Chapter IX: The White Sea

THE MONASTERY OF SOLOVETSK--THE PRISONER OF SOLOVETSK--HETERODOXY AND ORTHODOXY--THE PROMONTORY--A FURTHER JOURNEY.

I did not go as far as the monastery of Solovetsk, but I have collected a great number of details about that place of pilgrimage. In the White Sea, about 280 verstes to the westward of Archangel, there is a group of islands, and of these the largest bears the name of Solovetsk. Originally inhabited by the Fins, it was afterwards occupied by some intrepid trappers (_promylchlenniki_) of the ancient republic of Novgorod. It became afterwards the asylum of St. Zosimus, who built a cell there, and founded a little wooden chapel. Other cenobites succeeded him on that spot. A convent of monks (_tcherntsé_) was formed, and this foundation soon becoming celebrated for its miracles, was enriched by the offerings of the faithful, and was finally endowed with a fortress or stronghold, for the preservation of its treasures. With the republic of Novgorod, Solovetsk and its monastery passed under the domination of the Tzars, who strengthened its fortifications. In the time of the false Demetrius, the partisans of Boris Godounov, along with their riches, took refuge in the castle of the Holy Isle, and there made an obstinate resistance ‘to the most intrepid knights who held with the pretender:’ thus saith tradition. May they, by any chance, have been _our_ celebrated _Lissovians_--our hardy warriors of the seventeenth century. At any rate, this defence of the place added to the glory of the island, which, after Kiow, occupies the first place in the list of the holy places of the Russian Empire.

The situation of Solovetsk in a frozen region, and in one that is difficult of access, makes all culture there next to impossible. Latterly, and chiefly by reason of the labours of the monks, some vegetables, chiefly cabbages, have been raised on the island; but flour, wheat, groats, oil, and other articles of food only come thither from Archangel. The recluses can make _kvass_ for themselves, and their manufacture has a peculiar celebrity. They also possess a mill, a few cattle, and even some horses. Close to their cloisters are large warehouses in which the pilgrims deposit their baggage, receiving a numbered ticket in exchange; but the buildings destined to shelter the _bohomolets_ are a much greater affair, and their numbers are very considerable. There are large furnished rooms or halls with long tables and benches. There the faithful lodge, sleep, and eat their meals; the compartments of the men being separated from those for women. I have never heard the hospitality of the brotherhood spoken of but in terms of praise. During the repasts, a monk reads to the guests in each hall, out of the ‘Lives of the Saints,’ or recites some prayers. Every _bohomolets_ has the right of being lodged and fed gratuitously for the three first nights. During that time he prays, goes to confession, lights and hold candles, and gets _akathisti_ (antiphones) or gospels read over his head. There is a tariff for all these spiritual exercises, but the terms are very modest, though the visit to the tombs of St. Zosimus and of St. Savatyï have to be paid for separately. When the three days have expired, the pilgrim will be expected, if he stays longer, to provide for his own wants, and to pay for his lodging. A number of devout persons make a vow to remain on the island for whole years at a time, and these years they spend in acts of devotion and of penitence. Such guests are warmly welcomed by the brothers, but on the condition that they pay their own expenses, or make themselves useful in the convent by some occupation, and become workmen, gardeners, and the like.

As soon as the White Sea has become navigable, that is to say, by the first days of June, the pilgrims crowd into little boats, called _karbasses_, which, from Archangel, carry them to the Holy Isle. The price of the voyage is very small, but owing to the discomforts, and indeed to the dangers of a long crossing on a sea generally very rough, many _bohomolets_ go on foot from Archangel, and skirt the shore till they reach a promontory opposite Solovetsk, from which it is separated by an arm of the sea not one verst in width, and only then do they commit themselves to the _karbasses_. No one can land on the island, except during the four months of June, July, August, and September, for by the beginning of October all navigation of the White Sea is prevented by the violence of its tempests, and still more by the ice which enters it from the Polar Sea. So from October to June there are no visitors at the convent.

