Not the least of the evils resulting from this harum-scarum way of traveling and writing is the fact that one’s impressions become sadly tumbled together and very soon lose their most salient failures. To be whirled about the world by land and sea, as I have been for the last year, is enough to turn one’s brain into a curiosity shop. When I undertake to pick out of the pile of rubbish some picture that must have been originally worth a great deal of money, I find it so disfigured by the sheer force of friction that it looks no better than an old daub. The pity of it is, too, that the very best of my gatherings are apt to get lost or ruined; and sometimes it happens that when I varnish up what appears to be valuable it turns out not a groat. Want of method would ruin a Zingalee gipsy or a Bedouin Arab. No doubt you have already discovered to your sorrow that when we start on a visit to the Kremlin, it is no sure indication that we will not spend the day in the Riadi or the old-clothes market. If either you or I ever reach our destination, it will be by the sheerest accident. And yet one might as well undertake to see Rome without the Capitoline Hill, or Athena without the Acropolis, as Moscow without the Kremlin. We have had several glimpses of it, to be sure, in the course of our rambles, but you must admit that they were very vague and indefinite—especially the last, when, if you remember, we were laboring under some strange mental hallucination.
The Kremlin has been fully described by many learned and accomplished travelers. Coxe, Atkinson, Kohl, and various others, have given elaborate accounts of it; yet why despair of presenting, in a homely way, some general idea of it, such as one might gather in the course of an afternoon’s ramble? After reading all we find about it in books of travel, our conceptions are still vague and unsatisfactory. Probably the reason is, that minute details of history and architecture afford one but a very faint and inadequate idea of the appearance of any place. Like the pictures of old Dennen, they may give you every wrinkle with the accuracy of a daguerreotype, but they fail in the general effect, or resemble the corpse of the subject rather than the living reality. I must confess that all I had read on Russia previous to my visit afforded me a much less vivid idea of the actual appearance of the country, the people, or the principal cities, than the rough crayon sketches of Timm and Mitreuter, which I had seen in the shop windows of Paris. This may not be the fault of the writers, who, of course, are not bound to furnish their own eyes or their own understanding to other people, but it seems to me that elaborate detail is inimical to strong general impressions. I would not give two hours’ personal observation of any place or city in the world for a hundred volumes of the best books of travel ever written upon it; and next to that comes the conversation of a friend who possesses, even in an ordinary degree, the faculty of conveying to another his own impressions. A word, a hint, a gesture, or some grotesque comparison, may give you a more vivid picture of the reality than you can obtain by a year’s study. Now, if you will just consider me that friend, and resign yourself in a genial and confiding spirit to the trouble of listening; if you will fancy that I mean a great deal more than I say, and could be very learned and eloquent if I chose; if you will take it for granted that what you don’t see is there nevertheless, the Kremlin will sooner or later loom out of the fogs of romance and mystery that surround it, and stand before you, with its embattled walls and towers, as it stood before me in the blaze of the noonday sun, when Dominico, the melancholy guide, led the way to the Holy Gate. You will then discover that the reality is quite wonderful enough in its natural aspect, without the colored spectacles of fancy or the rigid asperities of photographic detail to give it effect.
