CHAPTER XXVII.

THE KREMLIN AND THE BELLS OF MOSCOW.

M. BILLOT is a Swiss landlord, who keeps a good hotel in Moscow. He has a charming wife and family around him, a well-trained corps of servants, and makes his house a home for American and English guests. It is something for a weary traveller to find a home when he gets to Moscow.

I have but one fault to find with Moscow’s bed and board. Mind, it is not a complaint against mine host, M. Billot. It is the fault of the city, that it is full of fleas. We charged upon them with a flea powder, the second night of our sojourn there, but the powder about M. Billot’s pillows was as troublesome as the fleas.

We had heard of this house and landlord; for the Swiss go into all the countries of Europe, and some others, to keep the hotels. We found a connected line of them all through Spain, and in Italy, and they commend travellers to each other, as old neighbors ought to do. So, when we arrived at Moscow, we gave our baggage to M. Billot’s man, he put us into a carriage, and away we were whirled over the roughest roads that we had ever endured in a city. Moscow seemed to be too small for its people, as the people appeared to be too sparse for St. Petersburg. The streets were thronged with people in the pursuit of business, and their market-places presented the liveliest scenes imaginable.

Frequent churches and shrines arrest us as we pass, for every Christian crosses himself before each of them; even the coachman in front of us drops his whip from his right hand, and makes the sacred sign on his breast, as he drives by the holy place. Some stand before it and humbly bow themselves at a great distance from the altar.

Our way was winding, through streets that had no aim apparently, for after the city committed suicide in 1813, on the coming of Napoleon, it was rebuilt in haste, without plan or purpose, but to get shelter for living and trade. But the city was spread out to a greater extent, and gradually houses of more architectural taste arose, with gardens about them, even in town. Here and there rises a splendid palace in the midst of the white cottages of humble neighbors, and the three hundred and seventy churches are interspersed, with their green or gilded cupolas and shining stars. We pass long rows of uniformly painted houses that belong to some public institution, and then we break in upon a wide square where the people seem to be gathered for some special purpose, and out of this square the streets extend on every side. Then we come to the high banks of the river Moskva, which flows through the midst of the city, and on either side of it are splendid edifices crowning the hills that rise from its side. The map of the city makes it appear circular. The circumvallation is twenty miles in extent, and within this are two concentric lines of fortification, rendered necessary perhaps for defence, as this remarkable city is the outpost of civilization on the borders of barbarism.

THE KREMLIN OF MOSCOW.

I never had a very definite idea of the KREMLIN of Moscow. It has been mentioned in books about Russia as a part of the city that every one must understand. The Acropolis of Athens and of Corinth, and the Capitoline Hill of Rome, enclosed with a wall to shut them off from the rest of the city, a refuge for the people in time of peril, the site for the most sacred temples and the most gorgeous palace for the sovereign, would be the Kremlin of Athens, or Corinth, or Rome. As far back as in 1340, walls of oak enclosed these heights. A few years afterwards, to resist the Tartars, the wooden walls gave place to stone, but treason gave the fierce barbarian hordes possession of the citadel, and the walls were destroyed. They were built again and again, but in 1485, when it was needful to protect the Kremlin against the attack of artillery, the walls were rebuilt on a scale never before attempted. The solid and lofty stone walls now enclose an area of about a mile and a half in circumference. Five massive gates admit the flow of life to the temples of religion and of justice within this enclosure. The chief entrance is called the “Redeemer” Gate. The passage through the wall by this gate is like going through a railroad tunnel. It is a holy hole, for over it is a picture of the Redeemer of Smolensk, and no one may pass under it without taking off his hat. Formerly, whoever was so hasty or forgetful as to neglect this mark of respect, was punished by being compelled to prostrate himself fifty times before the insulted picture. The Emperor of all the Russias never fails to uncover his head as he enters this gate. Hundreds were going in as I approached: on foot, in droskies, in carriages, but all were mindful of the place, and entered as if they were going into a holy place. Between the Nicholas and Trinity Gates are the arsenal and great cannons, some of them monster guns, quite antiquated by modern progress, but formidable in their proper place; and the long rows that are marked as left behind by the French in their retreat, tell a grim tale of the madness and folly of that disastrous campaign. Through this very Gate Nicholas, the French troops under Napoleon entered the Kremlin. Short as the stay of the Emperor was in the city, it was long enough for him to attempt to blow up the tower over this gate; but a miracle, as the superstitious Russians believe, was wrought to preserve it; for over the gate is a picture of St. Nicholas, “the comfort of suffering humanity,” and when the explosion took place which was to blow this massive structure into ruins, it made a rent indeed, extending upward to the frame of the picture, and there it suddenly stopped, not cracking the glass over the picture, nor the glass lamp hanging before it! And Alexander I. caused an inscription to be put up in memory of the miracle.

