Browne John Ross
The Land of Thor
CHAPTER I.
IMPRESSIONS OF ST. PETERSBURG
I landed at St. Petersburg with a knapsack on my back and a hundred dollars in my pocket. An extensive tour along the borders of the Arctic Circle was before me, and it was necessary I should husband my resources.
In my search for a cheap German gasthaus I walked nearly all over the city. My impressions were probably tinctured by the circumstances of my position, but it seemed to me I had never seen so strange a place.
The best streets of St. Petersburg resemble on an inferior scale the best parts of Paris, Berlin, and Vienna. Nothing in the architecture conveys any idea of national taste except the glittering cupolas of the churches, the showy colors of the houses, and the vast extent and ornamentation of the palaces. The general aspect of the city is that of immense level space. Built upon islands, cut up into various sections by the branches of the Neva, intersected by canals, destitute of eminent points of observation, the whole city has a scattered and incongruous effect – an incomprehensible remoteness about it, as if one might continually wander about without finding the centre. Some parts, of course, are better than others; some streets are indicative of wealth and luxury; but without a guide it is extremely difficult to determine whether there are not still finer buildings and quarters in the main part of the city – if you could only get at it. The eye wanders continually in search of heights and prominent objects. Even the Winter Palace, the Admiralty, and the Izaak Church lose much of their grandeur in the surrounding deserts of space from the absence of contrast with familiar and tangible objects. It is only by a careful examination in detail that one can become fully sensible of their extraordinary magnificence. Vast streets of almost interminable length, lined by insignificant two-story houses with green roofs and yellow walls; vast open squares or ploschads; palaces, public buildings, and churches, dwindled down to mere toy-work in the deserts of space intervening; countless throngs of citizens and carriages scarcely bigger than ants to the eye; broad sheets of water, dotted with steamers, brigs, barks, wood-barges and row-boats, still infinitesimal in the distance; long rows of trees, forming a foliage to some of the principal promenades, with glimpses of gardens and shrubbery at remote intervals; canals and dismal green swamps – not all at one sweep of the eye, but visible from time to time in the course of an afternoon’s ramble, are the most prominent characteristics of this wonderful city. A vague sense of loneliness impresses the traveler from a distant land – as if in his pilgrimage through foreign climes he had at length wandered into the midst of a strange and peculiar civilization – a boundless desert of wild-looking streets, a waste of colossal palaces, of gilded churches and glistening waters, all perpetually dwindling away before him in the infinity of space. He sees a people strange and unfamiliar in costume and expression; fierce, stern-looking officers, rigid in features, closely shaved, and dressed in glittering uniforms; grave, long-bearded priests, with square-topped black turbans, their flowing black drapery trailing in the dust; pale women richly and elegantly dressed, gliding unattended through mazes of the crowd; rough, half-savage serfs, in dirty pink shirts, loose trowsers, and big boots, bowing down before the shrines on the bridges and public places; the drosky drivers, with their long beards, small bell-shaped hats, long blue coats and fire-bucket boots, lying half asleep upon their rusty little vehicles awaiting a customer, or dashing away at a headlong pace over the rough cobble-paved streets, and so on of every class and kind. The traveler wanders about from place to place, gazing into the strange faces he meets, till the sense of loneliness becomes oppressive. An invisible but impassable barrier seems to stand between him and the moving multitude. He hears languages that fall without a meaning upon his ear; wonders at the soft inflections of the voices; vainly seeks some familiar look or word; thinks it strange that he alone should be cut off from all communion with the souls of men around him; and then wonders if they have souls like other people, and why there is no kindred expression in their faces – no visible consciousness of a common humanity. It is natural that every stranger in a strange city should experience this feeling to some extent, but I know of no place where it seems so strikingly the case as in St. Petersburg. Accustomed as I was to strange cities and strange languages, I never felt utterly lonely until I reached this great mart of commerce and civilization. The costly luxury of the palaces; the wild Tartaric glitter of the churches; the tropical luxuriance of the gardens; the brilliant equipages of the nobility; the display of military power; the strange and restless throngs forever moving through the haunts of business and pleasure; the uncouth costumes of the lower classes, and the wonderful commingling of sumptuous elegance and barbarous filth, visible in almost every thing, produced a singular feeling of mingled wonder and isolation – as if the solitary traveler were the only person in the world who was not permitted to comprehend the spirit and import of the scene, or take a part in the great drama of life in which all others seemed to be engaged. I do not know if plain, practical men are generally so easily impressed by external objects, but I must confess that when I trudged along the streets with my knapsack on my back, looking around in every direction for a