Like many of the old cities of Europe, Moscow probably had its origin in the nucleus of a citadel built upon the highest point, and commanding an extensive sweep of the neighborhood. Around this houses gathered by degrees for protection against the invasions of the hostile tribes that roamed through Russia at an early period of its history. The first object of the Kremlin was doubtless to form a military strong-hold. It was originally constructed of wood, with ramparts thrown up around it for purposes of defense, but, in common with the rest of Moscow, was destroyed by the Tartars in the fourteenth century. Under the reign of Dimitri it was rebuilt of stone, and strongly fortified with walls and ditches, since which period it has sustained, without any great injury, the assaults of war, the ravages of fire, and the wear and tear of time. Kief and Vladimir, prior to that reign, had each served in turn as the capital of the empire. After the removal of the capital to Moscow, that city was besieged and ravaged by Tamerlane, and suffered from time to time during every succeeding century all the horrors of war, fire, pestilence, and famine, till 1812, when it was laid in ashes by the Russians themselves, who by this great national sacrifice secured the destruction of the French army under Napoleon. During the almost perpetual wars by which Moscow was assailed for a period of four centuries, the Kremlin seems to have borne almost a charmed existence. With the exception of the Grand Palace, the Bolshoi Drovetz, built by the Emperor Alexander I., and the Maloi Drovetz, or Little Palace, built by the Emperor Nicholas, and the Arsenal, it has undergone but little change since the time of the early Czars. In 1812, when the French, after despoiling it of whatever they could lay their hands upon, attempted, in the rage of disappointment, to blow up the walls, the powder, as the Russians confidently assert, was possessed by the devil of water, and refused to explode; and when they planted a heavily-loaded cannon before the Holy Gate, and built a fire on top of the touch-hole to make it go off, it went off at the breech, and blew a number of Frenchmen into the infernal regions, after which the remainder of them thought it best to let it alone.
The Kremlin, as it now stands, is a large collection of palaces, public buildings, and churches, situated on the crown of a high bank or eminence on the left side of the Moskwa River, nearly in the centre of the city. It is surrounded by a high embattled wall, forming something of a triangle, about a mile in circumference, through which are several massive gateways. This wall is very strongly constructed of stone, and is about twenty-five or thirty feet in height. It forms many irregular sub-angles, and is diversified in effect by numerous towers, with green pyramidal roofs; abutments and buttresses; and a series of guard-houses at intervals along the top. The general color is white, making rather a striking contrast with the green-roofed towers, and the gilded domes and many-colored cupolas of the interior churches. Outside of this wall, on the upper side of the main angle, are some very pleasant gardens, handsomely laid out, with fine shady walks, in which many of the citizens spend their summer evenings, strolling about, enjoying the fresh air. Other parts of the exterior spaces are devoted to drosky stands, markets, and large vacant spaces for public gatherings on festa days and great occasions of military display. From every point streets diverge irregularly, winding outward till they intersect the inner and outer boulevards. These boulevards are large circular thoroughfares, crossing the Moskwa River above and below. They are well planted with trees, and have spacious sidewalks on each side; but, unlike the boulevards of Paris, are only dotted at irregular intervals with houses. To the eastward lies the Katai Gorod, or Chinese City, and to the westward the Beloi Gorod, or White City.
Isolated in a great measure from the various quarters of the city, Russian and Tartaric, by the gardens, the large open spaces, the markets, and the river, the Kremlin looms up high over all in solitary grandeur—a mass of churches, palaces, and fortifications, surmounted by the tower of Ivan Veliki, which stands out in bold octagonal relief against the one with its numerous bells swung in the openings of the different stages, thundering forth the hours of the day, or tolling a grand chorus to the chanting of innumerable priests in the churches below. Approaching the Spass Vorota, or Gate of the Redeemer, through which none can enter save with uncovered heads—such is the veneration in which this Holy Gate is held by all classes—we witness a strange and impressive spectacle. Over this wonderful gate, incased in a frame covered with glass, stands the holiest of all the pictured relics of this sacred place, a painted figure of the Savior, emblazoned with gilding, and with a lamp swung in front, which burns night and day, as it has burnt since the days of Ivan