The Land of Thor

Outside the walls of the Katai Gorod, in an open square, or plaza, are rows of wooden booths, in which innumerable varieties of living stock are offered for sale – geese, ducks, chickens, rabbits, pigeons, and birds of various sorts. I sometimes went down here and bargained for an hour or so over a fat goose or a Muscovy duck, not with any ultimate idea of purchasing it, but merely because it was offered to me at a reduced price. It was amusing, also, to study the manners and customs of the dealer, and enjoy their amazement when, after causing them so much loss of time, I would hand over five kopeks and walk off. Some of them, I verily believe, will long entertain serious doubts as to the sanity of the Californian public; for Dominico, my guide, always took particular pride in announcing that I was from that great country, and was the richest man in it, being, to the best of his knowledge, the only one who had money enough to spare to travel all the way to Moscow, merely for the fun of the thing.

I may as well mention, parenthetically, that Dominico was rather an original in his way. His father was an Italian and his mother a Russian. I believe he was born in Moscow. How he came to adopt the profession of guide I don’t know, unless it was on account of some natural proclivity for an easy life. A grave, lean, saturnine man was Dominico – something of a cross between Machiavelli and Paganini. If he knew any thing about the wonders and curiosities of Moscow he kept it a profound secret. It was only by the most rigid inquiry and an adroit system of cross-examination that I could get any thing out of him, and then his information was vague and laconic, sometimes a little sarcastic, but never beyond what I knew myself. Yet he was polite, dignified, and gentlemanly – never refused to drink a glass of beer with me, and always knew the way to a traktir. To the public functionaries with whom we came in contact during the course of our rambles his air was grand and imposing; and on the subject of money he was sublimely nonchalant, caring no more for rubles than I did for kopeks. Once or twice he hinted to me that he was of noble blood, but laid no particular stress upon that, since it was his misfortune at present to be in rather reduced circumstances. Some time or other he would go to Italy and resume his proper position there. In justice to Dominico, I must add that he never neglected an opportunity of praying for me before any of the public shrines; and at the close of our acquaintance he let me off pretty easily, all things considered. Upon my explaining to him that a draft for five hundred thousand rubles, which ought to be on the way, had failed to reach me, owing, doubtless, to some irregularity in the mail service, or some sudden depression in my Washoe stocks, he merely shrugged his shoulders, took a pinch of snuff, and accepted with profound indifference a fee amounting to three times the value of his services.

I was particularly interested in the dog-market. The display of living dog-flesh here must be very tempting to one who has a taste for poodle soup or fricasseed pup. Dominico repudiated the idea that the Russians are addicted to this article of diet; but the very expression of his eye as he took up a fat little innocent, smoothed down its skin, squeezed its ribs, pinched its loins, and smelled it, satisfied me that a litter of pups would stand but a poor chance of ever arriving at maturity if they depended upon forbearance upon his part as a national virtue. The Chinese quarter of San Francisco affords some curious examples of the art of compounding sustenance for man out of odd materials – rats, snails, dried frogs, star-fish, polypi, and the like; but any person who wishes to indulge a morbid appetite for the most disgusting dishes over devised by human ingenuity must visit Moscow. I adhere to it that the dog-market supplies a large portion of the population with fancy meats. No other use could possibly be made of the numberless squads of fat, hairless dogs tied together and hawked about by the traders in this article of traffic. I saw one man – he had the teeth of an ogre and a fearfully carnivorous expression of eye – carry around a bunch of pups on each arm, and cry aloud something in his native tongue, which I am confident had reference to the tenderness and juiciness of their flesh. Dominico declared the man was only talking about the breed – that they were fine rat-dogs; but I know that was a miserable subterfuge. Such dogs never caught a rat in this world; and if they did, it must have been with a view to the manufacture of sausages.

A Russian peasant is not particular about the quality of his food, as may well be supposed from this general summary. Quantity is the main object. Grease of all kinds is his special luxury. The upper classes, who have plenty of money to spare, may buy fish from the Volga at its weight in gold, and mutton from Astrakan at fabulous prices; but give the Mujik his batvina (salt grease and honey boiled together), a loaf of black bread, and a peck of raw cucumbers, and he is happy. Judging by external appearances, very little grease seems to be wasted in the manufacture of soap. Indeed, I would not trust one of these Mujiks to carry a pound of soap any where for me, any more than I would a gallon of oil or a pound of candles. Once I saw a fellow grease his boots with a lump of dirty fat which he had picked up out of the gutter, but he took good care first to extract from it the richest part of its essence by sucking it, and then greasing his beard. The boots came last. In all probability he had just dined, or he would have pocketed his treasure for another occasion, instead of throwing the remnant, as he did, to the nearest cat.

In respect to the language, one might as well be dropped down in Timbuctoo as in a village or country town of Russia, for all the good the gift of speech would do him. It is not harsh, as might be supposed, yet wonderfully like an East India jungle when you attempt to penetrate it. I could make better headway through a boulder of solid quartz, or the title to my own house and lot in Oakland. Now I profess to be able to see as far into a millstone as most people, but I can’t see in what respect the Russians behaved any worse than other people of the Tower of Babel, that they should be afflicted with a language which nobody can hope to understand before his beard becomes grizzled, and the top of his head entirely bald. Many of the better classes, to be sure, speak French and German; but even in the streets of Moscow I could seldom find any body who could discover a ray of meaning in my French or German, which is almost as plain as English.