gasthaus; when I spoke to people in my peculiar style of French and German, and received unintelligible answers in Russian; when I got lost among palaces and grand military establishments, instead of finding the gasthaus, and finally attracted the attention of the surly-looking guards, who were stationed about every where, by the anxious pertinacity with which I examined every building, a vague notion began to get possession of me that I was a sort of outlaw, and would sooner or later be seized and dragged before the Czar for daring to enter such a magnificent city in such an uncouth and unbecoming manner. When I cast my eyes up at the sign-boards, and read about grand fabrications and steam-companies, and walked along the quays of the Neva, and saw wood enough piled up in big broad-bottomed boats to satisfy the wants of myself and family for ten thousand years; when I strolled into the Nevskoi, and jostled my way through crowds of nobles, officers, soldiers, dandies, and commoners, stopping suddenly at every picture-shop, gazing dreamily into the gorgeous millinery establishments, pondering thoughtfully over the glittering wares of the jewelers, lagging moodily by the grand cafés, and snuffing reflectively the odors that came from the grand restaurations – when all this occurred, and I went down into a beer-cellar and made acquaintance with a worthy German, and he asked me if I had any meerschaums to sell, the notion that I had no particular business in so costly and luxurious a place began to grow stronger than ever. A kind of dread came over me that the mighty spirit of Peter the Great would come riding through the scorching hot air on a gale of snowflakes, at the head of a bloody phalanx of Muscovites, and, rising in his stirrups as he approached, would demand of me in a voice of thunder, “Stranger, how much money have you got?” to which I could only answer, “Sublime and potent Czar, taking the average value of my Roaring Grizzly, Dead Broke, Gone Case, and Sorrowful Countenance, and placing it against the present value of Russian securities, I consider it within the bounds of reason to say that I hold about a million of rubles!” But if he should insist upon an exhibit of ready cash – there was the rub! It absolutely made me feel weak in the knees to think of it. Indeed, a horrid suspicion seized me, after I had crossed the bridge and begun to renew my search for a cheap gasthaus on the Vassoli Ostrou, that every fat, neatly-shaved man I met, with small gray eyes, a polished hat on his head drawn a little over his brow, his lips compressed, and his coat buttoned closely around his body, was a rich banker, and that he was saying to himself as I passed, “That fellow with the slouched hat and the knapsack is a suspicious character, to say the least of him. It becomes my duty to warn the police of his movements. I suspect him to be a Hungarian refugee.”
With some difficulty, I succeeded at length in finding just such a place as I desired – clean and comfortable enough, considering the circumstances, and not unusually fertile in vermin for a city like St. Petersburg, which produces all kinds of troublesome insects spontaneously. There was this advantage in my quarters, in addition to their cheapness – that the proprietor and attendants spoke several of the Christian languages, including German, which, of all languages in the world, is the softest and most euphonious to my ear – when I am away from Frankfort. Besides, my room was very advantageously arranged for a solitary traveler. Being about eight feet square, with only one small window overlooking the back yard, and effectually secured by iron fastenings, so that nobody could open it, there was no possibility of thieves getting in and robbing me when the door was shut and locked on the inside. Its closeness presented an effectual barrier against the night air, which in these high northern latitudes is considered extremely unwholesome to sleep in. With the thermometer at 100 degrees Fahrenheit, the atmosphere, to be sure, was a little sweltering during the day, and somewhat thick by night, but that was an additional advantage, inasmuch as it forced the occupant to stay out most of the time and see a great deal more of the town than he could possibly see in his room.
Having deposited my knapsack and put my extra shirt in the wash, you will now be kind enough to consider me the shade of Virgil, ready to lead you, after the fashion of Dante, through the infernal regions or any where else within the bounds of justice, even through St. Petersburg, where the climate in summer is hot enough to satisfy almost any body. The sun shines here, in June and July, for twenty hours a day, and even then scarcely disappears beneath the horizon. I never experienced such sweltering weather in any part of the world except Aspinwall. One is fairly boiled with the heat, and might be wrung out like a wet rag. Properly speaking, the day commences for respectable people, and men of enterprising spirit – tourists, pleasure-seekers, gamblers, vagabonds, and the like – about nine or ten o’clock at night, and continues till about four or five o’clock the next morning. It is then St. Petersburg fairly turns out; then the beauty and fashion of the city unfold their wings and flit through the streets, or float in Russian gondolas upon the glistening waters of the Neva; then it is the little steamers skim about from island to island, freighted with a population just waked up to a realizing sense of the pleasures of existence; then is the atmosphere balmy, and the light wonderfully soft and richly tinted; then come the sweet witching hours, when
“Shady nooks
Patiently give up their quiet being.”
