CHAPTER XXV.

RUSSIAN ART, CUSTOMS, AND MANNERS.

I HAD always supposed the WINTER Palace of the Emperor was an edifice prepared with some special reference to the climate of this northern country. It is called the Winter Palace only because the Emperor has, as a matter of course, other palaces in the country in which to spend the summer. This is a vast structure on the very border of the river Neva, and in the midst of the city. It is built of brown stone, and makes some pretence to architectural elegance.

It, the palace, has five thousand inhabitants! I confess that those figures of speech seem to be very large, and it is a wonder how so many people can find employment in the service of one household. But the ways of royalty are not readily comprehended by mortals of common clay, and perhaps if we knew how many servants there are who have servants to wait upon them, how all these have families of their own, and these are all to be fed and lodged within these walls, we may begin to understand that one house may become a village, and quite populous also.

But if this number of dependents exceeds that of any other palace in Europe, as it probably does, it is safe to say that it is the most gorgeously decorated and furnished. Whatever extravagance the wit of man could devise to adorn a house has been lavished here, and the result is what might be expected,—a great display without that quiet elegance which distinguishes true from meretricious art. The Russian is between the Eastern and Western. The Russian is not a barbarous people, nor yet thoroughly civilized. On the borders of the two, he delights in the barbaric splendor of the Orientals, and has not yet reached the point where simplicity imparts the highest charm to elegance and grandeur. This accounts for the architecture of Russian palaces and temples. More emphatically it shows itself in the immense amount of gold which overlays every thing they wish to adorn. Even the domes of their churches blaze in gold, so that each one looks like a rising sun.

The crown jewels of Russia are the chief object of interest in the Winter Palace, for it is dreadfully tiresome to be led over miles of polished floors to look through room upon room, in endless mazes lost, seeing the same things substantially everywhere, and hearing the same story over and over again about the kings and queens that slept here and died there; though, as it was built since 1840, there is little or no historic interest about it. But the crown jewels are worth seeing. One loves to look at a diamond worth a million, though he cannot use it for a button. The Orloff diamond is as famous as the Koh-i-noor, and was, perhaps, at one time part of the same stone. Its history is romantic. It was once the eye of an idol in a temple in India, and being plucked out and stolen by a soldier, it passed through many hands till Count Orloff bought it and gave it to the Empress of Russia. It cost the Count or the Empress about three hundred thousand dollars. It weighs 194 carats, being eight carats more than the Koh-i-noor weighed when it came from India. The Orloff is the largest of the crown jewels in Europe. The imperial crown itself is radiant with the most magnificent gems, forty or more in number, and the crown of the Empress contains the most beautiful mass of diamonds known to be set together; a hundred of them at least. Some of the richest are precious stones presented to Russia by sovereigns in the East who would conciliate this mighty power. And what are they good for, when gathered into such a treasury? They are the playthings of royalty; baubles that delight the eye, pure carbon that is sold by the ton for a few dollars, but in the form of a diamond, it has a value scarcely to be reckoned, when they lie around in such heaps as we see them here.

The Hermitage is a palace near to the other, in which are the Russian galleries of art. If it was surprising to find in Madrid the most valuable collection of paintings in Europe, it was not less astonishing to find in Russia such magnificent pictures and so large a number of those that deserve admiration. For many years past the government has been spending large sums of money in the purchase of pictures. It has had and has its agents in Italy, and in every picture mart in Europe, ready to pay any price for “an old master.”

And it has shown its good sense in this, that when it cannot compass the original, it gets the best possible copy, and hangs it on its walls, with its story fairly told. This is the true way to cultivate the taste, and instruct the intellect of the nation in art. Catharine the Great built a pavilion on the end of the Winter Palace, to which she might retire from the cares of State, and here she drew around her the wits of the age. She called it the Hermitage, and that it might be a real refuge, into which royalty and its stiltedness could not intrude, she made a curious code of laws to govern the company that she here assembled.

