Chapter V: Part 5

The home life of the Poles is very beautiful; and, in particular, the deference paid to the father and mother strikes my American sensibilities forcibly. I never tire of watching the entrance into the salon of the married sons of the Countess when each comes to pay his daily visit to his mother. They are all four tall, impressive, and almost majestic, with a curious hawk-like quality in their glance, which may be an inheritance from their warrior forefathers. Count Antoine comes in just before going home to dine, while we are all assembled and dressed for dinner. He flings the door open, and makes his military bow to the room, then making straight for his mother’s chair, he kneels at her feet, kisses her hand and then her brow, and sometimes again her hand. Then he passes the others, and kisses his sister on the cheek, and after thus saluting all the members of his family, he turns to us, the guests, and speaks to us.

The Poles are the most individual and interesting people I have yet encountered. The men in particular are fascinating, and a man who is truly fascinating in the highest sense of the word; one whose character is worth study, and whose friendship would repay cultivating as sincerely as many of the Poles I know, is a boon to thank God for.

Before I came to Poland it always surprised me to realize that so many men and women of world-wide genius came from so small a nation. But now that I have had the opportunity of knowing them intimately and of studying their characteristics, both nationally and individually, I see why.

Poland is the home of genius by right. Her people, even if they never write or sing or act or play, have all the elements in their character which go to make up that complex commodity known as genius, whether it ever becomes articulate or not. You feel that they could all do things if they tried. They are a sympathetic, interesting, interested, and, above all, a magnetic people. This forms the top soil for a nation which has put forth so much of wonder and sweetness to enrich the world, but the reason which lies deep down at the root of the matter for the _soul_ which thrills through all this melody of song and story is in the sorrowful and tragic history of this nation.

The Poles are a race of burning patriots. To-day they are as keen over national sufferings and national wrongs as on that unfortunate clay when they went into a fiercely unwilling and resentful captivity. Their pride, their courage, their bitterness of spirit, their longing for revenge now no longer find an outlet on the battlefield. Yet it smoulders continually in their innermost being. You must crush the heart, you must subdue a people, you must be no stranger to anguish and loss if you would discover the singer and the song. And so Poland’s fierce and unrelenting patriotism has placed the divine spark of a genius which thrills a world in souls whose sweetest song is a cry wrung from a patriot’s heart.

VI ST. PETERSBURG

It behooves one to be good in Russia, for no matter how excellent your reputation at home, no matter how long you have been a member in good and regular standing of the most orthodox church, no matter how innocent your heart may be of anarchy, nihilism, or murder, you travel, you rest, you eat, sleep, wake, or dream, tracked by the Russian police.

They snatch your passport the moment you arrive at a hotel, and register you, and if you change your hotel every day, every day your passport is taken, and you are requested to fill out a blank with your name, age, religion, nationality, and the name and hotel of the town where you were last.

When we entered our Russian hotel—when we had entirely entered, I mean, for we passed through six or eight swinging doors with moujiks to open and shut each one, and bow and scrape at our feet—we found ourselves in a stiflingly hot corridor, where the odor was a combination of smoke and people whose furs needed airing.

It would be an excellent idea if Americans who live in cold climates dressed as sensibly as Russians do. They keep their houses about as warm as we keep ours, but they wear thin clothing indoors and put on their enormous furs for the street. On entering any house, church, shop, or theatre, the chuba and overshoes are removed, and although they spend half their lives putting them on and taking them off, yet the other half is comfortable.

The women seem to have no pride about the appearance of their feet, for now the doctors are ordering them to wear the common gray felt boot of the peasants, with the top of it reaching to the knee. It is without doubt the most hideous and unshapely object the mind can conceive, being all made of one piece and without any regard to the shape of the foot.

St. Petersburg can hardly be called a typical Russian city. It is too near other countries, but to us, before we had seen Moscow and Kiev, it was Russia itself. We arrived one bitterly cold day, and went first to the hotel to which we had been recommended by our friends.

I shall never forget the wave of longing for home and country which settled down upon me as we saw our rooms in this hotel. It must have been built in Peter the Great’s time. No electric lights; not even lamps. Candles! Now, if there is one thing more than another which makes me frantic with homesickness, it is the use of candles. I would rather be in London on Sunday than to dress by the light of candles.

Even an excellent luncheon did not raise my spirits. Our rooms were as dark and gloomy and silent as a mausoleum. Indeed, many a mausoleum I have seen has been much more cheerful. It was at the time of year also when we had but three hours of daylight—from eleven until two. Our salon was furnished in a dreary drab, with a gigantic green stove in the corner which reached to the ceiling. Then we entered what looked like a long, narrow corridor, down which we blindly felt our way, and at the extreme end of which were hung dark red plush curtains, as if before a shrine. We pulled aside these trappings of gloom, and there were two iron cots, not over a foot and a half wide, about the shape and feeling of an ironing-board, covered with what appeared to be gray army blankets, I looked to see “U.S.” stamped on them. I have seen them in museums at home.