None but the weary, labor-worn serf, who has toiled through the long day in the fierce rays of the sun, can sleep such nights as these. I call them nights, yet what a strange mistake. The sunshine still lingers in the heavens with a golden glow; the evening vanishes dreamily in the arms of the morning; there is nothing to mark the changes – all is soft, gradual, and illusory. A peculiar and almost supernatural light glistens upon the gilded domes of the churches; the glaring waters of the Neva are alive with gondolas; miniature steamers are flying through the winding channels of the islands; strains of music float upon the air; gay and festive throngs move along the promenades of the Nevskoi; gilded and glittering equipages pass over the bridges and disappear in the shadowy recesses of the islands. Whatever may be unseemly in life is covered by a rich and mystic drapery of twilight. The floating bath-houses of the Neva, with their variegated tressel-work and brilliant colors, resemble fairy palaces; and the plashing of the bathers falls upon the ear like the gambols of water-spirits. Not far from the Izaak Bridge, the equestrian statue of Peter the Great stands out in bold relief on a pedestal of granite; the mighty Czar, casting an eagle look over the waters of the Neva, while his noble steed rears over the yawning precipice in front, crushing a serpent beneath his hoof. The spirit of Peter the Great still lives throughout Russia; but it is better understood in the merciless blasts of winter than in the soft glow of the summer nights.
Wander with me now, and let us take a look at the Winter Palace – the grandest pile, perhaps, ever built by human hands. Six thousand people occupy it during the long winter months, and well they may, for it is a city of palaces in itself. Fronting the Neva, it occupies a space of several acres, its massive walls richly decorated with ornamental designs, a forest of chimneys on top – the whole pile forming an immense oblong square so grand, so massive, so wonderfully rich and varied in its details, that the imagination is lost in a colossal wilderness of architectural beauties. Standing in the open plozchad, we may gaze at this magnificent pile for hours, and dream over it, and picture to our minds the scenes of splendor its inner walls have witnessed; the royal fêtes of the Czars; the courtly throngs that have filled its halls; the vast treasures expended in erecting it; the enslaved multitudes, now low in the dust, who have left this monument to speak of human pride, and the sweat and toil that pride must feed upon; and while we gaze and dream thus, a mellow light comes down from the firmament, and the mighty Czars, and their palaces, and armies, and navies, and worldly strifes, what are they in the presence of the everlasting Power? For “it is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers.”
But these dreamings and these wanderings through this city of palaces would be endless. We may feast our eyes upon the Admiralty, the Winter Palace, the Marble Palace, the Senate-house, the palace of the Grand-duke Michael, the Column of Alexander, the colleges, universities, imperial gardens and summer-houses, and, after all, we can only feel that they are built upon the necks of an enslaved people; that the mightiest Czars of Russia, in common with the poorest serfs, are but “as grasshoppers upon the earth.”
The istrovoschik (sneeze and you have the word) – in plain English, the drosky drivers – are a notable feature in St. Petersburg. When I saw them for the first time on the quay of the Wassaly Ostrow, where the steamer from Stettin lands her passengers, the idea naturally impressed my mind that I had fallen among a brotherhood of Pilgrims or Druids. Nothing could be more unique than the incongruity of their costume and occupation. Every man looked like a priest; his long beard, his grave expression of countenance, his little black hat and flowing blue coat, gathered around the waist by means of a sash, his glazed boots reaching above the knees, his slow and measured motions, and the sublime indifference with which he regarded his customers, were singularly impressive. Even the filth and rustiness which formed the most prominent characteristics of the class contributed to the delusion that they might have sprung from a Druidical source, and gathered their dust of travel on the pilgrimage from remote ages down to the present period. It is really something novel, in the line of hackery, to see those sedate fellows sitting on their little droskys awaiting a customer. The force of competition, however, has of late years committed sad inroads upon their dignity, and now they are getting to be about as enterprising and pertinacious as any of their kindred in other parts of the world. The drosky is in itself a curiosity as a means of locomotion. Like the driver, it is generally dirty and dilapidated; but here the similitude ends; for, while the former is often high, his drosky is always low. The wheels are not bigger than those of an ordinary dog-cart, and the seat is only designed for one person, though on a pinch it can accommodate two. Generally it consists of a plank covered with a cushion, extending lengthwise in the same direction as the horse, so that the rider sits astride of it as if riding on horseback; some, however, have been modernized so as to afford a more convenient seat in the usual way. Night and day these droskys are every where to be seen, sometimes drawn up by the sidewalk, the driver asleep, awaiting a customer, but more frequently rattling full tilt over the pavements (the roughest in the world) with a load, consisting, in nine cases out of ten, of a fat old gentleman in military uniform, a very ugly old lady with a lapdog, or a very dashy young lady glittering with jewels, on her way, perhaps, to the Confiseur’s or somewhere else. But in a city like St. Petersburg, where it is at least two or three miles from one place to another, every body with twenty kopecks in his pocket uses the drosky. It is the most convenient and economical mode of locomotion for all ordinary purposes, hence the number of them is very large. On some of the principal streets it is marvelous how they wind their way at such a rattling pace through the crowd. To a stranger unacquainted with localities, they are a great convenience. And here, you see, commences the gist of the story.
