Chapter I (2)

At length Rodolphus and Annie set out on their return home. It was a long walk, but in due time they reached home in safety. Rodolphus determined not to give the money back to his father, and so he hid it in a crevice, which he found in a part of the fence behind his rabbit house. He put the rabbits in their house, and put a board up before the door to keep them in.

That night when Mrs. Linn took off Annie’s stockings by the kitchen fire, when she was going to put her to bed, she found them very damp.

“Why, Annie,” she said, “what makes your stockings so damp? You must have got into the water somewhere to-day.”

Annie did not answer. Rodolphus had enjoined it upon her not to tell their mother of their adventure on the raft, and so she did not know what to say.

“Damp?” said Rodolphus. “Are they damp? Let me feel.” So he began to feel of Annie’s stockings.

“No,” said he, “they are not damp. _I_ can’t feel that they are damp.”

“They certainly are,” said his mother. “They are very damp indeed.”

“Then,” said Rodolphus, “we must have spilled some water into them when we were getting a drink, Annie, at the well.” Annie said nothing, and Mrs. Linn hung the stockings up to dry.

III. Sickness.

Ellen’s aunt was the sister of Mr. Linn, Ellen’s father; and her name was Anne. Ellen used to call her Aunt Anne. Her husband’s name was Randon, so that sometimes Ellen called her Aunt Randon.

Though Mr. Randon’s house appeared rather small, as seen from the road by any one riding by, it was pretty spacious and very comfortable within. Mr. Randon owned several farms in different places, and he was away from home a great deal attending to his other farms and to the flocks of sheep and herds of cattle which he had upon them. During these absences Mrs. Randon of course remained at home with Ellen. There was a girl named Martha who lived at the house to do the work of the family, and also a young man named Hugh. Hugh was employed in the mornings and evenings in taking care of the barns and the cattle, and in the day-time, especially in the winter, he hauled wood—sometimes to the house for the family to burn, and sometimes to the village for sale.

The family lived thus very happily together, whether Mr. Randon was at home or away. Mrs. Randon could not walk about the house at all, but was, on the other hand, confined all day to her bed or her sofa; but she knew every thing that was done; and gave directions about every thing. Ellen was employed as messenger to carry her aunt’s directions out, and to bring back intelligence and answers. Mrs. Randon knew exactly what was in every room, and where it was in the room. She knew what was in every drawer, and what was on every shelf in every closet, and what and how much was in every bin in the cellar. So that if she wanted any thing she could direct Ellen where to go to get it with a certainty that it would be exactly there. The house was very full of furniture, stores, and supplies, and all was so well arranged and in such an orderly and complete condition, that in going over it every room that the visitor entered seemed pleasanter than the one seen before.

On one occasion, Rodolphus himself had proof of this admirable order. He had cut his finger, in the shed, and when he came in, Mrs. Randon, after binding it up very nicely, turned to Ellen, and said,

“Now, Ellen, we must have a cot. Go up into the garret, and open the third trunk, counting from the west window. In the right-hand front corner of this trunk you will find a small box. In the box you will find three cots. Bring the smallest one to me.”

Ellen went and found every thing as Mrs. Randon had described it.

There was a room in the front part of the house called the Front Room, which was usually kept shut up. It was furnished as a parlor very prettily. It had very full curtains to the windows, a soft carpet on the floor, and a rug before the fire-place. There was a bookcase in this room, with a desk below. Mr. Randon kept his valuable papers in this desk, and the book-case above was filled with interesting books. There were several very pretty pictures on the walls of this room, and some curious ornaments on the mantle shelf. The blinds of the windows in this apartment were generally closed and the curtains drawn, and Ellen seldom went into it, except to get a new book to read to her aunt, out of the secretary.

The room which the family generally used, was a back room. It was quite large, and it had a very spacious fire-place in it. Being larger than any other room in the house it was generally called the Great Room. The windows of this room looked out upon a pretty green yard, with a garden and an orchard beyond. There was a door too at one end of the room opening to a porch. In this porch was an outer door, which led to a large yard at the end of the house. This was the door that Antonio had driven up to, when he brought Rodolphus and Annie to see Ellen. On the other side of the kitchen from the porch-door, was a door leading to Mrs. Randon’s bed-room. The situation of these rooms, and of the other apartments of the house as well as of the principal articles of furniture hereafter to be described, may be perfectly understood by the means of the following plan.

Plan of Mrs. Randon’s House. B: Bed in Mrs Randon’s bed-room. W: The
closed windows. B. E.: Back entry. pl: Back Platform. P: Porch. C: Mrs.
Randon’s couch or sofa. ff: Fire-places. H: Hugh’s seat. S: Settle. L:
Lutie’s bed.

Mrs. Randon was accustomed to remain in her bedroom almost all the time in the summer, but in the winter she had her sofa or couch brought out and placed by the side of the fire-place in the great room, as represented in the plan. Here, in the long stormy evenings of winter, the family would live together very happily. Mrs. Randon would lie reclining upon her sofa, knitting, and talking to Martha and Ellen while they were getting supper ready. Ellen would set the table, while Martha would bake the cakes and bring up the milk out of the cellar, and make the tea; and then when all was ready, they would move the table up close to Mrs. Randon’s sofa, and after lifting her up and supporting her with pillows at her back, they would themselves sit down on the other side of the table, and all eat their supper together in a very happy manner.