Some people know what you want by instinct, whether they understand your language or not. Not so the Russians. Ask for a horse, and they will probably offer you a fat goose; inquire the way to your lodgings, and they are just as likely as not to show you the Foundling Hospital or a livery-stable; go into an old variety shop, and express a desire to purchase an Astrakan breast-pin for your sweet-heart, and the worthy trader hands you a pair of bellows or an old blunderbuss; cast your eye upon any old market-woman, and she divines at once that you are in search of a bunch of chickens or a bucket of raw cucumbers, and offers them to you at the lowest market-price; hint to a picture-dealer that you would like to have an authentic portrait of his imperial majesty, and he hands you a picture of the Iberian Mother, or St. George slaying the dragon, or the devil and all his imps; in short, you can get any thing that you don’t want, and nothing that you do. If these people are utterly deficient in any one quality, it is a sense of fitness in things. They take the most inappropriate times for offering you the most inappropriate articles of human use that the imagination can possibly conceive. I was more than once solicited by the dealers in the markets of Moscow to carry with me a bunch of live dogs, or a couple of freshly-scalded pigs, and on one occasion was pressed very hard to take a brass skillet and a pair of tongs. What could these good people have supposed I wanted with articles of this kind on my travels? Is there any thing in my dress or the expression of my countenance – I leave it to all who know me – any thing in the mildness of my speech or the gravity of my manner, to indicate that I am suffering particularly for bunches of dogs or scalded pigs, brass skillets or pairs of tongs? Do I look like a man who labors under a chronic destitution of dogs, pigs, skillets, and tongs?

It is quite natural that the traveler who finds himself for the first time within the limits of a purely despotic government should look around him with some vague idea that he must see the effects strongly marked upon the external life of the people; that the restraints imposed upon popular liberty must be every where apparent. So far as any thing of this kind may exist in Moscow or St. Petersburg, it is a notable fact that there are few cities in the world where it is less visible, or where the people seem more unrestrained in the exercise of their popular freedom. Indeed, it struck me rather forcibly, after my experience in Vienna and Berlin, that the Russians enjoy quite as large a share of practical independence as most of their neighbors. I was particularly impressed by the bold and independent air of the middle classes, the politeness with which even the lower orders address each other, and the absence of those petty and vexatious restraints which prevail in some of the German states. The constant dread of infringing upon the police regulations; the extraordinary deference with which men in uniform are regarded; the circumspect behavior at public places; the nice and well-regulated mirthfulness, never overstepping the strict bounds of prudence, which I had so often noticed in the northern parts of Germany, and which may in part be attributed to the naturally orderly and conservative character of the people, are by no means prominent features in the principal cities of Russia.

Soldiers, indeed, there are in abundance every where throughout the dominions of the Czar, and the constant rattle of musketry and clang of arms show that the liberty of the people is not altogether without limit.

CHAPTER IX.

THE NOSE REGIMENT

I saw nothing in the line of military service that interested me more than the Imperial Guard. Without vouching for the truth of the whole story connected with the history of this famous regiment, I give it as related to me by Dominico, merely stating as a fact within my own observation that there is no question whatever about the peculiarity of their features. It seems that the Emperor Nicholas, shortly before the Crimean War, discovered by some means that the best fighting men in his dominions belonged to a certain wild tribe from the north, distinguished for the extreme ugliness of their faces. The most remarkable feature was the nose, which stood straight out from the base of the forehead in the form of a triangle, presenting in front the appearance of a double-barreled pistol. A stiff grizzly mustache underneath gave them a peculiarly ferocious expression, so that brave men quailed, and women and children fled from them in terror. The emperor gave orders that all men in the ranks possessed of these frightful noses should be brought before him. Finding, when they were mustered together, that there was not over one company, he caused a general average of the noses to be taken, from which he had a diagram carefully prepared and disseminated throughout the empire, calling upon the military commanders of the provinces to send him recruits corresponding with the prescribed formula.

In due time he was enabled to muster a thousand of these ferocious barbarians, whom he caused to be carefully drilled and disciplined. He kept them in St. Petersburg under his own immediate supervision till some time after the attack upon Sebastopol, when, finding the fortunes of war likely to go against him, he sent them down to the Crimea, with special instructions to the commander-in-chief to rely upon them in any emergency. In compliance with the imperial order, they were at once placed in the front ranks, and in a very few days had occasion to display their fighting qualities. At the very first onslaught of the enemy they stood their ground manfully till the French troops had approached within ten feet, when, with one accord, they took to their heels, and never stopped running till they were entirely out of sight. It was a disastrous day for the Russians. The commander-in-chief was overwhelmed with shame and mortification. A detachment of cavalry was dispatched in pursuit of the fugitives, who were finally arrested in their flight and brought back. “Cowards!” thundered the enraged commander, as they stood drawn up before him; “miserable poltroons! dastards! is this the way you do honor to your imperial master? Am I to report to his most potent majesty that, without striking one blow in his defense, you ran like sheep? Wretches, what have you to say for yourselves?”