On a certain occasion I called a drosky-man and directed him to drive me to the United States Consulate. Having never been there myself, I depended solely upon the intelligence and enterprise of the istrovoschik. My knowledge of the Russian consisted of three words – the name of the street and dratzall kopeck, the latter being the stipulated fare of twenty kopecks. By an affirmative signal the driver gave me to understand that he fully comprehended my wishes, and, with a flourish of his whip, away we started. After driving me nearly all over the city of St. Petersburg – a pretty extensive city, as any body will find who undertakes to walk through it – this adroit and skillful whipster, who had never uttered a word from the time of starting, now deliberately drew up his drosky on the corner of a principal street and began a conversation. I repeated the name of the street in which the consulate was located, and dratzall kopeck. The driver gazed in my face with a grave and placid countenance, stroked his long beard, tucked the skirts of his long blue coat under him, and drove on again. After rattling over a series of the most frightful cobble-stone pavements ever designed as an improvement in a great city, through several new quarters, he again stopped and treated me to some more remarks in his native language. I answered as before, the name of the street. He shook his head with discouraging gravity. I then remarked dratzall kopeck. From the confused answer he made, which occupied at least ten minutes of his time, and of which I was unable to comprehend a single word, it was apparent that he was as ignorant of his own language as he was of the city. In this extremity he called another driver to his aid, who spoke just the words of English, “Gooda-morkig!” “Good-morning,” said I. From this the conversation lapsed at once into remote depths of Russian. In despair I got out of the drosky and walked along the street, looking up at all the signs – the driver after me with his drosky, apparently watching to see that I did not make my escape. At length I espied a German name on a bakery sign. How familiar it looked in that desert of unintelligible Russian – like a favorite quotation in a page of metaphysics. I went in and spoke German —vie gaetz? You are aware, perhaps, that I excel in that language. I asked the way to the United States Consulate. The baker had probably forgotten his native tongue, if ever he knew it at all, for I could get nothing out of him but a shake of the head and nicht furstay. However, he had the goodness, seeing my perplexity, to put on his hat and undertake to find the consul’s, which, by dint of inquiry, he at length ascertained to be about half a mile distant. We walked all the way, this good old baker and I, he refusing to ride because there was only room for one, and I not liking to do so and let him walk. The drosky-man followed in the rear, driving along very leisurely, and with great apparent comfort to himself. He leaned back in his seat with much gusto, and seemed rather amused than otherwise at our movements. At length we reached the consulate. It was about three hundred yards from my original point of departure. Any other man in existence than my istrovoschik would have sunk into the earth upon seeing me make this astounding discovery. I knew it by certain landmarks – a church and a garden. But he did not sink into the earth. He merely sat on his drosky as cool as a cucumber. I felt so grateful to the worthy baker, who was a fat old gentleman, and perspired freely after his walk, that I gave him thirty kopecks. The drosky-man claimed forty kopecks, just double his fare. I called in the services of an interpreter, and protested against this imposition. The interpreter and the drosky-man got into an animated dispute on the question, and must have gone clear back to the fundamental principles of droskyism, for they seemed likely never to come to an end. The weather was warm, and both kept constantly wiping their faces, and turning the whole subject over and over again, without the slightest probability of an equitable conclusion. At length my interpreter said, “Perhaps, sir, you had better pay it. The man says you kept him running about for over two hours; and since you have no proof to the contrary, it would only give you trouble to have him punished.” This view accorded entirely with my own, and I cheerfully paid the forty kopecks; also ten kopecks drink-geld, and a small douceur of half a ruble (fifty kopecks) to the gentleman who had so kindly settled the difficulty for me. After many years’ experience of travel, I am satisfied, as before stated, that a man may be born naturally honest, but can not long retain his integrity in the hack business. He must sooner or later take to swindling, otherwise he can never keep his horses fat, or make the profession respectable and remunerative. Such, at least, has been my experience of men in this line of business, not excepting the istrovoschik of St. Petersburg.