I gazed at my companion in perfect dismay. “I shall not present a single letter of introduction,” I wailed. “I’m going to Moscow to-morrow.”

Instead of going to Moscow in the morning, we went out and decided to present just the one letter to our ambassador. He was at the Hôtel d’Europe, and we went there. Behold! electric lights everywhere. Heaps of Americans. And the entire Legation there. My companion and I simply looked at each other, and our whole future grew brighter. We would not go to Moscow, but we would move at once. We would introduce electricity into our sombre lives, and look forward with hope into the great unknown. We rushed around and presented all the rest of our letters, and went back to spend a wretched evening with eight candles and a smoky lamp.

The next day we called for our bill and prepared to move. To my disgust, I found an item of two rubles for the use of that lamp. I had serious thoughts of opening up communication with the Standard Oil Company by cable. But we were so delighted with our new accommodations in prospect that we left the hotel in a state of exhilaration that nothing could dampen.

To our great disappointment we found a number of Americans leaving St. Petersburg for Moscow because the Hermitage was closed. Now, the Hermitage and the ceremony of the Blessing of the Waters of the Neva were what I most wished to see, but we were informed at the Legation that we could have neither wish gratified. However, my spirit was undaunted. It was only the American officials who had pronounced it impossible. My lucky star had gone with me so far, and had opened so many unaccustomed doors, that I did not despair. I said I would see what our letters of introduction brought forth.

We did not have to wait long. No sooner had we presented our letters than people came to see us, and placed themselves at our disposal for days and even weeks at a time. Their kindness and hospitality were too charming for mere words to express.

Although the Winter Palace was closed to visitors, preparatory to the arrival on the next day of the Tzar and Tzarina, it was opened for us through the influence of the daughter of the Commodore of the late Tzar’s private yacht, Mademoiselle de Falk, who took us through it. It was simply superb, and was, of course, in perfect readiness for the arrival of the imperial family, with all the gorgeous crimson velvet carpets spread, and the plants and flowers arranged in the Winter Garden.

Then, through this same influential friend, the Hermitage—the second finest and the very richest museum in all Europe—was opened for us, and—well, I kept my head going through the show palaces in London, and Paris, and Berlin, and Dresden, and Potsdam, but I lost it completely in the Hermitage. Then and there I absolutely went crazy. A whole guide-book devoted simply to the Hermitage could give no sort of idea of the barbaric splendor of its belongings. Its riches are beyond belief. Even the presents given by the Emir of Bokhara to the Tzar are splendid enough to dazzle one like a realization of the Arabian Nights. But to see the most valuable of all, which are kept in the Emperor’s private vaults, is to be reduced to a state of bewilderment bordering on idiocy.

It is astonishing enough, to one who has bought even one Russian belt set with turquoise enamel, to think of all the trappings of a horse—bit, bridle, saddle-girth, saddlecloth, and all, made of cloth of gold and set in solid turquoise enamel; with the sword hilt, scabbard, belts, pistol handle and holster made of the same. Well, these are there by the dozen. Then you come to the private jewels, and you see all these same accoutrements made of precious stones—one of solid diamonds; another of diamonds, emeralds, topazes, and rubies. And the size of these stones! Why, you never would believe me if I should tell you how large they are. Many of them are uncut and badly set, from an English stand-point. But in quantity and size—well, I was glad to get back to my three-ruble-a-day room and to look at my one trunk, and to realize that my own humble life would go on just the same, and my letter of credit would not last any longer for all the splendors which exist for the Tzar of all the Russias.

The churches in St. Petersburg are so magnificent that they, too, go to your head. We did nothing but go to mass on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, for although we spent our Christmas in Berlin, we arrived in St. Petersburg in time for the Russian Christmas, which comes twelve days later than ours. St. Isaac’s, the Kazan, and Sts. Peter and Paul dazed me. The icons or images of the Virgin are set with diamonds and emeralds worth a king’s ransom. They are only under glass, which is kept murky from the kisses which the people press upon the hands and feet.

The interiors of the cathedrals, with their hundreds of silver _couronnes_, and battle-flags, and trophies of conquests, look like great bazaars. Every column is covered clear to the dome. The tombs of the Tzars are always surrounded by people, and candles burn the year round. Upon the tomb of Alexander II., under glass, is the exquisite laurel wreath placed there by President Faure. It is of gold, and was made by Falize, one of the most famous carvers of gold in Europe.

The famous mass held on Christmas Eve in the cathedral of St. Isaac was one of the most beautiful services I ever attended. In the first place, St. Isaac’s is the richest church in all Russia. It has, too, the most wonderful choir, for the Tzar loves music, and wherever in all his Empire a beautiful voice is found, the boy is brought to St. Petersburg and educated by the State to enter the Emperor’s choir. When we entered the church the service had been in progress for five hours. That immense church was packed to suffocation. In the Greek church every one stands, no matter how long the service. In fact, you cannot sit down unless you sit on the floor, for there are no seats.