It is a strange thing, and one perhaps not without significance, that alongside of the very house of God, the Tzars have built one for themselves--a mysterious prison, of which the _bohomolets_ speak with the greatest terror, because no one knows what is the meaning or the use of it. Who may be the unhappy beings who are inclosed within these dungeon walls! No common criminals certainly, for _they_ are sent to Siberia. And yet the prison of Solovetsk is certainly occupied, for sentries and keepers are always on duty, and at their posts. I have been told that some years ago an old man was seen there. He had a white beard, and had become blind from weeping. I do not pretend to give any guarantee for the truth of this tale, which has, however, been narrated by many; still less do I venture to vouch for the secret which has been whispered into my ear on more than one occasion; but they say that the blind prisoner of Solovetsk is a brother of Nicholas--that he is the Grand Duke Constantine himself...!

But to return to my own history; on the day which followed the night in which I determined to abandon any further attempts at evasion from Archangel, I rose at daybreak, received my baggage from the porter of the _dvorets_, and declared to him my intention of pressing on to the monastery of Solovetsk. After having bought some bread and some salt, I crossed the Dvina, and struck away in the direction of the western promontory which faces the Holy Isle. The day was hot and fine, the country flat, but wild and deserted. By evening I reached a little hamlet, and there I decided to take a Russian bath, a measure which had become indispensable after my long sojourn among the saints. The Russians, even the lowest of the people, frequently use these baths on Saturdays, or on the eve of their festivals. The bath house is a simple wooden building, where you find a huge stove of about two yards square, formed of bricks or of unquarried stone, put together without any cement. There is no chimney, and the smoke goes out at the holes in the roof. As soon as these stoves are really heated, water is poured over them, and the steam which flies from them, filling the whole place, turns it into a bath room.

After leaving the stove, I felt a strange longing to drink some milk, and on going to get some in a hut pointed out by my host, I found two women, to whom I made my wants known, after having made the three signs of the cross, which are expected of one. They gave me very scant measure for the piece of money which I offered, and served me with a bad grace, for which I was not at first able to account. While I took some mouthfuls of the milk we began to converse, and at last I found the solution of the enigma. They belonged to the sect of the ‘_staroviertsi_,’ or old believers, and by the way in which I made the sign of the cross they recognised in me an orthodoxy that was to be deplored. They did not conceal from me what was their regret that a man of such piety, a _bohomolets_, should be thus wandering in the ways of certain perdition. They then showed me how truly to make sure of my salvation, and tired at last of differing with them, I ended in adopting their method. These good women were so happy, that they gave to their neophyte three fresh measures of milk, and refused payment for it. As they took leave of me, they offered fervent prayers to God that I might be preserved in the paths of conversion! But these prayers, alas! were not to be granted, for as soon as I returned to my landlord’s dwelling, I was again obliged, to cross myself in the orthodox fashion.

I continued my journey, walking for several days in a marshy country, or through woods of stunted fir trees, where I was often obliged to spend the night. I became more and more aware of the polar nature of the climate. The sun hardly ever left us; and even during the short interval between his setting and his rising again, his level rays threw over the landscape a clearness of light which would have allowed one to execute the finest needlework. Night was only to be distinguished from day by the greater stillness which reigned over the face of nature. It is true, that the geographical ideas which had been acquired by me when I sat on a form in school had prepared me years before for this phenomenon, yet I felt as if in a dream on thus finding myself in regions where the sun never sets. The country, I found, became always poorer and more desolate, until, at last, I reached the coast; and after that, I continued to walk along the cliffs, where, for several days, the weather was extremely fine, and the sun so warm that I was obliged to take off my pelisse. But, before long, a heavy gale of wind rose; and the ocean, rolling in mountainous waves, and covered with snowy foam, seemed eager to justify its name of White Sea, and presented a spectacle at once mournful and admirably grand. The tempest lasted for several days. I hardly ever met a human being; but the sight of a serpent, which had been newly killed, showed me that in this country and in this latitude reptiles were not wanting. On reaching a small village on the sea-shore, I found in a _possada_--that is to say, in a colony--a multitude of _bohomolets_, and, among others, my former companions from Véliki-Oustiong, who had set out, long before me, from Archangel, in _karbasses_ bound for the Holy Island, but who had been driven by the storm to land and seek for shelter at this spot. One of the _karbasses_ had been swamped, and every soul on board lost in the waves; and now these poor people awaited the laying of the tempest; but I left them, assuring them that I should reach the monastery much sooner and safer on foot than they would in their wretched little boats. Towards evening, the sea went down, and I had soon reached the promontory which faces the island of Solovetsk. Leaning on my staff, I stood for some moments contemplating the shores, and thinking of our old Lissoviens, who may, perhaps, have encamped on this very spot, while pushing their adventurous course to the extreme north. Then, turning to the left, and without waiting for a passage to the monastery, I struck into the road which would take me to Onega.