The Great Room.

Then, after supper, when the table had been put away, and a fresh fire had been made on the great stone hearth, Ellen would sit in a little rocking-chair by her aunt’s side, and read aloud some interesting story, while Martha sat knitting on the settle, at the other side of the fire, and Hugh, on a bench in the corner, occupied himself with making clothes-pins, or shaping teeth for rakes, or fitting handles into tools, or some other work of that kind. Hugh found that unless he had such work to do, he always fell asleep while Ellen was reading.

Ellen found that her aunt, instead of growing better, rather grew worse. She was very pale, though very delicate and beautiful. Her fingers were very long, and white, and tapering. Ellen thought that they grew longer and more tapering every day. At last, one winter evening, just after tea, and before Hugh and Martha had come in to sit down, Ellen went up to the sofa, and kneeling down upon a little bear-skin rug which was there, and which had been put there to look warm and comfortable, although the poor invalid could never put her feet upon it, she bent down over her aunt and said,

“It seems to me Aunt Anne, that you don’t get better very fast.”

The patient, putting her arm over Ellen’s neck, and drawing Ellen down closely to her, kissed her, but did not answer.

“Do you think you shall ever get well, aunty?” said Ellen.

“No,” said her aunt, “I do not think that I shall. I think that before a great while I shall die.”

“Why, aunty!” said Ellen. She was much shocked to hear such a declaration. “I _hope_ you will not die,” she continued presently, speaking in a very low and solemn manner. “What shall I do if you should die!—What makes you think that you will die?”

“There are two reasons why I think that I shall die,” said her aunt. “One is, that I feel that I am growing weaker and weaker all the time. I have grown a great deal weaker within a few days.”

“Have you?” said Ellen, in a tone of great anxiety and concern.

“Yes,” said her aunt. “The other reason that makes me think that I am going to die is greater still; and that is I begin to feel so _willing_ to die.”

“I thought that you were always willing to die,” said Ellen. “I thought we ought to be all willing to die, always.”

“No,” said her aunt, “or yes, in one sense we ought. We ought always to be willing to submit to whatever God shall think best for us. But as to life and death, we ought undoubtedly, when we are strong and well, to desire to live.”

“God means,” she continued, “that we should desire to live, and that we should do all that we can to prolong life. He has given us an instinct impelling us to that feeling. But when sickness comes and death is nigh, then the instinct changes. We do not _wish_ to live then—that is, if we feel that we are prepared to die. It is a very kind and merciful arrangement to have the instinct change, so that when we are well, we can be happy in the thought of living, and when we are sick and about to die, we can be happy in the thought of dying. Our instincts often change thus, when the circumstances change.”

“Do they?” said Ellen, thoughtfully.

“Yes,” said her aunt. “For instance, when you were an infant, your mother’s instinctive love for you led her to wish to have you always near her, with your cheek upon her cheek, and your little hand in her bosom. Mothers all have such an instinct as that, while their children are very young. It is given to them so that they may love to have their children very near them while they are so young and tender that they would not be safe if they were away.

“But _now_,” she continued, “you have grown older, and the instinct has changed. Your mother loves you just as much as she did when you were an infant, but she loves you in a different way. She is willing to have you absent from her, if you are only well provided for and happy.”

“And is it so with death?” asked Ellen.

“Yes,” replied her aunt; “when we are well, we love life, and we ought to love it. It then seems terrible to die. God means that it should seem terrible to us then. But when sickness comes and we are about to die, then he changes the feeling. Death seems terrible no more. We become perfectly willing to die.”

Here Mrs. Randon paused, and Ellen remained still, thinking of what she had heard, but without speaking. After a few minutes her aunt continued.

“I have had a great change in my feelings within a short time, about dying,” said she, “I have always, heretofore, desired to live and to get well; and it has seemed to me a terrible thing to die;—to leave my pleasant home, and my husband, and my dear Ellen, and to see them no more. But somehow or other, lately, all this is changed. I feel now perfectly willing to die. It does not seem terrible at all. I have been a great sinner all my days, but I feel sure that my sins are forgiven for Christ’s sake, and that if I die I shall be happy where I go, and that I shall see my husband and you too there some day.”

Ellen laid her head down by the side of her aunt’s, with her face to the pillow and her cheek against her aunt’s cheek, but said nothing.

“When I am gone,” continued her aunt, “you will go home and live with your mother again.”

“Shall I?” said Ellen, faintly.

“Yes,” replied her aunt, “it will be better that you should. You can do a great deal of good there. You can gradually get the house in order, taking one thing at a time, and so not only help your mother, but make it more pleasant and comfortable for your father. You can also teach Annie, and be a great help to her as she grows up; and you can also perhaps do a great deal of good to Rodolphus.”