the Terrible. Before this sacred image all true believers bow down and worship. While the great bells of the tower are booming out their grand and solemn strains, it is a profoundly impressive spectacle to witness the crowds that gather before this holy shrine, and bend themselves to the earth—the rich and the poor, the decorated noble and the ragged beggar—all alike glowing with an all-pervading zeal; no pretense about it, but an intense, eager, almost frantic devotion. Many a poor cripple casts his crutches aside, and prostrates himself on the paved stoneway, in the abandonment of his pious enthusiasm. Men and women, old and young, kneel on the open highway, and implore the intercession of the Redeemer. From the highest officer of state to the lowest criminal, it is all the same. The whole crowd are bowing down in abject humiliation, all muttering in earnest tones some prayer or appeal for their future salvation. And now, as we enter the gate, the stranger, whatever may be his persuasion or condition, whether a true believer or a heretic of high or low degree, must join in the general torrent of veneration so far as to uncover his head as he walks beneath that sacred portal; for, as I said before, none can pass through the Spass Vorota without this token of respect for its sacred character. The greatest of the Czars have done it through a series of centuries. The conqueror of Kazan, Astrakan, and Siberia has here bared his imperial head; Romanoff, Peter the Great, even the voluptuous Catharine, have here done reverence to this holy portal; and all the later sovereigns of Russia, Alexander I., Nicholas, and Alexander II., ere they received their kingly crowns, have passed bareheaded through the Spass Vorota. Need we hesitate, then, profane scoffers as we may be, when such precedents lie before us? Apart from the fact that I always found it convenient to do in Rome as the Romans do, and in Moscow to conform as far as practicable to the customs of the Moscovites, I really have no prejudice on any subject connected with the religious observances of other people. In pleasant weather I would walk a mile bareheaded to oblige any man who conscientiously thought it would do him the least good; more especially in a case like this, where, if one fails to doff his shlapa, a soldier stands ready to remind his “brother” or “little friend,” or possibly “little father,” that he (the brother, little friend, or little father) has forgotten his “beaver.” We have now, thanks to Dominico, who has touched us up on all these points, gotten safely and becomingly through the Holy Gate without committing the sin of irreverence toward any of the saints, living or dead. We have passed through a high archway, about twenty paces in length, roughly paved with stones, and now put on our hat again as we ascend the sloping way that leads to the grand esplanade in front of the palaces and churches. This is a broad paved space, walled on the outer edge, forming a grand promenade overlooking the Moskwa River, and from which a magnificent view is had of the lower city, that sweeps over the valley of the south. Standing here, we have a grand coup d’oeil of the river above and below, its bridges covered with moving crowds, its barges and wood-boats, and many-colored bath-houses, glittering in the sun; farther off, a dazzling wilderness of the innumerable churches of the lower city, with their green, yellow, red, and gilded cupolas and domes; still beyond, the trees and shrubberies of the outer boulevards; to the left, the great Foundling Asylum, fronting on the river, with its vast gardens in the rear; to the right, the Military Hospital, the Barracks, and, far in the distance, over the gleaming waters of the river, the Sparrow Hills, from which Napoleon caught the first glimpse of Moscow; and then the grand Convent of the Douskoi, within the outer wall, near the Kalonga Road; from which, sweeping over toward the right, once more we catch a glimpse of the wooded shade of the Race-course, the Hospital of St. Paul, and the Convent of St. Daniel; and to the left, beyond the outer wall, of various grand convents and fortifications, till the eye is no longer able to encompass all the wondrous and varied features of the scene. Turning now toward the north, after we have feasted upon this brilliant and glittering series of views, each one of which we might linger over for hours with increased delight, we stand facing the principal palaces and churches of the Kremlin—the Terema, containing the audience chambers, and the Granovitaya Palata, the coronation halls of the Czars; the new palaces; the Cathedral of the Assumption; the tower of Ivan Veliki; the Treasury and Arsenal; with innumerable glimpses of other and scarcely less prominent buildings, which unite in forming this wonderful maze of sacred and royal edifices. It would be very difficult, if at all practicable, to convey by mere verbal description a correct and comprehensive idea of the strange mingling of architectural styles here prevailing. The churches