“May it please your excellency,” responded the men, firmly and with unblenched faces, “we ran away, it is true; but we are not cowards. On the contrary, sire, we are brave men, and fear neither man nor beast. But your excellency is aware that nature has gifted us with noses peculiarly open to unusual impressions. We have smelled all the smells known from the far North to the far South, from the stewed rats of Moscow to the carrion that lies mouldering upon the plains of the Crimea; but, if it please your highness, we never smelled Frenchmen before. There was an unearthly odor about them that filled our nostrils, and struck a mysterious terror into our souls.”

“Fools!” roared the commander-in-chief, bursting with rage, “what you smelled was nothing more than garlic, to which these Frenchmen are addicted.”

“Call it as you will,” firmly responded the men with the noses, “it was too horrible to be endured. We are willing to die by the natural casualties of war, but not by unseen blasts of garlic, against which no human power can contend.”

“Then,” cried the commander, in tones of thunder, “I’ll see that you die to-morrow by the natural casualties of war. You shall be put in the very front rank, and care shall be taken to have every man of you shot down the moment you undertake to run.”

On the following day this rigorous order was carried into effect. The nose regiment was placed in front, and the battle opened with great spirit. The French troops swept down upon them like an avalanche. For an instant they looked behind, but, finding no hope of escape in that direction, each man of them suddenly grasped up a handful of mud, and, dashing it over his nostrils, shouted “Death, to the garlic-eaters!” and rushed against the enemy with indescribable ferocity. Never before were such prodigies of valor performed on the field of battle. The French went down like stricken reeds before the ferocious onslaught of the Imperial Guard. Their dead bodies lay piled in heaps on the bloody field. The fortunes of the day were saved, and, panting and bleeding, the men of Noses stood triumphantly in the presence of their chief. In an ecstasy of pride and delight he complimented them upon their valor, and pronounced them the brightest nosegay in his imperial majesty’s service, which name they have borne ever since.

CHAPTER X.

THE EMPEROR’S BEAR-HUNT

The present emperor, Alexander III., is more distinguished for his liberal views respecting the rights of his subjects than for his military proclivities. In private life he is much beloved, and is said to be a man of very genial social qualities. His predominating passion in this relation is a love of hunting. I have been told that he is especially great on bears. With all your experience of this manly pastime in America, I doubt if you can form any conception of the bear-hunts in which the Autocrat of all the Russias has distinguished himself. Any body with nerve enough can kill a grizzly, but it requires both nerve and money to kill bears of any kind in the genuine autocratic style. By an imperial ukase it has been ordered that when any of the peasants or serfs discover a bear within twenty versts of the Moscow and St. Petersburg Railway, they must make known the fact to the proprietor of the estate, whose duty it is to communicate official information of the discovery to the corresponding secretary of the Czar. With becoming humility the secretary announces the tidings to his royal master, who directs him to advise the distant party that his majesty is much pleased, and will avail himself of his earliest leisure to proceed to the scene of action. In the mean time the entire available force of the estate is set to work to watch the bear, and from three to five hundred men, armed with cudgels, tin pans, old kettles, drums, etc., are stationed in a circle around him. Dogs also are employed upon this important service. The advance trains, under the direction of the master hunter, having deposited their stores of wines, cordials, and provisions, and telegraphic communications being transmitted to head-quarters from time to time, it is at length privately announced that his imperial majesty has condescended to honor the place with his presence, and, should the saints not prove averse, will be there with his royal party at the hour and on the day specified in the imperial dispatch. The grand convoy is then put upon the track; dispatches are transmitted to all the stations; officers, soldiers, and guards are required to be in attendance to do honor to their sovereign master – privately, of course, as this is simply an unofficial affair which nobody is supposed to know any thing about. The emperor, having selected his chosen few – that is to say, half a dozen princes, a dozen dukes, a score or two of counts and barons – all fine fellows and genuine bloods – proceeds unostentatiously to the dépôt in his hunting-carriage (a simple little affair, manufactured at a cost of only forty thousand rubles or so), where he is astonished to see a large concourse of admiring subjects, gayly interspersed with soldiers, all accidentally gathered there to see him off. Now hats are removed, bows are made, suppressed murmurs of delight run through the crowd; the locomotive whizzes and fizzes with impatience; bells are rung, arms are grounded; the princes, dukes, and barons – jolly fellows as they are – laugh and joke just like common people; bells ring again and whistles blow; a signal is made, and the Autocrat of all the Russias is off on his bear-hunt!

In an hour, or two or three hours, as the case may be, the royal hunters arrive at the destined station. Should the public business be pressing, it is not improbable the emperor, availing himself of the conveniences provided for him by Winans and Co., in whose magnificent present of a railway carriage he travels, has in the mean time dispatched a fleet of vessels to Finland, ten or a dozen extra regiments of Cossacks to Warsaw, closed upon terms for a loan of fifty millions, banished various objectionable parties to the deserts of Siberia, and partaken of a game or two of whist with his camarilla.