“I don’t know what I shall do with Rodolphus,” said Ellen. “He troubles my mother very much indeed.”

“I know he does,” said her aunt, “but then you will soon get a great influence over him, and it is possible that you will succeed in making him a good boy.”

As Mrs. Randon said this, Ellen heard the sound of a door opening in the back entry, and a stamping of feet upon the floor, as if some one were coming in out of the snow.

“There comes Hugh,” said Ellen, “and I think there is going to be a storm.”

Signs of a gathering storm had in fact been appearing all that day. For several days before, the weather had been very clear and cold, but that morning the cold had diminished, and a thin haze had gradually extended itself over the sky. At sunset the sky looked thick and murky toward the southeast, and it became dark much sooner than usual. A moment after Ellen had spoken, Hugh came in. He said that it was snowing, and that two or three inches of snow had already fallen; and that if it snowed much during the night he should not be able to go into the woods the next morning.

When Ellen rose the next morning and looked at the windows, she saw that the snow was piled up against the panes of glass on the outside, and on going to the window to look out, she found that it was snowing still, and that all the old snow and all the roads and tracks upon it, were entirely covered. Ellen went out into the great room, and there she found a blazing fire in the fireplace, and Martha before it getting breakfast ready. Pretty soon Hugh came in.

“What a great snow-storm,” said Ellen.

“No,” said Hugh, “it is not a very great snow-storm. It does not snow very fast.”

“Can you go into the woods to-day?” said Ellen.

“Yes,” said Hugh, “I am going into the woods for a load of wood to haul to the village. The snow is not very deep yet.”

Hugh went to the woods, got his load, hauled it to the village, and returned to dinner. After dinner he went again. Ellen was almost afraid to have him go away in the afternoon, for her aunt appeared to be more and more unwell. She lay upon her sofa by the side of the fire, silent and still, apparently without pain, but very faint and feeble. She spoke very seldom, and then only in a whisper. At one time about the middle of the afternoon, Ellen went and stood a moment at the window to see the snow driving by—blown by the wind along the crests of the drifts, and over the walls, down the road. When she turned round, she saw that her aunt was beckoning to her with her white and slender finger. Ellen went immediately to her.

“Is Hugh going to the village this afternoon?” she asked.

“Yes, aunt,” said Ellen, “I believe he is.”

“I wish you would ask him to call at my brother George’s, and tell him that I am very sick, and ask him if he can not come up and see me this evening.”

“Yes, aunt,” said Ellen, “I will.”

Ellen accordingly watched for Hugh when he came down the mountain-road with the load of wood, on the way to the village. She gave him the message, standing at the stoop-door. The wind howled mournfully over the trees of the forest, and the air was thick with falling and driving snow. Hugh said that he had almost concluded not to go to the village. The snow had become so deep, and the storm was increasing so fast, that he doubted very much whether he could get back if he should go. On receiving Ellen’s message, however, he decided at once to go on. He could get _to_ the village well enough, he said, for it was a descending road all the way; but there would be more uncertainty about the return.

So he started his four oxen again, and they went wallowing on, followed by the great loaded sled, with the runners buried in the drift. Hugh’s cap and shaggy coat, and the handkerchief which he had tied about the collar of his coat, after turning it up to cover his ears, were all whitened with the snow, and from among all these various mufflings his face, reddened with the cold, peeped out, though almost wholly concealed from view.

As soon as Hugh was gone, Ellen, who was by this time almost blinded by the snow which the wind blew furiously into her face and eyes, came into the house and shut the door.

Ellen watched very diligently all the afternoon for the coming of her father. She hoped that he would bring her mother with him. She went to the window again and again, and looked anxiously down the road, but nothing was to be seen but the thick and murky atmosphere, the increasing drifts, and the scudding wreaths of snow. The fences and the walls gradually disappeared from view; the great wood pile in the yard was soon completely covered and concealed; and a deep drift, of the form of a wave just curling over to break upon the shore, slowly rose directly across the entrance to the yard, until it was higher than the posts on each side of the gateway, so that Ellen began to fear that if her father and mother should come, they would not be able to get into the yard.

At length it gradually grew dark, and then, though Ellen went to the window as often as before, and attempted to shade her eyes from the reflection of the fire, by holding up her hands to the side of her face, she could watch these changes no longer. Nothing was to be seen, but the trickling of the flakes down the panes of glass on the outside, and a small expanse of white immediately below the window.

In the mean time, within the room where Ellen’s aunt was reposing, all seemed, at least in appearance, very bright and cheerful. A great log was lying across the andirons, behind and beneath which there was a blazing and glowing fire. There was a tin baker before this fire, with a pan of large apples in it, which Martha was baking, to furnish the table with, for the expected company. Martha herself was busy at a side-table too, making cakes for supper. The tea-kettle was in a corner, with a column of steam rising gently from the spout, and Ellen’s little gray kitten, Lutie, was in the other corner asleep. Ellen herself was busy, here and there, about the room. She went often to the window, even after it was too dark to see, and she watched her aunt continually with a countenance expressive of much affection and concern. Her aunt lay perfectly quiet and still, as if she were asleep, only she would now and then open her eyes and smile upon Ellen, if she saw Ellen looking at her, and then close them again.