We ascend the hill and stand upon a wide paved plateau, or esplanade, with a scene immediately around, before, and below us, of interest, grandeur, beauty, and novelty. A cloudless sky and a blazing sun are over us. All the buildings are dazzling in whiteness, and the domes of thirty-two churches within the Kremlin, and hundreds below and around, are blazing at noon-tide in their gold and green. Each one of three hundred and seventy churches has several domes, and besides them there are theatres and palaces, and convents and other public buildings, roofs painted green, sides white, and gilt overlaying domes, turrets, and spires. Gardens filled with trees, among the dwellings, as in more Oriental cities, and the river circling its way into and out of the town, give us some idea of what Babylon or Nineveh might have been in their vast enclosure and picturesque rural attractions within their massive walls.

In the midst of the Kremlin, and above every other structure in Moscow, rises toward the sky the white, solid, simple Tower of IVAN; majestic in its simplicity and height, as if it were the axis about which this fairy world of Moscow was revolving, it stands sublimely there, with a bell of 444,000 pounds at its foot, and another of 130,000 swinging in its crown.

_A._ THE KREMLIN.

1. _Uspenski Sobore, or Cathedral._ 2. _Archangelskoi Sobore._ 3. _Annunciation Church._ 4. _Spass na Boru Church._ 5. _Birth of the Virgin Church._ 6. _Granovitaya Palata._ 7. _Court Church._ 8. _Uair the Martyr Church._ 9. _Constantine and Helen Church._ 10. _Ivanovskaya Kolokolnya._ 11. _Twelve Apostles Church._ 12. _Holy Synod Office._ 13. _Chudor Monastery._ 14. _Voznesenskoi Nunnery._ 15. _Our Saviour’s Gate._ 16. _St. Nicholas’ Gate._ 17. _Trinity Gate._ 18. _Borovitskiya Gate._ 19. _The Secret Gates._

_B._ THE KITAI GOROD.

1. _Pokrovskoi Sobore._ 2. _Kazanskoi Sobore._ 3. _Iverskaya Chapel._ 4-25. _Churches and Monasteries; amongst which No 7 is the Church of the Mother of God of Vladimir; and No. 15, the Church of the Mother of God of Georgia._ 26. _Varvarskiya Gate._ 27. _Ilyinskiya Gate._ 28. _Nikolskiya Gate._ 29. _Voskresenskoi Gate._ 30. _Monument of Minim and Pojarskii._

At the foot of the Ivan Tower, supported by a pedestal of stone, is the largest bell in the world, and probably the largest that ever _was_ in the world. A piece is broken out of its side, and the fragment is lying near. The breadth of the bell is so great,—it is twenty feet across,—that the cavity underneath has been used as a chapel, where as many people can stand as in a circle sixty feet around.

In Russia, the bell is an instrument of music for the worship of God as truly and really as the organ in any other country! This fact is not mentioned in the accounts we have of the wonderful, enormous, and almost incredibly heavy bells that have been cast in Moscow. But it is the key to what would otherwise be difficult to explain. It appears absurd to cast bells so large as to be next to impossible for convenient use; in danger always of falling and dragging others to ruin in their fall. But when the bell is a medium of communication with the Infinite, and the worship of a people and an empire finds expression in its majestic tones, it ceases to be a wonder that it should have a tongue which requires twenty-four men to move, and whose music should send a thrill of praise into every house in the city, and float away beyond the river into the plains afar.