But now the important affair of the day is at hand – the bear – the terrible black bear, which every body is fully armed and equipped to kill, but which every body knows by instinct is going to be killed by the emperor, because of his majesty’s superior skill and courage on trying occasions of this sort. What a blessing it is to possess such steadiness of nerve! I would not hesitate one moment to attack the most ferocious grizzly in existence if I felt half as much confidence in my ability to kill it. But the carriages are waiting; the horses are prancing; the hunters are blowing their bugles; the royal party are mounting on horseback or in their carriages, as best may suit their taste, and the signal is given! A salute is fired by the Guard, huzzas ring through the air, and the Czar of all the Russias is fairly off on his hunt. Trees fly by; desert patches of ground whirl from under; versts are as nothing to these spirited steeds and their spirited masters, and in an hour or so the grand scene of action is reached. Here couriers stand ready to conduct the imperial hunters into the very jaws of death. The noble proprietor himself, bareheaded, greets the royal pageant; the serfs bow down in Oriental fashion; the dashing young Czar touches his hunting-cap in military style and waves his hand gallantly to the ladies of the household, who are peeping at him from their carriages in the distance. Once more the bugle is sounded, and away they dash – knights, nobles, and all – the handsome and gallant Czar leading the way by several lengths. Soon the terrific cry is heard – “Halt! the bear! the bear! Halt!” Shut your eyes, reader, for you never can stand such a sight as that – a full-grown black bear, not two hundred yards off, in the middle of an open space, surrounded by five hundred men hidden behind trees and driving him back from every point where he attempts to escape. You don’t see the men, but you hear them shouting and banging upon their pots, pans, and kettles. Now just open one eye and see the emperor dismount from his famous charger, and deliver the rein to a dozen domestics, deliberately cock his rifle, and fearlessly get behind the nearest tree within the range of the bear. By this time you perceive that Bruin is dancing a pas seul on his hind legs, utterly confounded with the noises around him. Shut your eyes again, for the emperor is taking his royal aim, and will presently crack away with his royal rifle. Hist! triggers are clicking around you in every direction, but you needn’t be the least afraid, for, although the bear is covered by a reserve of forty rifles, not one of the hunters has nerve enough to shoot unless officially authorized or personally desirous of visiting the silver-mines of Siberia. Crack! thug! The smoke clears away. By Jove! his imperial majesty has done it cleverly; hit the brute plumb on the os frontis, or through the heart, it makes no difference which. Down drops Bruin, kicking and tearing up the earth at a dreadful rate; cheers rend the welkin; pots, pans, and kettles are banged. High above all rises the stern voice of the autocrat, calling for another rifle, which is immediately handed to him. Humanity requires that he should at once put an end to the poor animal’s sufferings, and he does it with his accustomed skill.

Now the bear having kicked his last, an intrepid hunter charges up to the spot on horseback, whirls around it two or three times, carefully examines the body with an opera-glass, returns, and, approaching the royal presence with uncovered head, delivers himself according to this formula: “May it please your most gallant and imperial majesty, THE BEAR IS DEAD!” The emperor sometimes responds, “Is he?” but usually contents himself by waving his hand in an indifferent manner, puffing his cigar, and calling for his horse. Sixteen grooms immediately rush forward with his majesty’s horse; and, being still young and vigorous, he mounts without difficulty, unaided except by Master of Stirrups. Next he draws an ivory-handled revolver – a present from Colt, of New York – and, dashing fearlessly upon the bear, fires six shots into the dead body; upon which he coolly dismounts, and pulling forth from the breast of his hunting-coat an Arkansas bowie-knife – a present from the poet Albert Pike, of Little Rock – plunges that dangerous weapon into the bowels of the dead bear; then rising to his full height, with a dark and stern countenance, he holds the blood-dripping blade high in the air, so that all may see it, and utters one wild stentorian and terrific shout, “Harasho! harasho!” signifying in English, “Good! very well!” The cry is caught up by the princes and nobles, who, with uncovered heads, now crowd around their gallant emperor, and waving their hats, likewise shout “Harasho! harasho!” – “Good! very well!” Then the five hundred peasants rush in with their tin pans, kettles, and drums, and amid the most amazing din catch up the inspiring strain, and deafen every ear with their wild shouts of “Harasho! harasho!” – “Good! very well!” Upon which the emperor, rapidly mounting, places a finger in each ear, and, still puffing his cigar, rides triumphantly away.

The bear is hastily gutted and dressed with flowers. When all is ready the royal party return to the railroad dépôt in a long procession, headed by his majesty, and brought up in the rear by the dead body of Bruin borne on poles by six-and-twenty powerful serfs. Refreshments in the mean time have been administered to every body of high and low degree, and by the time they reach the dépôt there are but two sober individuals in the entire procession – his royal majesty and the bear. Farther refreshments are administered all round during the journey back to St. Petersburg, and, notwithstanding he is rigidly prohibited by his physician from the use of stimulating beverages, it is supposed that a reaction has now taken place, which renders necessary a modification of the medical ukase. At all events, I am told the bear is sometimes the only really steady member of the party by the time the imperial pageant reaches the palace. When the usual ceremonies of congratulation are over, a merry dance winds up the evening. After this the company disperses to prayer and slumber, and thus ends the great bear-hunt of his majesty the Autocrat of all the Russias.