By degrees we worked our way towards the space reserved for the Diplomatic Corps, where we were invited to enter. Our wraps were taken and chairs were given to us. We found ourselves on the platform with the priest, just back of the choir. What heavenly voices! What wonderful voices! The bass holds on to the last note, and the rumble and echo of it rolls through those vaulted domes like the tones of an organ. The long-haired priest, too, had a wonderful resonant voice for intoning. He passed directly by us in his gorgeous cloth of gold vestments, as he went out.

The instant he had finished, the little choir boys began to pinch each other and thrust their tapers in each other’s faces, and behaved quite like ordinary boys. The great crowd scattered and huge ladders were brought in to put out the hundreds of candles in the enormous chandeliers. Religion was over, and the world began again.

The other art which is maintained at the government expense is the ballet. We went several times, and it was very gorgeous. It is all pantomime—not a word is spoken—but so well done that one does not tire of it.

Every one sympathized so with us because we could not see the ceremony of the Blessing of the Waters of the Neva, and our ambassador apologized for not being able to arrange it, and we said, “Not at all,” and “Pray, do not mention it,” at the same time secretly hoping that our Russian friends, who were putting forth strenuous efforts on our behalf, would be able to manage it.

On the morning of the 18th of January a note came from a Russian officer who was on duty at the Winter Palace, saying that Baron Elsner, the Secretary of the Prefect of Police, would call for us with his carriage at ten o’clock, and we would be conducted to the private space reserved just in front of the Winter Palace, where the best view of everything could be obtained. My companion and I fell into each other’s arms in wild delight, for it had been most difficult to manage, and we had not been sure until that very moment.

Now, the person of the Tzar is so sacred that it is forbidden by law even to represent him on the stage, and as to photographing him—a Russian faints at the mere thought. Nevertheless, we wished very much to photograph this pageant, so we determined, if possible, to take our camera. Everything else that we wanted had been done for us ever since we started, and our faith was strong that we would get this. At first the stout heart of Baron Elsner quailed at our suggestion. Then he said to take the camera with us, which we did with joy. His card parted the crowd right and left, and our carriage drove through long lines of soldiers, and between throngs of people held in check by mounted police, and by rows of infantry, who locked arms and made of themselves a living wall, against which the crowd surged.

To our delight we found our places were not twenty feet from the entrance to the Winter Palace. We noticed Baron Elsner speaking to several officials, and we heard the word “Americanski,” which had so often opened hearts and doors to us, for Russia honestly likes America, and presently the Baron said, in a low tone, “When the Emperor passes out you may step down here; these soldiers will surround you, and you may photograph him.”

I could scarcely believe my ears. I was so excited that I nearly dropped the camera.

The procession moves only about one hundred feet—a crimson carpet being laid from the entrance of the Winter Palace, across the street, and up into a pavilion which is built out over the Neva.

First came the metropolitans and the priests; then the Emperor’s celebrated choir of about fifty voices; then a detachment of picked officers bearing the most important battle-flags from the time of Peter the Great, which showed the marks of sharp conflict; then the Emperor’s suite, and then—the Emperor himself. They all marched with bared heads, even the soldiers.

My companion had the opera-glasses, I had the camera. “Tell me when,” I gasped. They passed before me in a sort of haze. I heard the band in the Winter Palace and the singing of the choir. I heard the splash of the cross which the Archbishop plunged into the opening that had been cut in the ice. I heard the priests intone, and the booming of the guns firing the imperial salute. I saw that the wind was blowing the candles out. Then came a breathless pause, and then she said, “Now!” A little click. It was done; I had photographed Nicholas II., the Tzar of all the Russias!

VII RUSSIA

Yesterday we had our first Russian experience in the shape of a troika ride. Russians, as a rule, do not troika except at night. In fact, from my experience, they reverse the established order of things and turn night into day.

A troika is a superb affair. It makes the tiny sledges which take the place of cabs, and are used for all ordinary purposes, look even more like toys than usual. But the sledges are great fun, and so cheap that it is an extravagance to walk. A course costs only twenty kopecks—ten cents. The sledges are set so low that you can reach out and touch the snow with your hand, and they are so small that the horse is in your lap and the coachman in your pocket. He simply turns in his seat to hook the fur robe to the back of your seat—only it has no back. If you fall, you fall clear to the ground.

The horse is far, far above you in your humble position, and there is so little room that two people can with difficulty stow themselves in the narrow seat. If a brother and sister or a husband and wife drive together, the man, in sheer self-defence, is obliged to put his arm around the woman, no matter how distasteful it may be. Not that she would ever be conscious of whether he did it or not, for the amount of clothes one is obliged to wear in Russia destroys any sense of touch.