And, in truth, now that my attempts at Archangel had failed, this was the only route open to me; for a return to Archangel and Véliki-Oustiong, with a journey thence through the very heart of Russia Proper, was not to be thought of; and, again, there was nothing more natural than that a _bohomolets_, having accomplished his pilgrimage to Solovetsk, should turn to Onega, and to the government of Olonets, so as to make the pious round of Novgorod and of Kiow, and there _salute the holy bones_--for such is the sanctified phraseology in use (_dla pokloniénïa swiatym mostcham_). I do not say that I yet saw what I ought to do on reaching Onega; but after the mistake about Archangel, I was not inclined to make any great plans, or to think of the morrow. I therefore resolutely pursued my way, skirting the western edge of the promontory, and walking, for several days, along a path which was bounded, on the one side, by the sea--on the other, by a low range of hillocks, densely covered with wood. Before me, I saw nothing but sands, heaths, and marshes; and one incident will, I think, suffice to give an idea of this desolate country. One day, having arrived at a _possada_, I could get no bread. The inhabitants had been without any for a week, because the bad weather had stopped the boats that came from Archangel; but, as an equivalent, I found some of the fresh herrings of the White Sea, which were of a good size and excellent flavour.

At Onega, I was not tempted to make any further experiments among the foreign ships that I saw at anchor in the port. In order to have made any attempts of the kind, with the slightest chance of success, it would have been necessary for me to pass several days in the town, where there was no crowd of pilgrims among whom I could hide, as at Véliki-Oustiong and at Archangel, so as to conceal myself from the eyes of the Police. Moreover, I was still under the painful impression left by the discovery of my last bad reckoning, and I had decidedly more confidence in _terra firma_, which, as yet, had never deceived my hopes. Two land routes were open to me from Onega, and it was now time to choose between them. The one to the right would have led me, by the marshes of Laponia and the river Torneo, to the Swedish frontier; the other, to the left, trending across the government of Olonets, would take me, by Vytiégra, to the Gulf of Finland, and to the Baltic. Of these lines, the first was the most fatiguing--the second the most dangerous. Had I not already crossed the Ourals and the steppe of Petchora, I should certainly have taken an extreme northern direction to Laponia; but I now dreaded the privations, and the miseries with which I was too well acquainted. Wasted and disheartened, I had begun to fear hardships more than danger, and I decided in favour of Vytiégra.

Without, therefore, making too long a halt in Onega, I pushed towards the south, by skirting the banks of the river which also bears the name of Onega. Every now and then I met solitary pilgrims on their way to the monastery of Solovetsk, to whom naturally I could impart the latest intelligence about the island. I remember one old man in particular--small, withered, and white as a dove, but very fresh and hearty withal, who said to me, ‘Can you doubt where I come from? I am from Kargopol...!’ He pronounced the name with such pride, with such a sense of the greatness of his native town, that I really might have fancied that I heard the famous _civis Romanus_. Now Kargopol, which I soon reached, may truly be said to be one of the saddest little hamlets of a very sad country. Yet, in spite of the sombre and monotonous aspect of these districts, where marshes alternate with boundless woods, in spite of the enormous distances I had to traverse on foot, in spite of the discomforts incident to the condition of a fugitive who has always to fear gendarmes, inns, or any expenditure which exceeds the bare necessaries of life, this journey from Onega to Vytiégra was very far from being equal in suffering to that which I had made over the Ourals and the plain of Petchora. My character of a pilgrim gave me a certain assurance that I need no longer to the same extent avoid the dwellings of men. Besides, the season was milder; and when at nightfall I had to turn into some wood to sleep, I could find branches and green leaves enough to fashion a pretty soft bed. What most surprises me is, that, in all these nights passed in the solitude of the forests, I was never once disturbed by wild beasts. Sometimes, indeed, I was startled by the distant howling of the wolves, but none of these animals ever presented themselves to my eyes.