The Hermitage is now the Royal Museum, and its grandeur and extent are unequalled. It is 515 feet long and 375 feet wide. The roof of this vast hall is supported by sixteen columns, each one a single block of granite from Finland, with Corinthian capitals of Carara marble. Successive stories on the same scale are filled with statues and pictures, and curious works of art, in which the genius and skill of all schools and nations are represented. Even to mention them would take up more of your time than would be proper for me to consume, and I let them pass unnoticed. I was even more interested in Peter the Great’s gallery, where his turning-lathes and other tools that he used with his own hands are preserved; and what is even more remarkable, the instruments that he manufactured for himself, from a telescope to a walking-stick. His iron staff that he carried about with him would not be credited as genuine, were it not that a wooden rod tells of his gigantic stature, and thus makes it quite probable that he could walk with a rod of iron.

Art-culture in Russia has advanced to a far higher point than we would expect to find. The painting and sculpture of Russia in the Paris exhibition astonished the outside world, and the galleries in the Hermitage devoted to native art are marvellously illustrated with splendid achievements of the chisel and pencil.

In all countries I am more interested in studying the condition of the masses than the “upper classes.” In all countries the rich and the titled, the “well-to-do in the world,” can take care of themselves, and they are substantially the same kind of people in all civilized lands. The nobles of England, of France, of Germany, of Russia, have plenty to eat and to drink and they know wherewithal they are to be clothed, and when one is travelling in their country, he has no need to ask whether or not they are enjoying themselves after their own fashion, and have any need of human sympathy. But when we pass through a Russian town with a thousand huts in it, all about the same size, and not one aspiring to the dignity of a respectable American farm-house, and see vast tracts of land well tilled, but not a house nor a man in sight, then I wonder how the people live in these parts; what do they eat and drink, and do they have enough? Are they contented and happy, or do they hunger and pine, and drag out a miserable sort of life of it, here in these far-away lands?

In the agricultural districts of Russia, not very far away from the chief cities, a laborer gets for a day’s work his food and about fifty copeks, or, of our money, about forty cents a day. A mechanic gets about one rouble, which is a hundred copeks, or about eighty cents of our money, for a day’s work, and he finds his own food. In the winter season beef is sold in St. Petersburg for ten or twelve cents a pound, and in summer it is as low as eight cents. This will enable you to compare the rate of wages with the price of food, and to see that there is not so great a difference in the cost, to the poor, of living in that country and ours, as might at first be supposed.

The rent of the hotel at which I am staying in St. Petersburg—and it is one of the largest in the kingdom—is about fifteen thousand dollars per annum, and that is about seven per cent on the valuation of the property.

The food of the peasantry is largely composed of cabbage soup, which is a great article among them, and they consume it day after day, year in and year out, and are always fond of it. This is one of the pleasantest compensations of Providence, that people may continue to be fond of a dish that they have to eat every day. Their bread is black, and they have some meat, for it is not costly, and on the whole they are comfortably fed. So they are decently clothed. Their dress has the appearance of warmth and comfort, too much for the hot weather that is now raging; but they have so much cold and so little heat, that they do not care to make a change for the brief summer. A poor peasant swelters in a jacket of sheepskin with the wool on it, or wears a fur collar if he can afford it, and sticks to it under a blazing hot sun, as well as in midwinter.

A peculiar custom is observed in Russia that I never noticed elsewhere. You are expected always to take off your overcoat on entering the house to make a call, of business or pleasure. Even when you call at the bank, to draw or deposit your money, a liveried servant in the hall conducts you to an anteroom, where you lay aside your overcoat and hat, and then enter the business-room as if you were to be presented to the lady of the mansion. My bankers here are Wynken & Co., at the end of the iron bridge over the Neva, and, upon entering, I was shown to a seat, and my letter of credit taken by a clerk to one of the firm, who immediately came out from his office, and after a few complimentary inquiries, asked me what he could do for me, and in a few minutes the business was done.