CHAPTER XI.

RUSSIAN HUMOR

The Russians have little or no humor, though they are not deficient in a certain grotesque savagery bordering on the humorous. There is something fearfully vicious in the royal freaks of fancy of which Russian history furnishes us so many examples. We read with a shudder of the facetious compliment paid to the Italian architect by Ivan the Terrible, who caused the poor man’s eyes to be put out that he might never see to build another church so beautiful as that of St. Basil. We can not but smile at the grim humor of Peter the Great, who, upon seeing a crowd of men with wigs and gowns at Westminster Hall, and being informed that they were lawyers, observed that he had but two in his whole empire, and he believed he would hang one of them as soon as he got home. A still more striking though less ghastly freak of fancy was that perpetrated by the Empress Anne of Courland, who, on the occasion of the marriage of her favorite buffoon, Galitzin, caused a palace of ice to be built, with a bed of the same material, in which she compelled the happy pair to pass their wedding night. The Empress Catharine II., a Pomeranian by birth, but thoroughly Russian in her morals, possessed a more ardent temperament. What time she did not spend in gratifying her ambition by slaughtering men, she spent in loving them:

“For, though she would widow all

Nations, she liked man as an individual.”

She never dismissed an old admirer until she had secured several new ones, and generally consoled those who had served her by a present of twenty or thirty thousand serfs. On the death of Lanskoi, it is recorded of her that “she gave herself up to the most poignant grief, and remained three months without going out of her palace of Czarsko Selo,” thus perpetrating a very curious practical satire upon the holiest of human affections. Her grenadier lover Potemkin, according to the character given of him by the Count Ségur, was little better than a gigantic and savage buffoon – licentious and superstitious, bold and timid by turns – sometimes desiring to be King of Poland, at others a bishop or a monk. Of him we read that “he put out an eye to free it from a blemish which diminished his beauty. Banished by his rival, he ran to meet death in battle, and returned with glory.” Another pleasant little jest was that perpetrated by Suwarrow, who, after the bloody battle of Tourtourskaya, announced the result to his mistress in an epigram of two doggerel lines. This was the terrible warrior who used to sleep almost naked in a room of suffocating heat, and rush out to review his troops in a linen jacket, with the thermometer of Reaumur ten degrees below freezing point. Of the Emperor Paul, the son of Catharine, we read that he issued a ukase against the use of shoe-strings and round hats; caused all the watch-boxes, gates, and bridges throughout the empire to be painted in the most glaring and fantastic colors, and passed a considerable portion of his time riding on a wooden rocking-horse – a degenerate practice for a scion of the bold Catharine, who used to dress herself in men’s clothes, and ride a-straddle on the back of a live horse to review her troops. Alexander I., in his ukase of September, 1827, perpetrated a very fine piece of Russian humor. The period of military service for serfs is fixed at twenty years in the Imperial Guard, and twenty-two in other branches of the service. It is stated in express terms that the moment a serf becomes enrolled in the ranks of the army he is free! But he must not desert, for if he does he becomes a slave again. This idea of freedom is really refreshing. Only twenty or twenty-two years of the gentle restraints of Russian military discipline to be enjoyed after becoming a free agent! Then he may go off (at the age of fifty or sixty, say), unless disease or gunpowder has carried him off long before, to enjoy the sweets of hard labor in some agreeable desert, or the position of a watchman on the frontiers of Siberia, where the climate is probably considered salubrious.

These may be considered royal or princely vagaries, in which great people are privileged to indulge; but I think it will be found that the same capricious savagery of humor – if I may so call it – prevails to some extent among all classes of Russians. In some instances it can scarcely be associated with any idea of mirthfulness, yet in the love of strange, startling, and incongruous ideas there is something bordering on the humorous. On Recollection Monday, for example, the mass of the people go out into the grave-yards, and, spreading table-cloths on the mounds that cover the dead bodies of their relatives, drink quass and vodka to the health of the deceased, saying, “Since the dead are unable to drink, the living must drink for them!” Rather a grave excuse, one must think, for intoxication.

In the museum of Peter the Great at St. Petersburg stands the stuffed skin of his favorite servant – a gigantic Holsteiner – one of the most ghastly of all the grotesque and ghastly relics in that remarkable institution. It is not a very agreeable subject for the pencil of an artist, yet there is something so original in the idea of stuffing a human being and putting him up for exhibition before the public that I am constrained to introduce the following sketch of this strange spectacle.

In one of the arsenals is an eagle made of gun-flints, with swords for wings, daggers for feathers, and the mouths of cannons for eyes. A painting of the Strelitzes, in another, represents heaven as containing the Russian priests and all the faithful; while the other place – a region of fire and brimstone – contains Jews, Tartars, Germans, and negroes!