The idvosjik, or coachman, is so bulky from this same reason that you cannot see over him. You are obliged to crane your neck to one side. His head is covered with a Tartar cap. He wears his hair down to his collar, and then chopped off in a straight line. His pelisse is of a bluish gray, fits tightly to the waist, and comes to the feet. But the skirt of it is gathered on back and front, giving him an irresistibly comical pannier effect, like a Dolly Varden polonaise. The Russian idvosjik guides his horse curiously. He coaxes it forward by calling it all sorts of pet names—“doushka,” darling, etc. Then he beats it with a toy whip, which must feel like a fly on its woolly coat, for all the little fat pony does is to kick up its heels and fly along like the wind, missing the other sledges by a hair’s-breadth. It is ghostly to see the way they glide along without a sound, for the sledges wear no bells.

One may drive with perfect safety at a breakneck pace, for they all drive down on one side of the street and up on the other. Nor will an idvosjik hesitate to use his whip about the head and face of another idvosjik who dares to turn without crossing the street.

He stops his horse with a guttural trill, as if one should say “Tr-r-r-r-r” in the back of the throat. It sounds like a gargle.

The horses are sharp-shod, but in a way quite different from ours. The spikes on their shoes are an inch long, and dig into the ice with perfect security, but it makes the horses look as if they wore French heels. Even over ice like sheer glass they go at a gallop and never slip. It is wonderful, and the exhilaration of it is like driving through an air charged with champagne, like the wine-caves of Rintz.

Our troika was like a chariot in comparison with these sledges. It was gorgeously upholstered in red velvet, and held six—three on each seat. The robes also were red velvet, bordered and lined with black bear fur. There were three horses driven abreast. The middle horse was much larger than the other two, and wore a high white wooden collar, which stood up from the rest of the harness, and was hung with bells and painted with red flowers and birds.

To my delight the horses were wild, and stood on their hind legs and bit each other, and backed us off the road, and otherwise acted like Tartar horses in books. It seemed almost too good to be true. It was like driving through the Black Forest and seeing the gnomes and the fairies one has read about. I told my friends very humbly that I had never done anything in my life to deserve the good fortune of having those beautiful horses act in such a satisfactory and historical manner. We had to get out twice and let the idvosjik calm them down. But even when ploughing my way out of snow up to my knees I breathed an ecstatic sigh of gratitude and joy. I could not understand the men’s annoyance. It was too ideal to complain about.

We drove out to the Island for luncheon, and on the way we stopped and coasted in a curious Russian sledge from the top of a high place, something like our toboggan-slides, only this sledge was guided from behind by a peasant on skates.

A Russian meal always begins with a side-table of _hors d’oeuvres_, called “zakouska.” That may not be spelled right, but no Russian would correct me, because the language is phonetic, and they spell the same word in many different ways. Their alphabet has thirty-eight letters in it, besides the little marks to tell you whether to make a letter hard or soft.

Even proper names take on curious oddities of spelling, and a husband and wife or two brothers will spell their name differently when using the Latin letters. If you complain about it, and ask which is correct, they make that famous Russian reply which Bismarck once had engraved in his ring, and which he believed brought him such good luck, “Neechy voe,” “It is nothing,” or “Never mind.” You can spell with your eyes shut in Russian, and you simply cannot make a mistake, for the Russians spell with all the abandonment of French dancing.

This zakouska is so delicious and so varied and so tempting that one not accustomed to it eats too much without realizing. At a dinner an American looked at my loaded plate and said, with delicious impertinence, “Confidentially, I don’t mind telling you that dinner is _coming_.”

As we came back, the full delight of troika-riding came over us, for driving in the country we could not tell how fast we were going. But in town, whizzing past other carriages, hearing the shouts of the idvosjik, “Troika!” and seeing the people scatter and the sledges turn out (for a troika has the right of way), we realized at what a pace we were going. We dashed across the frozen Neva, with its tramway built right on the ice; past the Winter Palace, along the quai, where all the embassies are, into the Grand Morskaia, and from there into the Nevski, with the snow flying and our bells ringing, and the middle horse trotting and the outer horses galloping, sending clouds of steam from their heaving flanks and palpitating nostrils, and the biting air making our blood tingle, and the reiterated shout of the idvosjik, “Troika! troika!” taking our breath away.

We had one more excitement before we reached home, which was seeing a Russian fire-engine. We passed it in a run. The engine was on one sledge, and following it were five other sledges carrying hogsheads of water.

I am glad we came to Russia in winter, for by so doing we have met the Russian people, the most fascinating that any country can boast, with the charm of the French, the courage of the English, the sentiment of the Germans, the sincerity and hospitality of the Americans. Their courtesy to each other is a never-ending pleasure to me. Poles and Russians treat their women more nearly the way our American men treat us than any nation we have encountered so far. They are the most marvellous linguists in the world. We have met no one in Russia who speaks fewer than three languages, and we have met several who speak twelve. They are not arrogant even concerning their military strength. They are quite modest about their learning and their not inconsiderable literary and artistic achievements, and they hold themselves, both nationally and individually, in the plastic state where they are willing to learn from any nation or any master who can teach what they wish to know. There is a marvellous future for Russia, for their riches and resources are as vast and inestimable as their possessions. They themselves do not realize how mighty they are.