The couch that she was lying upon had little wheels at the four corners of it toward the floor, so that it could be moved to and fro. Ellen had been accustomed, when the time arrived for her aunt to go to bed, to ask Martha to help her move the couch into the bedroom, by the side of the bed, and then assist her in moving the patient from one to the other. Ellen, accordingly, about an hour after it became dark, went to her aunt’s couch, and asked her in a gentle tone if she would not like to go to bed. But her aunt said no. She would not be moved, she said, but would remain as she was until her brother should come. She said, too, that Martha and Ellen might eat their supper when it was ready, and leave her where she was.

Martha and Ellen finished their supper about seven o’clock. Martha then took her place upon the settle with her knitting-work as usual, and Ellen went and sat down upon the little bear-skin rug, and leaned her head toward her aunt. Her aunt put out her hand toward Ellen’s cheek and pressed her head gently down upon the pillow, by the side of her own, and then very slowly and feebly moved her fingers, once or twice, down the hair on Ellen’s temple, as if she were pleased to have her little niece lying near her. Ellen shut her eyes, and for a few minutes enjoyed very much the thought that she was such an object of affection to one whom she loved so much; but after a few minutes, she began to lose her consciousness, and soon fell fast asleep.

She slept more than an hour. It was in fact nearly half-past eight when she awoke. She raised her head and looked up. She found that Martha had fallen asleep too. Her knitting-work had dropped from her hand. Ellen did not wish to disturb her, so she rose softly, went to the fire, and put up a brand which had fallen down, and then crossed the room to the window, parted the curtains, and putting her face close to the glass, attempted to look out. Nothing was to be seen. She listened. Nothing was to be heard but the dreadful roaring of the wind, and the clicking of the snow-flakes against the windows.

Ellen came back to the couch again, and looked at her aunt as she lay with her cheek upon her pillow, apparently asleep. At first Ellen thought that she was really asleep, but when she came near, she found that her eyes were not entirely closed. She kneeled down by the side of the couch and said gently, “Aunt Anne, Aunt Anne, how do you feel now?”

Ellen saw that her aunt moved a little, and she heard a faint whispering sound, but there was no audible answer.

Ellen was now frightened. She feared that her aunt might be dying. She went to Martha and woke her. Martha started up much alarmed. Ellen told her that she was afraid that her aunt was dying. Martha went to the couch. She thought so too.

“I must go,” said she, “to some of the neighbors and get them to come.”

“But you can not get to any of the neighbors,” said Ellen.

“Perhaps I can,” said Martha, “and at any rate I must try.”

So Martha began to prepare herself, as well as she could, to go out into the storm, Ellen standing by, full of apprehension and anxiety, and helping her so far as she was able to do so. There was a neighbor who lived about a quarter of a mile from the house, by a road which lay through the woods, and which was, therefore, ordinarily not very much obstructed with the snow. It was to this house that Martha was going to attempt to make her way. When she was ready, she went forth, leaving Ellen with her aunt alone.

(To Be Continued.)

RECOLLECTIONS OF ST. PETERSBURG.

“To-morr punkt at ’leven wir schiff for St. Petersburg,” was the polyglot announcement by which all of us, Swedes, Germans, English, and one solitary American, were given to understand at what hour on the ensuing day we were to commence our voyage from Stockholm for the Russian capital. With praiseworthy punctuality the steam was up at the appointed hour of eleven, and as our steamer shot out into the Baltic we took our farewell view of Stockholm, the “City of Piles.” As we steamed northward we dashed through archipelago after archipelago of islands, some with bold and rocky shores, and others sloping greenly down to the tranquil sea. Having passed the Aland Islands, one of which, not thirty miles from the coast of Sweden, has been seized and strongly fortified by her powerful and unscrupulous neighbor, we turned into a narrow inlet, and touched Russian soil at Abo, the ancient capital of Finland.

Here we made our first acquaintance with those fascinating gentry, whom his Imperial Majesty deputes to watch that nothing treasonable or contraband finds entrance into his dominions. Our intercourse here was, however, brief, our passports merely being demanded, and permission granted us to go on shore while the steamer was detained. At Cronstadt and St. Petersburg we formed a more intimate if not more agreeable acquaintance with these functionaries. Setting out again we coasted eastward up the Gulf of Finland, passing the grim fortress of Sveaborg, with its eight hundred guns, and garrison of fifteen thousand men, and shot up the beautiful bay to Helsingfors, one of the great naval stations of Russia. Touching at Revel, on the opposite shore of the Gulf of Finland, we ran due east up the Gulf, encountering the great Russian summer fleet, which was performing its annual manœuvres, and on the morning after leaving Helsingfors came in sight of the shipping and fortifications of Cronstadt. As we crept slowly up the narrow and winding channel, by which alone the harbor can be reached, and passed successively the grim lines of batteries which command every portion of it, we were forced to confess that it formed a fitting outpost to a great military power.