The winter markets of Moscow and St. Petersburg present some of the most cadaverous specimens of the startling humor in which the Russians delight. Here you find frozen oxen, calves, sheep, rabbits, geese, ducks, and all manner of animals and birds, once animate with life, now stiff and stark in death. The oxen stand staring at you with their fixed eyes and gory carcasses; the calves are jumping or frisking in skinless innocence; the sheep ba-a at you with open mouths, or cast sheep’s-eyes at the by-passers; the rabbits, having traveled hundreds of miles, are jumping, or running, or turning somersaults in frozen tableaux to keep themselves warm, and so on with every variety of flesh, fowl, and even fish. The butchers cut short these expressive practical witticisms by means of saws, as one might saw a block of wood; and the saw-dust, which is really frozen flesh and blood in a powdered state, is gathered up in baskets and carried away by the children and ragamuffins to be made into soup.

I can conceive of nothing humorous in these people which is not associated in some way with the cruel and the grotesque. They have many noble and generous traits, but lack delicacy of feeling. Where the range of the thermometer is from a hundred to a hundred and fifty degrees of Fahrenheit, their character must partake in some sort of the qualities of the climate – fierce, rigorous, and pitiless in its wintry aspect, and without the compensating and genial tenderness of spring; fitful and passionate as the scorching heats of summer, and dark, stormy, and dreary as the desolation of autumn.

I could not but marvel, as I sat in some of the common traktirs, at the extraordinary affection manifested by the Russians for cats. It appeared to me that the proprietors must keep a feline corps expressly for the amusement of their customers. At one of these places I saw at least forty cats, of various breeds, from the confines of Tartary to the city of Paris. They were up on the tables, on the benches, on the floor, under the benches, on the backs of the tea-drinkers, in their laps, in their arms – every where. I strongly suspected that they answered the purpose of waiters, and that the owner relied upon them to keep the plates clean. Possibly, too, they were made available as musicians. I have a notion the Russians entertain the same superstitious devotion to cats that the Banyans of India do to cows, and the French and Germans to nasty little poodles. To see a great shaggy boor, his face dripping with grease, his eyes swimming in vodka, sit all doubled up, fondling and caressing these feline pets; holding them in his hands; pressing their velvety fur to his eyes, cheeks, even his lips; listening with delight to their screams and squalls, is indeed a curious spectacle.

Now I have no unchristian feeling toward any of the brute creation, but I don’t affect cats. Nor can I say that I greatly enjoy their music. I heard the very best bands of tom-cats every night during my sojourn in Moscow, and consider them utterly deficient in style and execution. It belongs, I think, to the Music of Futurity, so much discussed by the critics of Europe during the past few years – a peculiar school of anti-melody that requires people yet to be born to appreciate it thoroughly. The discords may be very fine, and the passion very striking and tempestuous, but it is worse than thrown away on an uncultivated ear like mine.

CHAPTER XII.

A MYSTERIOUS ADVENTURE

The police of Moscow are not an attractive class of men, considering them in the light of guardians of the law. With a good deal of pomposity and laziness, they mingle much filth and rascality. The emperor may have great confidence in them, based upon some knowledge of their talents and virtues not shared by casual tourists; but if he would trust one of them with ten kopeks, or agree to place the life of any intimate personal friend in their keeping, in any of the dark alleys of Moscow, his faith in their integrity and humanity must be greater than mine. Indeed, upon casting around me in search of a parallel, I am not quite sure that I ever saw such a scurvy set of vagabonds employed to preserve the public peace in any other country, except, perhaps, in Spain. The guardians of the law in Cadiz and Seville are dark and forbidding enough in all conscience, and unscrupulous enough to turn a penny in any way not requiring the exercise of personal energy; and the police of Barcelona are not inferior in all that constitutes moral turpitude, but they can not surpass the Moscovites in filthiness of person or any of the essential attributes of villainy.

I have it upon good authority that they are the very worst set of thieves in the place, and that they will not hesitate to unite with any midnight prowler for the purpose of robbing a stranger. True, they did not rob me, but the reason of that is obvious. I gave them to understand at the start that I was connected with the press. You seldom hear of a writer for newspapers being robbed; and if such a thing ever does happen, the amount taken is never large.