Here is France grovelling at their feet, spending millions of francs to entertain the Tzar—France, a nation which must see a prospect of double her money returned before she parts with a sou; with the cathedrals filled with _couronnes_ sent by the French press; with no compliment to Russia too fulsome for French gallantry to invent finding space in the foremost French newspapers; hoping, praying, beseeching the help of Russia, when Germany makes up her mind to gobble France, yet dealing Russian achievement a backhanded slap by hinting what a compliment it is for a cultivated, accomplished, over-cultured race like the French to beg the assistance of a barbarous country like Russia.

I believe that Russia is the only country in the world which feels nationally friendly and individually interested in America. I used to think France was, and I held Lafayette firmly and proudly in my memory to prove it. But I was promptly undeceived as to their individual interest, and when I still clung to Lafayette as a proof of the former I was laughed to scorn and told that France as a nation had nothing to do with that; that Lafayette went to America as a soldier of fortune. He would just as soon have gone to Madagascar or Timbuctoo, but America was accommodating enough to have a war on just in time to serve his ambition. If that is true, I wish they had not told me. I would like to come home with a few ideals left—if they will permit me.

When I was in Berlin I asked our ambassador, Mr. White, what Germany thought of America. He replied, “Just what Thackeray thought of Tupper. When some one asked Thackeray what he thought of Tupper, he replied, ‘I don’t think of him at all.’”

But in Russia I have a sore throat all the time from answering questions about America. I think I am not exaggerating when I say I have answered a million in a single evening. My companion at first was disgusted with my wearing myself out in such a manner, but I said, “I am so grateful to them for _caring_, after the indifference of all these other self-sufficient countries, that I am willing to sacrifice myself at it if necessary.”

We never realized how little we knew about America until we discovered the Russian capacity for asking unexpected questions. I bought an American history in Russia, and sat up nights trying to remember what my father had tried to instil into my sieve-like brain. After a week of witnessing my feverish enthusiasm, even my companion’s dormant national pride was roused. She, too, was ashamed to say, “I don’t know,” when they asked us these terrible questions. When we get into the clutches of a party of women we trust to luck that they cannot remember our statistics long enough to tell their husbands and brothers (I have a horror of men’s accuracy in figures), and we calmly guess at the answers when our exact knowledge gives out.

One night they attacked my companion on the school question. Now, she does not know one solitary thing about the public-school system, but, to my utter amazement, I heard her giving the number of children between the ages of eight and ten who were in the public schools in the State of Illinois, and then running them off by counties. I was afraid she would soon begin to call the roll of their names from memory, so I rescued her and took her home. I suppose we must have an air of intelligence which successfully masks our colossal ignorance of occult facts and defunct dates, because they rely on us to inform them off-hand concerning everything social, political, historical, sacred and profane, spirituous and spiritual, from the protoplasm of the cliff-dwellers to the details of the Dingley bill, not skipping accurate information on the process of whiskey-making in Kentucky, a crocodile-hunt in Florida, suffrage in Wyoming, a lynching-bee in Texas, polygamy in Utah, prune-drying in California, divorces in Dakota, gold-mining in Colorado, cotton-spinning in Georgia, tobacco-raising in Alabama, marble-quarrying in Tennessee, the number of Quakers in Philadelphia, one’s sensations while being scalped by Sioux, how marriages are arranged, what a man says when he proposes, the details of a camp-meeting, a description of a negro baptism, and the main arguments on the silver question.

They get some curious ideas in their heads concerning us, but they are so amazingly well informed about America that their specific misinformation never irritated me. The small use they have for their English sometimes accounts for the queer things they say.

The official costume for men who have no particular uniform is regulation evening dress, which they are obliged to wear all day. They become so tired of it that this is the reason, they tell me, why so many men, even in smart society, go to the opera or even dinners in frock-coats. One one occasion a most intelligent man said to me, “I am told that in America the ladies always wear décolleté costumes at dinners, and the men are always in night-dress.”

For one hysterical moment my mind’s eye pictured a dinner-table on Prairie Avenue with alternately a low-necked gown and a pair of pajamas, and I choked. Then I happened to think that he meant “evening dress,” and I recovered sufficiently to explain.

The Tzarina has made English the Court language, and since her coronation no state balls take place on Sunday.

Russian hospitality is delightful. We could remain a year in Russia and not exhaust our invitations to visit at their country-houses. Russia must be beautiful in summer, but if you wish to go into society, to know the best of the people, to see their sweet home life, and to understand how they live and enjoy themselves, you must go in the winter. I cannot think what any one would find of national life in summer in Russia, for everybody has a country-house and everybody goes to it and leaves the city to tourists.

Russia, in spite of her vast riches, has not arrived at supercivilization, where there is corruption in the very atmosphere. She is an undeveloped and a young country, and while the Tzar is wise and kind and beneficent, and an excellent Tzar as Tzars go, still Russians, even the best and most enlightened of them, are slaves. I have met a number of the gentlest and cleverest men who had been exiled to Siberia, and pardoned. Their picture-galleries bear witness to this underlying sadness of knowing that in spite of everything they are not _free_. All their actions are watched, their every word listened to, spies are everywhere, the police are omnipresent, and over all their gayety and vivacity and mirth and spontaneity there is the constant fear of the awful hand in whose complete power they are. His clemency, his fatherhood to his people, his tremendous responsibility for their welfare are all appreciated, but the thought is in every mind, “When will this kindness fail? Upon whose head will the lightning descend next?”