Cronstadt is not only the chief naval dépôt of Russia, but is properly the port of St. Petersburg, as the capital is inaccessible to vessels drawing more than eight or nine feet of water. Hence Cronstadt is included in the St. Petersburg customs-district, and vessels clear indifferently for either, and are subject to only a single customs-house examination. It forms the key to the capital, which would be entirely at the mercy of any fleet which should once pass its batteries. It has therefore been fortified so strongly as to be apparently impregnable to all the navies of the world. We came to anchor under the guns of the fortress; and were soon put under the charge of our amiable friends of the custom-house, who took complete possession of the deck, while the passengers and officers of the vessel were directed to repair to the cabin to give an account of themselves, their occupations, pursuits, and designs to these rude and filthy representatives of the Czar. It was well for us that we had been in a measure hardened to these annoyances by our previous Continental experiences. Police and custom-house functionaries are nowhere famous for civility, but the rudest and most unendurable specimens of that class whom it has ever been my fortune to encounter are the lower orders of the Russian officials. We could, however, congratulate ourselves that the infliction was light in comparison to what it would have been had we proceeded by land from Abo. There trunks, pockets, and pocket-books are liable to repeated searches at different stations along the route. We were told of travelers who had their boxes of tooth-powder carefully emptied, and their soap-balls cut in two, in quest of something treasonable or contraband.

But there is an end to all things human, even to Russian police-examinations. Our passports were luckily all in order, and as our steamer was cleared for St. Petersburg we escaped the vexations attendant upon an inspection of luggage and a change of vessel. Every thing was put under seal, even to an ancient umbrella which had borne the brunt of many a shower in half the countries of Europe, to say nothing of storms it had weathered previous to its transatlantic voyage.

After our seven hours’ detention, we found ourselves at last steaming up the transparent Neva, and straining our eyes to get a first view of the City of Peter. After something more than an hour’s paddling against the rapid current of the river, the gilt dome of the Cathedral first caught the eye, followed by the sight of dome after dome, tower upon tower, spire after spire, gilt and spangled with azure stars, long before the flat roofs and walls of the city were visible.

No sooner had our steamer touched the granite _quai_ than it was taken possession of by a horde of custom-house and police officers, a shade or two less filthy and disgusting than their Cronstadt brethren; for it is a noticeable fact, the higher you proceed in official grade, the more endurable do the Russian officials become, till you reach the heads of the departments, who are as civil and well-behaved a body of functionaries as ever clasped fingers upon a bribe. A few copecks or rubles, as the case may require, insinuated into the expectant palms of the searching officials have a wonderful tendency to abate the rigor of the examinations, which being completed, and a silver ruble paid to the officer in attendance, the traveler is at liberty to go on shore in search of a hotel or lodgings.

The instructed traveler will resist the seductions of the Russian hotels, with their magnificent fronts, and Russian, German, and French signboards; for once past the portals he will find that the noble staircases and broad passages are filthy beyond all western imagination; and the damask curtains and velvet sofas are perfect parks for all those “small deer” who make day and night hideous. If he be wise, he will make his way to some boarding-house upon the _Quai Anglais_, conducted by an emigrant from some country where the primitive faith in the virtues of dusters and soap and water is cherished.

No sooner is the stranger established than he must take an interpreter, and make the best of his way to the police office, to get a permit of residence. This he obtains after an interrogation from a very civil functionary, to whom must be paid a proportionate fee. But this permit is good only for the capital and its immediate vicinity. If the Russians are slow to welcome the coming, they are none the more ready to speed the parting guest. Mr. Smith and his friend Brown must not leave the capital till they have published an advertisement announcing their intention in three successive numbers of the Gazette, an operation which consumes a space of from a week to ten days.

These preliminaries duly attended to, we were at liberty to commence our examination of St. Petersburg. The traveler who first sees the city under a summer sun is always struck with amazement. Its public places are so vast, its monuments so numerous and imposing, its quays so magnificent, and its edifices, public and private, so enormous, and constructed apparently of materials so massive and enduring, that he is ready to pronounce it the most magnificent city upon earth.

A century and a half ago the low marshy shores of the Neva, and the islands formed by the branches into which it separates just before it empties itself into the Gulf of Finland were inhabited only by a few scattered Finnish fishermen. But commanding the entrance to Lake Ladoga, it was a military position of some importance, and the Swedes had long maintained there a fortress, the possession of which had been often unavailingly contested by the Russians, up to 1703, when Peter the Great made himself master of it. He determined to found upon this desolate spot the future capital of his vast empire, and at once commenced the task, without waiting for peace to confirm the possession of the site. He assembled a vast number of the peasantry from every quarter of his empire, and pushed forward the work with the energy of an iron will armed with absolute power. The surrounding country, ravaged by long years of war, could furnish no supplies for these enormous masses, and the convoys which brought them across Lake Ladoga were frequently detained by contrary winds. Ill fed and worse lodged, laboring in the cold and wet, multitudes yielded to the hardships, and the foundations of the new metropolis were laid at the cost of a hundred thousand lives, sacrificed in less than six months.