As a consequence of this proclivity for ill-gotten gains on the part of the guardians of the law, it is unsafe for a stranger to go through the less frequented streets of Moscow at night. Should he chance to be stopped by two or three footpads and call for help, he will doubtless wake up some drowsy guardian of the law, but the help will be all against him. Instances have been related to me of robberies in which the police were the most active assailants, the robbers merely standing by for their share of the plunder. Should the unfortunate victim knock down a footpad or two in self-defense, it is good ground for an arrest, and both robbers and policemen become witnesses against him. A man had better get involved in a question of title to his property before the courts of California than be arrested for assault and battery, and carried before any of the civil tribunals in Russia. There is no end of the law’s delays in these institutions, and his only chance of justice is to get his case before the emperor, who is practically the Supreme Court of the empire. Otherwise the really aggrieved party must pay a fine for defending himself, and support the assaulted man, whose nose he may have battered, during an unlimited period at the hospital, together with physician’s fees for all the real or imaginary injuries inflicted. I met with a young American who was followed by a stalwart ruffian one night in returning from one of the public gardens. The man dogged his footsteps for some time. At length, there being nobody near to render aid, the robber mustered courage enough to seize hold and attempt to intimidate his supposed victim by brandishing a knife. He came from a country where they were not uncommon, and, besides, was an adept on the shoulder. With a sudden jerk he freed himself, and, hauling off a little, gave his assailant a note of hand that knocked him down. I am not versed in the classics of the ring, or I would make something out of this fight. The pad dropped like a stricken ox, his knife flying picturesquely through the silvery rays of the moon. Next moment he was on his feet again, the claret shining beautifully on his cheeks and beard. Throwing out his claws like a huge grizzly, he rushed in, gnashing his teeth and swearing horribly. This time our friend was fairly aroused, and the wretch promptly measured his length on the ground. Thinking he had scattered it on rather heavy, the American stooped down to see how matters stood, when the fellow grasped him by the coat and commenced shouting with all his might for the police – “Help! help! murder! murder!” There was no remedy but to silence him, which our friend dexterously accomplished by a blow on the os frontis. Hearing the approaching footsteps of the police, he then concluded it was best to make his escape, and accordingly took to his heels. Chase was given, but he was as good at running as he was at the noble art of self-defense, and soon distanced his pursuers. Fortunately, he reached his quarters without being recognised. This was all that saved him from arrest and imprisonment, or the payment of a fine for the assault.

A common practice, as I was informed, is to arrest a stranger for some alleged breach of the law, such as smoking a cigar in the streets, or using disrespectful language toward the constituted authorities. Not being accustomed to the intricacies of a Russian judiciary, it is difficult, when once the matter comes before a tribunal of justice, for a foreigner to rebut the testimony brought against him; and if he be in a hurry to get away, his only course is to bribe the parties interested in his detention. It would be unjust to say that this system prevails universally throughout Russia. There is a small circle around the imperial presence said to be exempt from corruption; and there may possibly be a few dignitaries of the government, in remote parts of the empire, who will not tell an untruth unless in their official correspondence, or steal except to make up what they consider due to them for public services; but the circle of immaculate ones is very small, and commences very near the Czar, and the other exceptions referred to are exceedingly rare. Thieving may be said to begin within gunshot of the capital, and to attain its culminating excellences on the confines of Tartary. The difference is only in degree between the higher and the lower grades of officers. Hence, although it is quite possible to obtain full reparation for an injury before the Czar, through the intervention of a consul or a minister, it is a vexatious and expensive mode of proceeding, and would only result at last in the transportation of some miserable wretch to the mines of Siberia. Of course no man with a spark of feeling would like to see a poor fellow-creature go there. For my part, I would rather suffer any amount of injustice than be the cause of sending a fellow-mortal on so long and dreary a journey.

The whole bearing of which you will presently discover. I am going to tell you a very singular adventure that befell me in Moscow. Do not be impatient; it will all come in due time. A few dashes of preliminary description will be necessary, by way of introduction, otherwise it would be impossible to comprehend the full scope and purpose of my narrative. If you be of the rougher mould, cherished reader, just cast yourself back somewhere at your ease, take this most excellently printed book deftly between your fingers, with a good cigar between your teeth; throw your legs over your desk, a gunny-bag, a fence-rail, or the mantel-piece of the bar-room, as the case may be; give me the benefit of your friendship and confidence, and read away at your leisure. But if you be one of those gentle beings placed upon earth to diffuse joy and happiness over the desert of life, I pray you consider me a serf at your imperial foot-stool; bend on me those tender eyes; and with the mingled respect and admiration due by all men to female loveliness, I shall proceed at once to tell you (confidentially of course)

A MYSTERIOUS ADVENTURE

It so happened in Moscow that I fell in with a very pleasant and sociable party of Americans, several of whom were in the railway service, and therefore might reasonably be regarded as fast young gentlemen, though far be it from me to imply any thing injurious to their reputation. Beyond an excessive passion for tea, acquired by long residence in Moscow, I do not know that a single one of them was at all dissipated. When I first called at the rooms of these lively countrymen, they immediately got out their tea-urns, and assured me that it would be impossible to comprehend any thing of Russian life till I had partaken freely of Russian tea, therefore I was obliged to drink five or six glasses by way of a beginning. Having freely discussed the affairs of the American nation at one room, we adjourned to another, where we had a fresh supply of tea; and then, after settling the rebellion to our common satisfaction, adjourned to another, and so on throughout the best part of the day. Sometimes we stopped in at a traktir and had a portion or two, dashed with a little Cognac, which my friends assured me would prevent it from having any injurious effect upon the nervous system. In this way, within a period of twelve hours, owing to the kindness and hospitality of these agreeable Americans, who insisted upon treating me to tea, in public and in private, at every turn of our rambles, I must have swallowed a gallon or two of this delicious beverage. The weather was exceedingly warm, but these experienced gentlemen insisted upon it that Russian tea was a sovereign antidote for warm weather, especially when dashed with Cognac, as it drove all the caloric out of the body through the pores of the skin. “Don’t be afraid!” said they, encouragingly; “drink just as much as you please – it will cool you! See how the Russians drink it. Nothing else enables them to stand these fiery hot summers after their polar winters!” Well, I didn’t feel exactly cool, with thirty or forty tumblers of boiling hot tea, dashed with Cognac, in my veins, but what was the use of remonstrating? They lived in Moscow – they knew better than I did what was good for strangers – so I kept on swallowing a little more, just to oblige them, till I verily believe, had any body stuck a pin in me, or had I undertaken to make a speech, I would have spouted Russian tea.