Title and gentle birth and the long and faithful service of one’s ancestors to the Tzars are of small avail if the evidence should go against one in Russia. I have heard princes say less than I have said here, but say it in whispers and with furtive looks at the nearest man or woman. I have seen their starts of surprise at the frank impudence of our daring to criticise our administration in their midst, and I felt as if I were in danger of being bombarded from the back.

In Russia you may spell as you please, but you must have a care how you criticise the government. In America you may criticise the government as you will, but you must have a care how you spell.

VIII MOSCOW

I thought St. Petersburg interesting, but it is modern compared to Moscow. Everything is so strange and curious here. The churches, the chimes, the palace, the coronation chapel, and the street scenes are enough to drive one mad with interest.

Moscow is said to have sixteen hundred churches, and I really think we did not skip one. They are almost as magnificent as those in St. Petersburg, and they impressed—overpowered us, in fact, with the same unspeakable riches of the Greek Church.

The name of our hotel was so curious that I cannot forbear repeating it, “The Slavansky Bazaar,” and they call their smartest restaurant “The Hermitage.” I felt as if I could be sold at auction in “The Bazaar,” and as if I ought to fast and pray in “The Hermitage.”

“The Slavansky Bazaar” was one of the dirtiest hotels it ever was my lot to see. The Russians of the middle class—to say nothing of the peasants, who are simply unspeakable—are not a clean set, so one cannot blame a hotel for not living above the demands of its _clientèle_. There were some antique specimens of cobwebs in our rooms, which made restful corner ornaments with dignified festoons, which swung slowly to and fro with such fascinating solemnity that I could not leave off looking at them. The hotel is built up hill and down dale, and each corridor smells more musty than the other. It has a curious arrangement for supplying water in the rooms which I never can recall with any degree of pleasure. One evening after I had dressed I went to the wash-stand and discovered that there was no water. I was madly ringing for the chambermaid when my companion called from her room, and said, “Put your foot on that brass thing. There is plenty of water.”

I looked down, and near the floor was a brass pedal, like that of a piano. Sure enough, there was a reservoir above and a faucet with the head of a dragon on it peering up into my face, which I never had noticed before. Now, the pedal of my piano works hard, so I bent all my strength to this one, and lo! from that impudent dragon’s mouth I got a mighty stream of water straight in my unconscious face, and enough to put out a fire. I fell back with a shriek of astonishment and indignation, and my companion laughed—nay, she roared. She laughs until she cries even now every time she thinks of it, although I had to change my gown. How was _I_ going to know that I was leaning over a waterspout, I should like to know!

In this same hotel when I asked for a blotter they brought me a box of sand. I tried to use it, but my hand was not very steady, and none of it went on the letter. Some got in my shoe, however.

But our environments were more than compensated for by the exceeding kindness that we received from the most delightful people that it ever was my good fortune to meet, and their attentions to us were so charming that we shall remember them as long as we live.

Americans, even though we are as hospitable as any nation on earth, might well take a lesson from the Russians in regard to the respect they pay to a letter of introduction. The English send word when you can be received, and you pay each other frosty formal calls, and then are asked to five-o’clock tea or some other wildly exciting function of similar importance. The French are great sticklers for etiquette, but they are more spontaneous, and you are asked to dine at once. After that it is your own fault if you are not asked again. But in Russia it is different. I think that the men must have accompanied my messenger home, and the women to whom I presented letters early in the afternoon were actually waiting for me when I returned from presenting the last ones. In Moscow they came and waited hours for my return. I was mortified that there were not four of me to respond to all the beauties of their friendship, for hospitality in Russia includes even that.

They placed themselves, their carriages, their servants, at our disposal for whatever we had to do—sight-seeing, shopping, or idling. Mademoiselle Yermoloff, lady-in-waiting to the two empresses, simply took us upon her hands to show us Russian society life. She came with her sledge in the morning, and kept us with her all day long, taking us to see the most interesting people and places in Moscow. She showed us the coronation-robes, the embroideries upon which were from her own beautiful designs. The Empress presented her with an emerald and diamond brooch in recognition of this important service, for undoubtedly the coronation-robe of the present Tzarina is much handsomer and in better taste than any of the others. The designs are so artistically sketched that they all have a special significance.

Here we visited the charming Princess Golitzine, a most beautiful and accomplished woman. Her house, we were told, De Lesseps, the father of the Suez De Lesseps, used as his headquarters during the French occupation of Moscow.

Mademoiselle Yermoloff’s sledge was a very beautiful one, but it was quite as low-set as all the others, and her footman stood behind. As there was no back to the seat of her sledge, and her horses were rather fiery and unmanageable, every time they halted without warning this solemn flunky pitched forward into our backs, a performance which would have upset the dignity of an English footman, but which did not seem to disturb him in the least.