With Peter to will was to perform; he willed that a capital city should be built and inhabited, and built and inhabited it was. In April, 1714, a ukase was issued directing that all buildings should be erected in a particular manner; another, three months later, ordered a large number of nobles and merchants to erect dwellings in the new city. In a few months more another ukase prohibited the erection of any stone mansion in any other portion of the empire, while the enterprise of the capital was in progress; and that the lack of building materials should be no obstacle, every vessel, whether large or small, and every peasant’s car which came to the city, was ordered to bring a certain specified number of building stones. The work undertaken with such rigid determination, and carried on with such remorseless vigor by Peter, was continued in the same unflinching spirit by his successors; and the result was the present St. Petersburg, with its aspect more imposing than that of any other city on the globe, but bearing in its bosom the elements of its own destruction, the moment it is freed from the control of the iron will, which created and now maintains it:—a fitting type and representative of the Russian Empire.

The whole enterprise of founding and maintaining St. Petersburg was and is a struggle against nature. The soil is a marsh so deep and spongy that a solid foundation can be attained only by constructing a subterranean scaffolding of piles. Were it not for these the city would sink into the marsh like a stage ghost through the trap-door. Every building of any magnitude rests on piles; the granite quays which line the Neva rest on piles. The very foot-pavements can not be laid upon the ground, but must be supported by piles. A great commercial city is maintained, the harbor of which is as inaccessible to ships, for six months in the year, as the centre of the desert of Sahara. In the neighboring country no part produces any thing for human sustenance save the Neva, which furnishes ice and fish. The severity of the climate is most destructive to the erections of human hands; and St. Petersburg, notwithstanding its gay summer appearance, when it emerges from the winter frosts, resembles a superannuated belle at the close of the fashionable season; and can only be put in proper visiting order by the assiduous services of hosts of painters and plasterers. Leave the capital for a half century to the unrepaired ravages of its wintry climate, and it would need a Layard to unearth its monuments.

But sure as are the wasting inroads of time and the climate, St Petersburg is in daily peril of an overthrow whose accomplishment would require but a few hours. The Gulf of Finland forms a vast funnel pointing eastward, at the extremity of which stands the city. No portion of the city is fifteen feet above the ordinary level of the water. A strong westerly wind, blowing directly into the mouth of the funnel, piles the water up so as to lay the lower part of the city under water. Water is as much dreaded here, and as many precautions are taken against it, as in the case of fire in other cities. In other cities alarm-signals announce a conflagration; here they give notice of an inundation. The firing of an alarm-gun from the Admiralty, at intervals of an hour, denotes that the lower extremes of the islands are under water, when flags are hung out from the steeples to give warning of danger. When the water reaches the streets, alarm-guns are fired every quarter of an hour. As the water rises the alarms grow more and more frequent, until minute-guns summon boats to the assistance of the drowning population.

So much for the lower jaw of the monster that lies in wait for the Russian capital; now for the upper:—Lake Ladoga, which discharges its waters through the Neva, is frozen over to an enormous thickness during the long winter. The rapid northern spring raises its waters and loosens the ice simultaneously; when the waters of the Gulf are at their usual level, the accumulated ice and water find an easy outlet down the broad and rapid Neva. But let a strong west wind heap up the waters of the Gulf just as the breaking up of Lake Ladoga takes place, and the waters from above and from below would suffice to inundate the whole city, while all its palaces, monuments, and temples would be crushed between the masses of ice, like “Captain Ahab’s” boat in the ivory jaws of “Moby Dick.” Nothing is more probable than such a coincidence. It often blows from the west for days together in the spring; and it is almost a matter of certainty that the ice will break up between the middle and the end of April. Let but a westerly storm arise on the fatal day of that brief fortnight, and farewell to the City of the Czars. Any steamer that bridges the Atlantic may be freighted with the tidings that St. Petersburg has sunk deeper than plummet can sound in the Finnish marshes from which it has so magically risen.

The Inundation of 1824.

Nor is this merely a matter of theory and speculation. Terrible inundations, involving enormous destruction of life and property have occurred. The most destructive of these took place on the 17th of November, 1824. A strong west wind heaped the waters of the Gulf up into the narrow funnel of the Neva, and poured them, slowly at first, along the streets. As night began to close in the rise of the waters became more and more rapid. Cataracts poured into doors, windows, and cellars. The sewers spouted up columns, like whales in the death-agony. The streets were filled with abandoned equipages, and deserted horses struggling in the rising waters. The trees in the public squares were crowded with those who had climbed them for refuge. During the night the wind abated, and the waters receded. But the pecuniary damage of that one night is estimated at twenty millions of dollars, and the loss of lives at eight thousand. All through the city a painted line traced upon the walls designates the height to which the waters reached. Were ever house-painters before engaged upon a task so ghastly? But suppose that, instead of November, April had been written as the date of this inundation, when the waters from the Lake above had met those from the Gulf below; St. Petersburg would have been numbered among the things that were—_Ilium fuit_.

