Russia is like a vigorous person suffocating for want of external air. Peter I. promised it an outlet, but without perceiving that a sea necessarily closed
CHARACTER OF THE INHABITANTS.119
during eight months in the year, is not like other seas. Names, however, are everything in Russia. The efforts of Peter, his subjects, and successors, extraordinary as they are, have only served to create a city which it is difficult to inhabit; with which the Neva disputes the soil whenever the wind blows from the Gulf, and from which the people think of flying altogether, at each step that this war of elements compels them to take towards the south. For a bivouac, quays of granite are superfluous.
The Finns, among whom the Russians fixed their new capital, are of Scythian origin, they are still almost Pagans — suitable inhabitants of the soil of Petersburg. It was only in 1836 that an ukase appeared, commanding their priests to add a family name to the saint's name given to the children in baptism.
This race is almost without physiognomy. The middle of the face is flattened to a degree that renders it deformed. The men, though ugly and dirty, are said to be strong, which, however, does not prevent their being poor. Although the natives, they are seldom seen in Petersburg except upon market days. They inhabit the swamps, and slightly elevated granite hills of the environs.
Kronstadt is a very flat island in the middle of the Gulf of Finland : this aquatic fortress is raised above the sea only just sufficiently to defend the navigation to St. Petersburg. Its foundations and many of its works are under water. Its guns are disposed, according to the Russians, with great skill, and by virtue of the shower of ball that an order of the emperor could here pour upon an enemy, the place passes for
120BATTEEIES OF KRONSTADT.
impregnable. I am not aware whether these guns command both the passages of the Gulf; the Russians who could have informed me, would not. My experience, although of recent date, has already taught me to distrust the rodomontades and exasperations in which the subjects of the Czar, inspired by an excess of zeal in the service of their master, indulge. National pride appears to me to be tolerable only among a free people.
We arrived at Kronstadt about the dawning of one of those days without real beginning or end, which I am tired of describing though not of admiring.
After casting anchor before the silent fortress, we had to wait a long time for the arrival of a host of official personages, who boarded us one after the other; commissaries of police, directors and sub-directors of the customs, and finally the Comptroller himself. This important personage considered himself obliged to pay us a visit on account of the illustrious Russian passengers on board. He conversed for a long time with the returned princes and princesses. They talked in Russian, probably because the politics of the West were the subject of their discourse ; but when the conversation fell on the troubles of landing and the necessity of leaving our carriages at Kronstadt, French was freely spoken.
The Travemünde packet draws too much water to ascend the Neva, the passengers, therefore, have to proceed by a smaller steamer, which is dirty and ill-constructed. We are allowed to carry with us our lighter baggage, after it has been examined by the officers. When this formality is concluded we leave for Petersburg, with the hope that our carriages left
ABJECT CHARACTER OF RUSSIAN EMPLOYES. 121
in the charge of these people, may arrive safely on the morrow.
The Russian princes were obliged, like myself, to submit to the laws of the custom-house, but on arriving at Petersburg I had the mortification of seeing them released in three minutes, whilst I had to struggle with every species of trickery for the space of three hours.
A multitude of little superfluous precautions engender here a population of deputies and sub-officials, each of whom acquits himself with an air of importance and a rigorous precision, which seemed to say, rhough everything is done with much silence, " Make way, I am one of the members of the grand machine of state."
Such members, acting under an influence which is not in themselves, in a manner resembling the wheel-work of a clock, are called men in Russia! The sight of these voluntary automata inspires me with a kind of fear: there is something supernatural in an individual reduced to the state of a mere machine. If, in lands where the mechanical arts flourish, wood and metal seem endowed with human powers, under despotisms, human beings seem to become as instruments of wood. TVe ask ourselves, what can become of their superfluity of thought ? and we feel ill at ease at the thought of the influence that must have been exerted on intelligent creatures before they could have been reduced to mere tilings. In Russia I pity the human beings, as in England I feared the machines : in the latter country, the creations of man lack nothing but the gift of speech; here, the gift of speech is a thing unnecessary to the creatures of the state.
VOL. I.G
122INQUISITIONS OF THE POLICE,
These machines, clogged with the inconvenience of a soul, are, however, marvellously polite; it is easy to see they have been trained to civility, as to the management of arms, from their cradle. But of what value are the forms of urbanity when their origin savours of compulsion ? The free-will of man is the consecration that can alone impart a worth or a meaning to human actions; the power of choosing a master can alone give a value to fidelity; and since, in Russia, an inferior chooses nothing, all that he says and does is worthless and unmeaning.
The numerous questions I had to meet, and the precautionary forms that it was necessary to pass through, warned me that I was entering the Empire of Fear, and depressed my spirits.
I was obliged to appear before an Areopagus of deputies who had assembled to interrogate the passengers. The members of this formidable rather than imposing tribunal Avere seated before a large table; some of them were turning over the leaves of the register with an attention which had a sinister appearance, for their ostensible employ was not sufficient to account for so much gravity.
Some, with pen in hand, listened to the replies of the passengers, or rather the accused, for every stranger is [treated as culpable on arriving at the Russian frontier. All the answers were carefully written down, and the passports minutely examined, and detained, under the promise that they would be returned at Petersburg.
These formalities being satisfied, we proceeded on board the new steam-boat. Hour after hour elapsed, and still there was no talk of starting. Every mo-
AJSTD OF THE CUSTOM-HOUSE.123
ment fresh boats proceeded from the city, and rowed towards us. Although we were moored close to the walls, the silence was profound. No voice issued from this tomb. The shadows that were gliding in their boats around were equally silent. They were clad in coarse capotes of grey wool, their faces lacked expression, their eyes possessed no fire, their complexion was of a green or yellow hue ; I was told that they were sailors attached to the garrison, but they more resembled soldiers. Sometimes the boats passed round us in silence, sometimes six or a dozen ragged boatmen, half covered with sheep-skins, the wool turned within, and the filthy skin appearing without, brought us some new police agent, or tardy custom-house officer. These arrivals and departures, though they did not accelerate our matters, at least gave me leisure to reflect on the species of filthiness peculiar to the people of the North. Those of the South pass their life in the open air half naked, or in the water; those of the North, for the most part shut up within doors, have a greasy dirtiness, which appears to me far more offensive than the neglect of a people destined to live beneath the open heaven, and born to bask in the sun.