Mademoiselle Yermoloff took us to see Madame Chabelskoi, whose contributions to the World’s Fair were of so much value. I never saw a private collection of anything so rich, so varied, and of such historical value as her collection of all the provincial costumes of the peasants of Finland and Big and Little Russia. In addition to these she has the fête-day toilets as well. The Kokoshniks are all embroidered in seed-pearls and gold ornaments, and if she were not a fabulously rich woman she could never have got all these, for each one is authentic and has actually been worn. They are not copies.

But Moscow seems to take a peculiar national pride in preserving the historical monuments of her country. There is a museum there, with a complete set of all these costumes on wax figures, and they range all the way from the grotesque to the lovely.

Madame Chabelskoi is now doing a very pretty as well as a valuable and historical work. She has two accomplished daughters, and these young girls spend all their time in selecting peasant women with typical features, dressing them in these costumes, photographing them, and then coloring these photographs in water-colors. They are making ten copies of each, to make ten magnificent albums, which are to be presented to the ten greatest museums in the world. The Hermitage in St. Petersburg is to have one, the British Museum another, and so on. Only one was to go to America, and to my metropolitan dismay I found that it was _not_ to go to Chicago. I shall not say where it was intended to go; I shall only say that with characteristic modesty I asked, in my most timid voice, why she did not present it to a museum in the city which she had already benefited so royally with her generosity, and which already held her name in affectionate veneration. It seemed to strike her for the first time that Chicago _was_ the proper city in which to place that album, so she promised it to us! I thanked her with sincere gratitude, and retired from the field with a modest flush of victory on my brow. I cannot forbear a wicked chuckle, however, when I think of that other museum!

We dined many times at “The Hermitage,” which is one of the smartest restaurants in Europe. The costumes of the waiters were too extraordinary not to deserve a passing mention. They consisted of a white cotton garment belted at the waist, with no collar, and a pair of flapping white trousers. They are always scrupulously clean—which is a wonder for Russian peasants—for they are made to change their clothes twice a day. They have a magnificent orchestrion instead of an orchestra here, and I could scarcely eat those beautiful dinners for listening to the music. We became so well acquainted with the répertoire that our friends, knowing our taste, ordered the music to match the courses. So instead of sherry with the soup, they ordered the intermezzo from “Cavalleria Rusticana.” With the fish we had the overture to “William Tell.” With the _entrecôte_ we had a pot-pourri from “Faust.” With the fowl we had “Demon and Tamar,” the Russian opera. With the rest we began on Wagner and worked up to that thrilling “Tannhäuser” overture, until I was ready to go home a nervous wreck from German music, as I always am.

A very interesting incident occurred while we were in Moscow. The Tzar decorated a non-commissioned officer for an act of bravery which well deserved it. He was in charge of the powder-magazines just outside of Moscow, and from the view I had of them I should say that the gunpowder is stored in pits in the ground.

Something caught fire right on top of one of these pits, and this young officer saw it. He had no time to send for water, and if he delayed, at any moment the whole magazine might explode; one pit would communicate with another, and perhaps the whole city would be endangered; so without a second’s hesitation he and his men sprang into the fire and literally trod it out with their feet, running the risk of an explosion by concussion, as well as by a spark of fire. It was a superb act of courage, and the Tzar decorated this young sergeant with the order of Vladimir—one of the rarest decorations in all Russia. I am told that not over six living men possess it to-day. It was a beautiful thing for the Tzar thus to recognize this heroic deed.

When we left Moscow we were having our first real taste of Russian winter, for, strange to say, although so much farther south, the climate is much more severe than that of St. Petersburg.

My companion complained bitterly that we were not seeing anything of Russia because we came down from St. Petersburg at night, so we abandoned the courier train, and took the slow day-train for Kiev, the old capital of Russia, that she might see more of the country.

But now I come to my reward and her chagrin. Between Moscow and Kiev we were snowed in for sixteen hours. It was between stations, the food gave out—I mean it gave out because we did not have any to start with—the train became bitterly cold, and we came near freezing and starving to death. That made our Russian experiences quite complete. We had foolishly started without even fruit, and there was nothing to be had on board the train except the tea which the conductors make in a samovar and serve to you at the slightest provocation. But even the tea was exhausted at last, and then the fire gave out, because all the wood had been used up.

There we were, penned up, wrapped in our seal-skins and steamer-rugs and with nubias over our heads, so cold that our teeth chattered, and so hungry we could have eaten anything. The conductor came and spoke to us several times, but whether he was inviting us to lunch or quoting Scripture we could never tell. There was no one on the train who spoke English or French, and nobody else in our car to speak anything at all—owing to our having come on this particular train, in order for my companion to “see Russia.” I am delighted to record the fact that not only the outside but the inside windows were frosted so thickly that they had to light the sickly tallow candle in a tin box over the door of the compartment, so she never got a peep at Russia or anything else the whole way.