A despot is the Emperor of Russia. We have come to associate only a bad meaning with the word _despot_. It had not such a sense as we liberty worshippers give it. Now it means a tyrant, a hard master, one who has unlimited power and uses it to oppress. _Despotes_ is the Greek word for master in the New Testament, and sometimes the _Lord_ himself is spoken of and addressed under this name. The apostle Paul says: “Let as many servants as are under the yoke, count their own _despots_ worthy of all honor.” And again: “they that have believing _despots_;” and again, he commands servants to be obedient unto their own _despots_. So Peter tells them to be subject to their own _despots_. And good old Simeon cries; “_Despotes_, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace.” And Peter speaks of those who deny the _despotes_ that bought them; and in Rev. vi. 10, we read: “Plow long, O _despotes_, holy and true,” &c. These quotations show us the good sense in which the word was once used; and now, when we speak of a despotic government, we do not understand that it is necessarily an oppressive government, but one in which the power is concentrated in the hands of one man, who can use it at his pleasure, unrestrained by constitution or legislature.

Justice is administered under laws the issue of the sovereign will, and liable to be repealed at his pleasure. _Trial by jury_ is of recent introduction, and may be considered as an experiment. In the court-room I inquired of an intelligent gentleman how it was working. He said, quite well; and then related the following incident to show how the royal will comes in, even to the smallest affairs of private citizens: An officer under the government promised to give a certain _place_ of profit to a man, who was soon surprised to find that it was given to another. Such mishaps are not unusual in milder governments, I believe. But the disappointed office-seeker sought the man who had promised it to him, and slapped his face in open court, charging him with a breach of faith. He was arraigned and tried by jury for the assault and battery, and the jury brought in a verdict of not guilty, or more accurately,—“Served him right.” The verdict was received with great applause. The Emperor gave the office-seeker and the office-holder also, the striker and the struck, appointments in distant parts of the empire, where neither of them wanted to go or to stay, and thus he punished them both: one for breaking his word, and the other for breaking the peace. There is a vein of humor in such administration of justice.

“The bookkeeper of a mercantile house in Thorn was arrested in the Russian town of Rieszawa, by the burgomaster of that place, on a perfectly unfounded charge of an intention to smuggle. Although the bookkeeper succeeded in establishing his respectability, he was thrown into a dirty prison cell, and kept there twenty-four hours. His principal, of course, complained of this most unjustifiable treatment, and has lately received an official communication that the burgomaster has also been imprisoned twenty-four hours, and in the same prison in which he had shut up the unhappy bookkeeper.”

M. Andreoli, a Russian writer, who was exiled some years ago to Siberia, is now contributing to the _Revue Moderne_, under the title of “Souvenirs de Sibérie,” his recollections not only of Siberian but also of Russian life. In the last number of the _Revue_ he tells a story, the end of which belongs to the present reign, the beginning to the reign of Paul, of whose period it is strikingly characteristic. The Emperor’s favorite was at that time a young French actress, of whom he was madly jealous. One evening, at a ball, he noticed that a young man named Labanoff was paying her a great deal of attention. He did not lose his temper, but at the end of the ball gave orders that Labanoff should be arrested and thrown into the citadel. He only intended to keep him there a few days, “to make him more serious,” after which he proposed to reprimand him and to appoint him to an office which had been solicited for him. Labanoff, however, was forgotten. At the death of Nicholas, Alexander II., then full of magnanimity, liberated all the prisoners in the citadel, without exception. In a vaulted tomb, in which it was impossible to stand upright, and which was not more than two yards long, an old man was found, almost bent double, and incapable of answering when he was spoken to. This was Labanoff. The Emperor Paul had been succeeded by the Emperor Alexander I., and afterwards by the Emperor Nicholas; he had been in the dungeon more than fifty years. When he was taken out he could not bear the light, and, by a strange phenomenon, his movements had become automatic. He could hardly hold himself up, and he had become so accustomed to move about within the limits of his narrow cell that he could not take more than two steps forwards without turning round, as though he had struck against a wall, and taking two steps backwards, and so on alternately. He lived for only a week after his liberation.