It must not, however, be supposed that, during this expedition, I was not exposed to much tribulation, in spite of the really very exact knowledge which I possessed of the manners and customs of the country. Sometimes an adventure would be almost comic: as when, one day, not far from this celebrated Kargopol, I asked for food at a hut, and received for answer that they had nothing but _tolokno_ to offer me.

‘Well, let us have the _tolokno_,’ I said, rather pleased than otherwise to make the acquaintance of a national dish, which I had often heard of, but never seen. My confusion, however, became great when the mistress of the house set down before me a jug of water, a spoon, and a small earthen jar half full of a dry and blackish flour. How was that to be eaten? How could I fail to betray that I was a stranger by my crying ignorance of a dish so common in Russia? I began to talk, as if for my life, about any nonsense that would divert their attention; but my hostess was not to be diverted, and she asked me why I did not eat, since I was so hungry?

‘But perhaps you would like it better mixed with kvass (cider)?’

‘Oh yes, with cider,’ I replied, as much at a loss as before.

She brought some cider, and, luckily, poured it herself into the pot, stirring it with the spoon. The brown mass then swelled until it filled the jar, and made a paste, which I now knew how to eat. It was made of oats baked in an oven, which are then carefully sifted and pounded in meal, and, when mixed with water or cider it forms a substance so fairly palatable that I can recommend it especially to our brave highlanders of the Carpathians.

The district of Olonets is traversed in all directions by canals, formed to unite the different lakes and rivers of Onega, Ladoga, Vytiégra, Svir, &c.; and these form the principal means of communication between one place and another. For the preservation and inspection of these works, stations have been set down at different points, and these are constantly occupied by soldiers, the greater number of them being Poles, who have groaned under arms in the imperial service for the last sixteen years, that is to say, ever since 1831. From Archangel to Vytiégra I fell in with several of my unhappy countrymen, thus incorporated into military bodies, and generally found that, in spite of their long residence in the country, they spoke Russian very imperfectly. I often talked with them, pretending to be a native of Siberia, and thus drew from them an account of their sorrows. I remember, in particular, one sinister phrase which made me shudder. Hearing once the complaints made by a Pole of the hardships and fatigues of his life as a Russian soldier, I said to him what only a true Russian would have said:

‘But, after all, you are not so very much beaten?’

‘What! we are not beaten,’ was the retort, accompanied by an almost savage laugh; ‘you don’t think we are beaten? as if anybody got the Tzar’s bread to eat gratis!’

I frequently saw another sad sight in this country, namely, gangs (_partyé_) of Jewish children that were being driven to Archangel. It should be known that, whereas the Russian government in Poland only recruits among adult Christians, it takes boys of from ten to fifteen from the Jewish population, in order that, forgetting more perfectly their traditional religion and manners, they may become fit for military life, for which it seems that adult Israelites are not so well adapted. A great number of these young recruits are intended for the navy, and sent to the different ports of the White Sea, and, to me, the sight of these poor children, with their heads shaved, and wrapped in their little pelisses, was most pitiful; for the soldiers in charge of the gang drove them before them like a flock of sheep, and I was assured by the natives that many of them died by the way.