We consoled each other and kept up our spirits as best we could all day, but we arrived at Kiev so exhausted with cold and hunger that although we were received at the train by one of the most charming men I ever met, we both cried with relief at the sight of a friendly face and some one to whom we could speak and tell our woes. I have since wondered what he thought to be met by two forlorn women in tears! Whatever he thought, like all the Russians, he was courtesy itself, and we were soon whisked away to the inexpressible comfort of being thawed and fed.

Such a beautiful city as this is! Whitelaw Reid has declared Kiev to be one of the four picturesque cities in Europe; certainly it lies in a heavenly place, all up and down hills, with such vistas down the streets to where a mosque raises its gilded dome, or where an historic bronze statue stands out against the horizon. If Kiev had been planned by the French, it could not be more utterly beautiful. The domes of the cathedrals are blue, studded with gold stars; or else pale green or all gold, and the most exquisite churches in all Russia are in Kiev. A terrible monastery, where you take candles and go down into the bowels of the earth to see where monks martyred themselves, is here; and poor simple-minded pilgrims walk many hundred miles to kiss these tombs. Their devotion is pathetic. We had to walk in a procession of them, and I know that each of them had his own particular disease and his own special brand of dirt. The beggars surrounding the gate of this monastery are too awful to mention, yet it is reputed to be the richest monastery in all Russia.

In Kiev we heard “Hamlet” in Russian, and the man who played Hamlet was wonderfully good, surprisingly good. You don’t know how strange it sounded to hear “To be or not to be” in Russian! The acting was so familiar, the words so strange. The audience went crazy over him, as Russian audiences always do. We watched him come out and bow thirty-nine times, and when we came away the noise was still deafening.

They make a sort of candy in Kiev which goes far and away above any sweets I ever have seen. It is a sort of candied rose. The whole rose is there. It is a solid soft pink mass, and it tastes just as a tea-rose smells. It is simply celestial.

We dearly love Kiev, it is so hauntingly beautiful. You can’t forget it. Your mind keeps returning to it, but it is the sort of beauty that you can’t describe satisfactorily. It is like your mother’s face. You can see the beauty for yourself, but no one else can see it as you do, for the love which is behind it.

In Odessa we began to leave Russia behind us. Odessa is all sorts of a place. It is commercial, and not beautiful, but, as usual, our Russian friends made us forget the town and its sights, and remember only their sweet hospitality and friendliness.

We wished to catch the Russian steamer for Constantinople, but we were told that the police would not permit us to leave on such short notice. We felt that this was hard, for we had tried so consistently to be good in Russia that I was determined to go if possible. So I took an interpreter and drove to the police headquarters myself. To my amazement and delight my man told me that it could all be arranged by the payment of a few rubles. But that “few rubles” mounted up into many before I got my passports duly viséd. I discovered that our American police are not so _very_ different from Russian police after all, even if they _are_ Irish!

We caught the steamer—the dear, clean, lovely _Nickolai II._, with the stewardess a Greek named Aspasia, and I persisted in calling the steward Pericles, just to have things match.

Then we crunched our way out of the harbor through the ice into the Black Sea, and sailed away for Constantinople.

IX CONSTANTINOPLE

Constantinople had three different effects upon me. The first was to make me utterly despise it for its sickening dirt; the second was when I forgot all about the mud and garbage, and went crazy over its picturesque streets with their steep slopes, odd turns, and bewitching vistas, and the last was to make me dread Cairo for fear it would seem tame in comparison, for Constantinople is enchanting. If I were a painter I would never leave off painting its delights and spreading its fascinations broadcast; and then I would take all the money I got for my pictures and spend it in the bazaars, and if I regretted my purchases I would barter them for others, because Constantinople is the beginning of the Orient, and if you remain long you become thoroughly metamorphosed, and you bargain, trade, exchange, and haggle until you forget that you ever were a Christian. The hour of our arrival in Constantinople was an accident. The steamer _Nickolai II._ was late, and as no one may land there after sunset, we were forced to lie in the Bosphorus all night.

It was dark when we sighted the city, but it was one of those clear darks where without any apparent light you can see everything. _Surely_ no other city in the world has so beautiful an approach! Our great black steamer threaded her way between men-of-war, sail-boats, and all sorts of shipping, and if there were a thousand lights twinkling in the water there were a million from the city. It lies on a series of hills curved out like a monster amphitheatre, and it stretches all the way around. I looked up into the heavens, and it seemed to me that I never had seen so many stars in my life. Our sky at home has not so many. Yet there were no more than the yellow points of flame which flickered in every part of that sleeping city. Three tall minarets pierced above the horizon, and each of these wore circles of light which looked like necklaces and girdles of fire. Patches of black now and then showed where there were trees or marked a graveyard. Occasionally we heard a shrill cry or the barking of dogs, but these sounds came faintly, and seemed a part of the fairy-picture. It looked so much like a scene from an opera that I half expected to see the curtain go down and the lights flare up, and I feared the applause which always spoils the dream.