We often read such facts as these, and they are sad and awful illustrations of what unlimited power may be left to do. Recently there have been horrible stories of cruelties inflicted by the agents of the Russian government, but they are not worse than have sometimes been perpetrated in the name of liberty and justice in other and more enlightened countries.

Look on the map of Asia and see that vast country of SIBERIA, a part of the colossal empire of Russia. The tales that are told of the exiles of Siberia have formed a large part of the sensational literature of other days. In that lone, distant, cold, inhospitable clime, is the region where for many long years this government has sent its prisoners of state, and many others who have incurred the despotic displeasure. Banished for life is to all intents and purposes death. The wife of the exile, if not allowed to go with him and share his sorrows in a wretched land, is free to be married again. His property goes to his heirs as if he were dead. He has not even his own name in Siberia, but is known by the _number_ that he receives when he enters upon his new estate.

It is terrible to think that one imperfect man holds in his own hand such power. The mere possession of it tempts to evil. And limit it as we may, divide it among many, apply checks and balances, there will yet be abuses under all systems of human government. Even our own boasted democratic republican form has its defects. We have made ignorance and vice too mighty in our popular elections, and have come to know that no despot is more irresponsible than the many-headed monster of a corrupt and unthinking multitude.

Taking a boat on the Neva and being rowed across to the Academy of Science, we made an interesting visit to the Zoological Museum, which has some things of interest far beyond that of any other museum in the world. Here we have something more than fossils, we have the veritable meat of the mammoth and mastodon and elephant, and perhaps they may all belong to one and the same animal. But the Siberian rivers have furnished ice-tombs in which these beasts have been buried for centuries, and when they are brought to light by the change in the course of the streams, or by accidental discovery, they are certainly the most interesting of all the remains of extinct races. The great mammoth in this museum was found in 1799, on the banks of the river Lena in Siberia, and the flesh was so fresh upon it that the beasts and birds of prey were ready to devour it as soon as it was exposed.

The chief interest in this Russian collection lies in the actual skin and hair and flesh of these animals so remarkably preserved. Here is a rhinoceros, but of a species now extinct, with its head almost entirely covered with the original skin, and its feet also, the fine hair being still visible. The seals and otters, sharks and sea-horses, sword-fish and alligators, lions, tigers, bears, elks, and mooses; birds of countless kinds,—make up an assortment wonderful in its extent and variety, and the more interesting as the pursuit of science has led to the gathering of splendid specimens from the tropical regions, to be contrasted with the aboriginal growth of these Arctic climes.

It was the edge of evening as we returned from this expedition, and the declining sun was flooding the river and the eastern shore with golden glory. We were tired; the evening was cool and refreshing; the scene was beautiful, indeed exciting, as other boats and barges and steamers swept by us and ships and schooners swung listlessly in the stream.

The Winter Palace and the Hermitage, the Alexander Column, the Admiralty Buildings, and other splendid edifices were on the western bank, the fortress and arsenal and academy on the east, and the domes of the Isaac and Kazan Cathedrals hung like suns in the sky. We seemed to be far away from home, and lost in an enchanted sea. We rowed along under the stern of a vessel and read her name, “Favorite, Arbroath;” it sounded Scotchy, and hailing a sailor leaning over the ship’s side, I asked him, “where’s Arbroath?”

“Aboot twelve miles from Dundee,” he said.

“And what brings you here?”

“The ship,” he answered, and then added that the cargo was fire-brick, made in England, and brought here for the Russians, who make great use of it in their stoves. He did not like the Russians, he said, and hoped he should never have to come there again.

Our boatman landed us on the western shore, and as we walked up and down the river enjoying the evening breeze, he soon passed us with another company in his boat, and taking off his cap saluted us as old customers with a grace that would do credit to a Paris waterman.

It was half-past nine o’clock when we saw the last rays of the sun on the spire of the arsenal church, and we then went home. It is now eleven o’clock at night, and I am writing by the light from the window opening into a court. It would be easy to write all night without a candle.