Why is it that the moment any body wants to render you a service, or manifest some token of friendship, he commences by striking at the very root of your digestive functions? Is it not exacting a little too much of human nature to require a man to consider himself a large sponge, in order that hospitality may be poured into him by the gallon? When a person of pliant and amiable disposition visits a set of good fellows, and they take some trouble to entertain him; when they think they are delighting him internally and externally – not to say infernally – with such tea as he never drank before, it is hard to refuse. The moral courage necessary for the peremptory rejection of such advances would make a hero. Thus it has ever been with me – I am the victim of misplaced hospitality. It has been the besetting trouble of my life. I remember once eating a Nantucket pudding to oblige a lady. It was made of corn-meal and molasses, with some diabolical compound in the way of sauce – possibly whale-oil and tar. I had just eaten a hearty dinner; but the lady insisted upon it that the pudding was a great dish in Nantucket, and I must try it. Well, I stuffed and gagged at it, out of pure politeness, till every morsel on the plate was gone, declaring all the time that it was perfectly delicious. The lady was charmed, and, in the face of every denial, instantly filled the plate again. What could I do but eat it? And after eating till I verily believe one half of me was composed of Nantucket pudding, and the other half of whale-oil and tar, what could I do but praise it again? The third attempt upon my life was made by this most excellent and hospitable lady; but I gave way, and had to beg off. Human nature could stand it no longer. The consequence was, I wounded her feelings. She regretted very much that I disliked Nantucket pudding, and I don’t think ever quite forgave me for my prejudice against that article of diet, though her kindness laid me up sick for two weeks. Nor is this an isolated case. I might relate a thousand others in illustration of the melancholy fact that hospitality has been the bane of my life. When I think of all the sufferings I have endured out of mere politeness – though by no means accounted a polite person – tears of grief and indignation spring to my eyes. Old John Rogers at the stake never suffered such martyrdom. But there is an end of it! The tchai of Moscow finished all this sort of thing – so far, at least, as the male sex is concerned. I would still eat a coyote or a weasel to oblige a lady, but as to drinking two gallons of strong tea per day, dashed with Cognac to reduce its temperature, to oblige any man that ever wore a beard, I solemnly declare I’ll die first. The thing is an imposition – an outrage. Every man has a right to my time, my purse, my real estate in Oakland, my coat, my boots, or my razor – nay, in a case of emergency, my tooth-brush – but no man has a right to deluge my diaphragm with slops, or make a ditch of Mundus of my stomach.

At the Peterskoi Gardens we had a little more tea, dashed with vodka, to keep out the night air. As soon as the fire-works were over we adjourned to the pavilion, and refreshed ourselves with a little more tea slightly impregnated with some more vodka. Now I don’t know exactly what this vodka is made of, but I believe it is an extract of corn. In the Russian language voda is water, and vodka means “little water.” There certainly was very little in what we got, or the tea must have been stronger than usual, for, notwithstanding these agreeable young gentlemen protested a gallon of such stuff would not produce the slightest effect, it seemed to me – though there might have been some delusion in the idea, arising from ignorance of Russian customs – that my head went round like a whirligig; and by the time I took my leave of these experienced young friends and retired to my room at the Hotel de Venise, it did likewise occur to me – though that too may have been a mere notion – that there was a hive of bees in each ear. Upon due consideration of all the facts, I thought it best to turn in, and resume any inquiries that might be necessary for the elucidation of these phenomena in the morning.

[Here, you perceive, I am gradually verging toward the adventure. The heroine of the romance has not yet made her appearance, but depend upon it she is getting ready. You should never hurry the female characters; besides, it is not proper, even if this were all fiction instead of sober truth, that the heroine should be brought upon the stage just as the hero is tumbling into bed.]

But to proceed. Sleep was effectually banished from my eyes, and no wonder. Who in the name of sense could sleep with forty tumblers of Russian tea – to say nothing of the dashes that were put in it – simmering through every nook and cranny of his body, and boiling over in his head? There I lay, twisting and tumbling, the pillow continually descending into the depths of infinity, but never getting any where – the bed rolling like a dismantled hulk upon a stormy sea – the room filled with steaming and hissing urns – a fearful thirst parching my throat, while myriads of horrid bearded Russians were torturing me with tumblers of boiling-hot tea dashed with vodka– thus I lay a perfect victim of tea. I could even see Chinamen with long queues picking tea-leaves off endless varieties of shrubs that grew upon the papered walls; and Kalmuck Tartars, with their long caravans, traversing the dreary steppes of Tartary laden with inexhaustible burdens of the precious leaf; and the great fair of Nijni Novgorod, with its booths, and tents, and countless boxes of tea, and busy throngs of traders and tea-merchants, all passing like a panorama before me, and all growing naturally out of an indefinite background of tea.