Nothing of the kind can be more imposing than the view of St. Petersburg from the tower of the Admiralty upon some bright June day, such as that on which I first beheld it from that post. Under foot, as it seemed, from the galleries, lay the Admiralty-yards, where great ships were in process of erection, destined for no nobler service than to perform their three months’ summer cruise in the Baltic, and to be frozen immovably in the harbors for six months out of twelve. The will of the Czar can effect much, but it can not convert Russia into a naval power until he can secure a seacoast, and harbors which can not be shut up to him by a single hostile fortification. Russia can not be a maritime power till she is mistress of the entrance to the Baltic and the Black Sea.

To the right and the left of the Admiralty stretch the great squares upon which stand the principal public edifices and monuments of the capital; the Winter Palace, with its six thousand constant occupants; the _Hotel de l’Etat Major_, whence go forth orders to a million of soldiers, the Senate House, and the Palace of the Holy Synod, the centres of temporal and spiritual law for the hundred nations blended into the Russian Empire; the Church of St. Isaac, with its four porticoes, the lofty columns of which, sixty feet in height, are each of a single block of granite, and the walls of polished marble; its cupola covered with copper overlaid with gold, gleaming like another sun, surmounted by a golden cross, and forming the most conspicuous object to the approaching visitor, whether he comes up the Gulf, or across the dreary Finnish marshes; yet, high as it rises in the air, it sinks scarcely a less distance below the ground, so deep was it necessary to drive into the marsh the forest of piles upon which it rests, before a firm foundation could be secured. Here is the Statue of Peter—the finest equestrian statue in the world—reining his steed upon the brink of the precipice up which he has urged it, his hand stretched out in benediction toward the Neva, the pride of his new-founded city. Here is the triumphal column to Alexander, “the Restorer of Peace,” the whole elevation of which is 150 feet, measuring to the head of the angel who—the cross victorious over the crescent—bears the symbol of the Christian faith above the capital cast from cannon captured from the Turks. The shaft is a single block eighty-four feet in height—the largest single stone erected in modern times; and it would have been still loftier had it not been for the blind unreasoning obedience to orders, so characteristic of the Russian. When the column had been determined upon, orders were dispatched to the quarries to detach, if possible, a single block for the shaft of the length of eighty-four feet, though with scarcely a hope that the attempt would succeed. One day a dispatch was received by the Czar from the superintendent, with the tidings that a block had been detached, free from flaw, one hundred feet long; but that he was about to proceed to reduce it to the required length. The sovereign mounted in hot haste to save the block from mutilation, and to preserve a column so much exceeding his hopes. But he was too late; and arrived just in time to see the sixteen feet severed from the block, which would otherwise have been the noblest shaft in the world.

The length of these public places, open and in full view, right and left, from the Admiralty tower, is a full mile.

Stretching southward from the tower lies the “Great Side” of St. Petersburg, cut into three concentric semicircular divisions, of which the Admiralty is the centre, by three canals, and intersected by the three main avenues or _Prospekts_ (Perspectives). These three Perspectives diverge like the spokes of a wheel from the Admiralty and run straight through the city, through the sumptuous quarters of the aristocracy, the domains of commerce, and the suburbs of the poor; while the view is closed by the mists rising from the swamps of Ingermanland.

Turning from the “Great Side,” and looking northward, the arms of the Neva diverge from near the foot of the Admiralty tower, as the Perspectives do from the southern side. The width of the Neva, its yielding bottom and shores, and the masses of ice which it sweeps down, make the erection of bridges so difficult that they are placed at very rare intervals, so that a person might be obliged to go miles before reaching one. But the stream is enlivened by boats and gondolas ready to convey passengers from one bank to the other. We were never weary of watching with a glass from the Admiralty tower, alternately, the river gay with boats and shipping, and the Perspectives thronged with their brilliant and motley crowd. With a somewhat different, but certainly no less absorbing interest, we gazed down from the same elevation into the works of the citadel, upon Petersburg Island, whose minutest details were clearly visible. This citadel is useless as a defense of the city against a hostile attack; but it furnishes a ready means of commanding the capital, and furnishes a refuge for the government in case of an insurrection. Like the fortifications of Paris, it is designed not so much to defend as to control the city.

St. Petersburg is certainly the most imposing city, and Russia is the most imposing nation in the world—at first sight. But the imposing aspect of both is to a great extent an _imposition_. The city tries to pass itself off for granite, when a great proportion is of wood or brick, covered with paint and stucco, which peels off in masses before the frosts of every winter, and needs a whole army of plasterers and painters every spring to put it in presentable order. You pass what appears a Grecian temple, and lo, it is only a screen of painted boards. A one-storied house assumes the airs of a loftier building, in virtue of a front of another story bolted and braced to its roof. And much even that is real is sadly out of place. Long lines of balconies and pillars and porticoes, which would be appropriate to Greece or Italy, are for the greater part of the year piled with snow-drifts. St. Petersburg and Russian civilization are both of a growth too hasty, and too much controlled from without, instead of proceeding from a law of inward development, to be enduring.

The capital to be seen to advantage must be viewed during the few weeks of early summer; or in the opening winter, when the snow forms a pavement better than art can produce, and when the cold has built a continuous bridge over the Neva, without having as yet become severe enough to drive every body from the streets.