It was also in this department of Olonets that I saw another symptom of the moral state of Russia, which was in itself not less curious. I had gone into a cottage to ask my way; it was on the road from Kargopol to Vytiégra. I found in the hut an old man with a long white beard, and of respectable appearance, who, as soon as he began to talk to me, expressed such a hatred of the Tzar, the government, and the priests, that I had no difficulty in recognising in him a _starovier_, or old believer. Finding me to be a man well disposed to share his religious views, he ran on at great length, and finally shed tears over the persecution of the true faith. In order to prove to me that the manner of making the sign of the cross adopted ever since the reformation of Nicon (that is, the ordinary Russian fashion) was wholly heretical, he looked all round the outside of his house, locked the door, and, having taken an oath of secrecy from me, he drew from a hiding-place a little figure in copper, evidently a rough piece of old Byzantine workmanship, which certainly represented our Lord as giving the benediction with the two fore fingers of the right hand extended, as in the manner of the _staroviertsi_. ‘They force us,’ he continued, ‘to go to the _tserkiev_ of the heretics, where the _popes_ oblige us to make the sign of the cross in their own way; but when we come back from the _tserkiev_, we pray to the true God, and we ask Him to forgive the great sin.’ He afterwards drew from the same repository an old paper book, setting forth ‘The History of the Patriarch Joseph, as betrayed and sold by his Brethren.’ The good man proceeded to instruct me in these novelties, and shed some tears of emotion at the virtue of Joseph when tempted by the wife of Potiphar.

Scarcely had I reached Vytiégra than I was accosted on the quays by a peasant, who asked me where I was going.

‘I am a _bohomolets_; I replied. ‘I am returning from the monastery of Solovetsk, and I am on my way to “_adore the sacred bones_” at Novgorod and at Kiow.’

‘Then, I am your man,’ he said. ‘I will take you to St. Petersburg. My boat is small, but I have only my horse to take with me, and you can help me to row ... it is not heavy.’

‘I know that sort of work very well, and I know that it is not light; how much will you give me?’

We wrangled for a long time over the price, the sly villain having every mind to get the use of my arms, and not to pay for it; but at last we agreed that he should give me dressed victuals for the whole time of our voyage, and, so pleased was he with the bargain he had made, that he took me straight to a pothouse to drink a glass with him.

The project of going to St. Petersburg, into the very capital of Nicholas, was sufficiently strange, and, most certainly, it was not one which I had contemplated when I made sundry and manifold plans of evasion at Ekaterinski-Zavod; but, since leaving Archangel, I had been wandering pretty much on chance, with no other object than always to get near some sea or frontier, no matter which, and always to avoid remaining more than a few hours in any place where they were likely to ask me for my papers. Now the boat in question was to leave that very day; and there was something, even in the very strangeness of the enterprise, which seemed reassuring. Any capital appeared to me less dangerous than a small provincial town, and the event showed that I was not wrong in this calculation.

By evening the boat was slipped from her moorings, and the navigation began, which, by Vytiégra, the lake of Onega, the river Svir, the lake of Ladoga, and the Néva, was to conduct me to the very walls of St. Petersburg. We rowed day and night, or floated past innumerable canoes, boats and ships, with which the lakes and rivers were literally covered; but, above all, past rafts of wood, also intended to supply the wants of the metropolis, and which, in some places, completely, obstructed the passage. We made a party of three--myself, the master, and his son, a stout young man, who, whenever we neared the banks, would get the horse out and fasten him to the boat, so as to help to draw it along. In spite of the smallness of the boat, its owner could not prevail on himself to refuse an occasional passenger, whom he would take up or put down at spots agreed upon; for how could he be expected to resist turning a penny from time to time? But these freights caused me the greatest distress, for the passengers could not be said to be members of any Temperance league, and I had to watch over the tipsiest ones, and once had even to jump into the water to pull out a poor wretch who had rolled overboard. As I do not wish to make myself appear better than I am, I must state here that I had a strong personal interest in the safety of these troublesome guests; for, had any disaster really occurred, we should have been obliged to stop, and report ourselves at the nearest police station, when the negotiation thereupon ensuing would, to a certainty, have been opened by a request for our papers; thus my charity was hardly of a very evangelical sort.