Moscow is the holy city of the Greek Church. Pilgrims come hither from thousands of miles off, and on foot, and sometimes without shoes. I have seen them with staves in their hand, and their travel-worn feet wound up in cloths, wending their way to the sacred hill. And when they draw nigh unto the city, and on the evening air the music of these holy bells is first borne to their ears, they fall upon their faces, prostrate, and worship God. If they could go no further, they would be content to die there, for they have heard the bells of Moscow, and on their majestic tones their souls have been taken up to heaven. This is the sentiment of the superstitious peasant, and it is a beautiful sentiment, ideal indeed, but all the more delicate and exalted.

As long as five hundred years ago, this casting of bells was an _art_ in Russia. It is one of the fine arts now. Perhaps our great bell-founders will not admit that the founders there have any more skill in their manufacture than we have, and I am not sure that their bells have any tones more exquisite than ours _would_ have if we would put as much silver and gold into our bell-metal as they do. But so long as those precious metals are at the present premium, little or none of them will find its way into our church bells. We have not the idea of the Russian as to the use of a bell. We use it to call the people to the house of worship. They use the bell for worship. Our bells speak to us. Their bells praise God. They cast their silver and their gold into the molten mass, and it becomes an offering, as on an altar, to him who is worshipped with every silvery note and golden tone of the holy bell.

This one great bell is the growth of centuries. In 1553 it was cast, and weighed only 36,000 pounds. It fell in a fire, and was recast in 1654, being increased to the astonishing weight of 288,000 pounds. This was too vast a weight to be taken up to the top of the tower, and it was sustained by a frame at the foot of it. In 1706, it fell in another fire and was broken into fragments, which lay there on the ground about thirty years. It was recast in 1733; four years afterwards a piece was knocked out of the side of it, and it has been standing here on the ground more than a century. It weighs 444,000 pounds! In the thickest part it is two feet through. It has relief pictures on it of the Emperor and Empress, of the Saviour and the Virgin Mary, and the evangelists.

Ascending the Ivan Tower, we find on three successive stories bells to the number of thirty-four. Some of these are of a size to fill one with astonishment had he not seen the giant below. The largest is on the first story above the chapel, and weighs more than sixty tons. It swings freely and is easily rung. I smote it with the palm of my hand, supposing that such a blow could not produce the slightest vibration in such a mighty mass of iron, but it rung out as clear and startling as if a spirit within had responded to my knock without. Two bells are of solid silver, and their tones are exquisitely soft, liquid, and pure. It was exciting to go from one to another and strike them with their tongues, or with your hand, and catch the variety and richness of their several melodies.

The chapel below is dedicated to the patron saint of all ladies about to be married, and it may be readily believed that the bell that gives expression to their prayers will have, at least to their ears, the sweetest tone of all the bells in Moscow.

I came down from the Kremlin to my lodgings at Billot’s, and, wearied with the wanderings of the day, have been lying on the bed and looking out on the city. It is just before sunset, and the day has been oppressively warm. A delicious glow from the gorgeous west is bathing all the domes and roofs with splendid colors, and silence is stealing in with the setting sun upon the crowded town. It is the eve of one of their most holy festivals of the church. One vast church edifice is directly in view of my window and but a short way off. As I lie musing, from this church comes the softest, sweetest tone of an evening bell. Another tone responds. A third is heard. The Ivan Tower on the height of the Kremlin utters his tremendous voice, like the voice of many waters. And all the churches and towers over the whole city, four hundred bells and more, in concert, in harmony, “with notes almost divine,” lift up their voices in an anthem of praise, such as I never thought to hear with mortal ears: waves of melody, an ocean of music, deep, rolling, heaving, changing, swelling, sinking, rising, overwhelming, exalting. I had heard the great organs of Europe, but they were tame and trifling compared with this. The anthem of Nature at Niagara is one great monotone. The music of Moscow’s bells is above and beyond them all. It is the voice of the people. It utters the emotions of millions of loving, beating, longing hearts, not enlightened, perhaps, like yours, but all crying out to the great Father, in these solemn and inspiring tones, as if these tongues had voices to cry: “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, heaven and earth are full of thy glory.”