The Neva is the main artery through which pours the life-blood of St. Petersburg. But the life-current is checked from the time when the ice is too far weakened by the returning sun to be passable, and not yet sufficiently broken up to float down to the Gulf. At that time all intercourse between portions of the city on its opposite batiks is suspended. Every body is anxious for the breaking-up of the ice. Luxuries from more genial climes are waiting in the Baltic for the river to be navigable. No sooner is the ice so far cleared as to afford a practicable passage for a boat, than the glad news is announced by the artillery of the citadel, and, no matter what the hour, the commandant and his suite hurry into a gondola and push over to the Imperial palace, directly opposite. The commandant fills a large goblet with the icy fluid, and presents it to the Emperor, informing him that his gondola, the first which has that year crossed the river, is the precursor of navigation. The Czar drains the cup to the health of the capital, and returns it, filled with ducats, to the commandant. Formerly it was observed, by some mysterious law of natural science, that this goblet grew larger and larger, year by year, so that the Czar who had swallowed Poland without flinching, and stood ready to perform the same operation upon Turkey, stood in danger of suffocation from his growing bumpers. Some wise man at last suggested that this tendency to the enlargement of the goblet might be counteracted, by limiting the number of ducats returned by way of acknowledgment. The suggestion was acted upon, and, greatly to the comfort of the Imperial purse and stomach, was found to be perfectly successful. The sum now given is two hundred ducats. This goblet of Neva water is surely the most costly draught ever quaffed since the time when brown-fronted Cleopatra dissolved the pearl in honor of mad Mark Antony.

The most striking winter spectacle of St. Petersburg, to a foreigner, is that of the ice mountains. They are in full glory during “Butter Week”—of which more anon—when Russia seems to forget her desire to be any thing but Russian. The great Place of the Admiralty is given up to the popular celebrations, and filled with refreshment-booths, swings, and slides. To form these ice mountains a narrow scaffold is raised to the height of some thirty or forty feet. This scaffold has on one side steps for the purpose of ascending it; on the other it slopes off, steeply at first, and then more gradually, until it finally terminates on a level. Upon this long slope blocks of ice are laid, over which water is poured, which by freezing unites the blocks, and furnishes a uniform surface, down which the merry crowd slide upon sledges, or more frequently upon blocks of smooth ice cut into an appropriate form.

Two of these mountains usually stand opposite and fronting each other, their tracks lying close together, side by side.

Ice Mountain.

This is a national amusement all over Russia. Ice mountains are raised in the court-yards of all the chief residents in the capital. And an imitation of them, for summer use, covered with some polished wood, instead of ice, is often found in the halls of private dwellings. In the Imperial palace is such a slide, built of mahogany.

Street-life in St. Petersburgh presents many aspects strange to one who comes fresh from the capitals of other countries. One of the first things which will strike him is the silence and desertion of most of the streets. The thronging, eager crowd of other cities is here unknown. There is room enough, and to spare here. Broad streets, lined with rows of palaces, are as silent and lonely as deserted Tadmor, and a solitary _droshka_ breaking the uniformity of the loneliness, heightens the effect. Leaving these broad, still streets, and mingling in the throng that presses in and through the Admiralty Place, the Nevskoi Perspective, or the Place of St. Isaac, the most noticeable feature, at first glance, is the preponderance of the military. The ordinary garrison of the capital amounts to 60,000 men. The Russian army comprises an almost infinite variety of uniforms, and specimens of these, worn by the _élite_ of every corps, are constantly in the capital.

There are the Tartar guards, and the Circassian guards, Cossacks from the Don, from the Ural, and from Crimea; guards with names ending with “_off_” and “_ski_,” unpronounceable by Western lips. The wild Circassian—enacting the double part of soldier and hostage—silver-harnessed and mail-coated, alternates with the skin-clad Cossack of the Ural, darting, lance in rest, over the parade-ground. There are regiments uniform not only in size of the men, color of the horses, and identity of equipments, but in the minutiæ of personal appearance. Of one, all the men are pug-nosed, blue-eyed, and red bearded; of another, every man has a nose like a hawk, with eyes, hair and beard as black as a raven’s wing. Half the male population of St. Petersburg wear uniform; for, besides these 60,000 soldiers, it is worn by officers of every grade, by the police, and even by professors of the university, and by teachers and pupils in the public schools.

Turning from the military to the civil portion of the population, the same brilliant variety of costumes every where meets the eye. The sober-suited native of western and civilized Europe, jostles the brilliant silken robes of the Persian or Bokharian; the Chinaman flaunts his dangling pig-tail, ingeniously pieced out by artificial means, in the face of the smoothly-shorn Englishman; the white-toothed Arab meets the tobacco-stained German; Yankee sailors and adventurers, portly English merchants, canny Scotchmen, dwarfish Finlanders, stupid Lettes, diminutive Kamtschatkians, each in his own national costume, make up a lively picture; while underlying all, and more worthy of note than all, are the true Russian peasantry; the original stock out of which Peter and his successors have fashioned their mighty empire.