As we approached by degrees the end of our voyage, I became more absorbed in thought, and, above all, more anxious to learn something of the usages of St. Petersburg. Happily, we picked up at one of the stations several women, who, after paying visits to their relations, were returning to the capital, where they seemed to have lived for many years as servants and housemaids. My condition as a _bohomolets_ obliged me to preach to them a degree of morality in conduct, which seemed only to excite their risibility. However, I did not preach entirely in vain, especially when I took under my protection an old woman, of whom these chambermaids had made a butt in a way that was really disgusting. She was an old peasant of Korélia, on her way to St. Petersburg, which she had never seen before, to visit a daughter, who plied her trade as a laundress in the city. She was immensely grateful to me for my protection, called me her ‘_batiouchka_’ (little father), and soon offered me an assistance which can be called nothing less than providential.

After encountering a violent storm, during which our women screamed horribly, and after leaving behind us Nova-Ladoga and Schlusselbourg, where Alexis Orlov strangled the unhappy Peter III., by the orders of Catherine the Great, we reached the quays of the capital, at about eight o’clock in the morning, and drew towards the shore opposite the Perspective Nevski. The servant girls jumped gaily from the boat, giving me a rendezvous _to preach to them_, and I was preparing to step on shore, feeling, I must confess, much at a loss what to do with myself, when the poor Korélian woman came up to me, and said, ‘Just stay with me; I have sent to tell my daughter, and she will soon be down to fetch me, and will show you where you can get a cheap lodging.’ It may be imagined with what eagerness I embraced her proposition; and oh, ineffable joy! while we waited a long time in the boat, no one came to ask for our papers. At last the laundress appeared; she kissed her mother affectionately, and took up her trunk, which she and I then carried between us, on a stick across our shoulders. Thus we set off, preceded by the good old soul herself, who carried on her head the earthen jar which had contained her food. And in this strange trim I entered the city of the Tzar!

We had to go through an endless number of streets, bridges, and lanes before we reached the place where the laundress lived; it was in a lodging-house of one story in height (_dom postoïaly_), where the poorest of the working-classes dwell, and where they came at night to sleep on a flock-bed (if they can get it), or if not, to lie, as the Russian phrase is, ‘on the floor, with their fists for a pillow.’ The swelled faces and the red noses of some who frequented this miserable abode, showed that many shapes of sin and distress harboured there. There were, however, regular lodgers, who let out to passengers rooms that they had furnished on this speculation, and my laundress was one of these. Unfortunately, her room was already occupied; but she recommended me to a neighbour, and a bargain was soon made at the rate of eight kopeks a-day. In order to avoid the critical moment, I asked my landlady immediately to show me the way to the Prefecture of Police, where passports were given and examined.

‘Who are you?’ asked my hostess.

‘I am a _bohomolets_, from beyond Vologda; I am returning from Solovetsk, and going to Véliki-Novgorod, to worship the bones of the saints....’

‘You do well; God be your help! Show me your passport.’

I handed to her my shabby little pass, repressing any show of anxiety; but she evidently could not read, and only looked at the stamp, then said to me: ‘How long do you think of remaining here?’

‘From three to five days at the most; I must just rest a little.’

‘Then I will tell you what it is, it is perfectly useless for you to go to the Police?’

‘Just as you please; I don’t know the ways of this place. But why is it no use to go to the Police?’

‘Well, you see, I should have to go with you, and that is too much trouble for me.’

‘Why must you go?’

‘Because, you see, the Police have lately become so plaguily exacting. Formerly, it used to suffice if the new-comer himself went to the Prefecture; but now nothing will serve them but to see his landlord along with him. Then there is always such a crowd of people at the office, that one has to wait ever so long before one’s turn comes round. If one has a lodger for a month or a year, then it is worth one’s pains to go through all this trouble and fatigue; but if he is only to stay a night or two, one would never gain a living, for the time would be spent in coming and going. One could not do a hand’s-turn in one’s own house at that rate, and people must live, you know; and it is but little bread that one gets from the Police. And that is why we prefer not to make any declaration, when the lodger only remains for a few days; we find it the best plan, and if at the Prefecture they do not hear all they might like to hear, I cannot say I think there is any harm done.’

