, but a boisterous wind swept up the snow and whirled it round and round in moving columns reaching to the sky; beyond a few hundred yards nothing was visible.
To pass away the tedious hours I began questioning Constantine. “What is there in summer under this snow?” “Grass.” “Of what use is it?” “None at all.” “Who takes it?” “Nobody.” “Who cuts these woods?” “No one.” “Do all these lands belong to any one?” “Not always.” “This land then is not capable of producing anything?” “On the contrary; it would be very productive if they cultivated it.” “But then, why has your Emperor such a passion for conquest, when he can get so much out of his own land? Why does he go in search of gold in the Trans-Baikal, in the valley of the Issoury, and will soon perhaps in the Corea, as it is said among you, when he has at home more abundant and surer sources of riches? Why does he lead his armies into the burning deserts of Tartary, that were formerly independent? Why does he waste so much money in the conquest of Khiva when he could make far more on his own lands?”
When I waited for a reply to these questions, Constantine, who clung like a burr to the glory of his Emperor—and I congratulate him for his spirit—gave me one disdainfully: “I can easily understand, that the French, whose country is less extensive than our government of Perm, should be jealous of the immensity of our territory. You see, monsieur, that we are marching to the conquest of Asia entirely, which is the cradle of our race, and to Constantinople also, where our religion originated.”