I made no objection, it may be supposed; but installing myself in my room I remained there all the rest of the day, in spite of the insinuating discourse of my landlady, who proposed to me that I should go and see the illuminations, for that day was a high day in the capital. It was July 9, 1846, and they were celebrating the nuptials, or the betrothal (I do not quite know which), of a daughter of the Emperor Nicholas, the Grand-Duchess Olga, with the Prince of Wurtemberg!

The next day, however, I did go out, and I promenaded the town, of which the wide handsome streets seemed to me to be singularly deserted. I was meditating on the quickest way of leaving the place, and had determined, if need be, to swim to the shores of the Baltic, although any more convenient method, if it should arise, was not to be despised. I knew that a packet sailed from St. Petersburg to Havre, but what were the days of its sailing, where did it lie, and was its captain French or Russian? Grave questions, which I did not dare to put to any one for fear of compromising myself. I walked up and down the Néva, and read the inscriptions on the different red and yellow bills which were posted up on blank planks on each of the different steamers; but I could only read by stealth, for a peasant, ‘a Russian man’ (_rouski tcheloviék_) like me, must not make a display of learning! So I sauntered slowly and perused the inscriptions. One would be ‘the vessel of his Majesty the Emperor,’ another ‘of His Highness the Prince Imperial,’ ‘of the Grand Duke Michael,’ ‘of Her Majesty the Empress, and the ladies of her court,’ &c. Evidently all of too high a class for me. I managed at last to discover less titled vessels; but then their destinations were not to my liking, and would not have suited me in any way. After having thus examined the whole length of the left bank of the Néva, I crossed the bridge in front of the statue of Peter the Great, and now pursued the stream along the right hand to its mouth. I stopped for a moment at the foot of the two gigantic sphinxes which are placed opposite the museum, and the sight of these strange Egyptian guests in the City of Ice made me lose myself for a moment in thought. Suddenly my eyes fell on an advertisement in large letters, which, stuck up near the mast of a steamboat, announced that that vessel was to sail for Riga on the following morning...!

I trembled, and I had difficulty in suppressing the emotion I felt; but still, I thought, how was I to reach the steamer, how enter into parley with the captain of it? I saw a man, probably the pilot, walking on deck; his red shirt pulled on over his drawers was quite after the Russian fashion, but I did not dare to address him, and I contented myself with devouring him with my eyes. In the meantime the sun was sinking, and it was going on to seven o’clock in the evening, when suddenly the man in the red shirt looked up and said:--

‘Do you by any chance want to go to Riga? If so, take your passage by us.’

‘Certainly, I want to go to Riga; but how is a poor man like me to go in the steamboat? That costs a great deal, it is not made for the like of us.’

‘Why not; come along. A _moujik_ like you won’t be asked to pay a great deal.’

‘How much?’

He named a sum, which I do not remember, but which astonished me at the time as being really very moderate.

‘Well, will that suit you? What are you hesitating about now?’

‘I only came here to-day, and the Police must _viser_ my passport.’

‘Then, let me tell you, you will have a three days’ job of it with your Police, and our steamer sails to-morrow morning.’

‘What can I do then?’

‘Go without having it _visé_, to be sure.’

‘Bah! suppose I get into trouble?’

‘Idiot! Here is a _moujik_ setting up to teach me! Have you got your passport with you? Let us see it.’

I drew from my pocket the pass which I kept carefully wrapped in a silk handkerchief, after the Russian plan; but the man did not even give himself the trouble of looking at it.

‘Come to-morrow, at seven o’clock in the morning, and if you don’t find me here, wait for me; and now be off as quick as you can.’

I returned joyously to my lodgings, and on the following morning I was punctual to my appointment. Steam was already got up; my man perceived me, and said simply, ‘Pay your money.’ He then left me, and returned with a yellow ticket, of which I naturally pretended to ignore the signification. This extracted a second notice, as follows, ‘Hold your tongue, _moujik_, and let us manage.’ The bell rang three times, the barrier was opened, the passengers pressed and hurried in, while a rude shove from my friend sent me in along with the others. Some moments after the paddles went round, we were in motion; and I was as one that dreamed.