present, no doubt, the most picturesque effects, but this is not owing to any grandeur in their proportions. None of them are either very large or very high; but they are singularly varied in form, as if thrown together in bunches, without regard to order; some with Gothic gables, some round, some acutely angular, and all very rudely and roughly constructed, even the perpendicular lines being irregular. The walls are whitewashed, and in many places stained with age. The roofs are for the most part of earthen tiles, imburnt with strong prismatic colors, and shining like the inner surfaces of abalone shells. The domes are white, green, red, and yellow, and each church has a number of gilded or striped cupolas, rising irregularly from the roofs, shaped like bunches of globular cactus, such as one sees on the hill-sides of San Diego. If the comparison were not a little disparaging to their picturesque beauty, I should say that some of the cupolas—especially those of a golden cast—reminded me of mammoth pumpkins perched on the top of a Mexican Mission-house, for even the buildings themselves have something of a rude Mexican aspect about them. The new palace of the Bolshoi Dvoretz, built by the Emperor Alexander over a portion of the site of the old Tartar palace, is a large, square, uninteresting building, with nothing beyond its vast extent and grand faÇade to recommend it. The Terema and the Granovitaya Palata—both remains of the old Tartar palace—are highly ornamented with trellised work, and are interesting as well from their style of architecture as their contents. It was from the terraced roof of the Terema that Napoleon took his first grand view of the city of Moscow, after entering the gates of the Kremlin. The one contains a fine collection of curiosities, including various portraits of the Czars; the other the royal chamber, magnificently decorated with embroidered velvet hangings, candelabras, frescoes, gildings, and carved eagles bearing thunderbolts, and the great chair of state, in which the emperors sit enthroned to receive the homage of their vassals after the imposing ceremony of the coronation. But it would be an endless task to undertake an account of even a day’s ramble through the interior of these vast palaces and public buildings. I paid five rubles for tickets and fees to porters, and, with the aid of Dominico’s enlightened conversation, came out after my grand tour of exploration perfectly bewildered with jeweled crowns, imperial thrones, gilded bedsteads, slippery floors, liveried servants, stuffed horses, old guns, swords, and pistols, glassware and brassware, emeralds and other precious stones, and altogether disgusted with the childish gimcrackery of royalty. Great Alexander, I thought to myself, who would be a Czar of Russia, and have to make his living at the expense of all this sort of tom-foolery? Who would abide even for a day in a bazar of curiosity-shops, bothered out of his wits by servants and soldiers, and the flare and glitter of jewelry? It certainly all looked very shallow and troublesome to a plain man, destitute by nature of kingly aspirations. To confess the truth, I was utterly unable to appreciate any thing but the absurdity of these things. I can not discover much difference, save in degree, between barbaric show on the part of savages and on that of civilized people. For what, after all, do these coronation halls and gewgaws amount to? Who is truly king upon earth, when there is “an everlasting King at whose breath the earth shall tremble?”
Strange, indeed, and not calculated to exalt one’s impression of royalty, is the fact that, after purchasing a ticket to see all these relics of the great Czars of Russia, a horde of officers, servants, and lackeys, in imperial livery, must be feed at every turn. It is a perfect system of plunder from beginning to end. At the door of the new palace I was stopped by some functionary in white stockings, polished slippers, plush breeches and plush coat, actually blazing with golden embroidery; his head brushed and oiled to the intensest limits of foppery, and his hands adorned with white kid gloves, who refused to permit me to enter until he had arranged some infernal compact of pay with my guide, Dominico. After showing me through the grand chambers, pointing out the beds, bed-quilts, writing-desks, chairs, and wash-basins of the Czars, he finished up his half hour’s labor by making a profound bow and holding out his hand, beggar fashion, for his fee. I gave him half a ruble (about 87½ cents), at which his countenance assumed an expression of extreme pity and contempt. Dominico had informed him that I was a stranger from California, which had the effect of eliciting from him various passages of exceeding politeness up to that moment. But he now came out in his true colors, and demanded haughtily, “Was this the pitiful sum what the gentleman intended as a recompense for his services?” Dominico shrugged his shoulders. The liveried gentleman became excited and insolent—assuring me, through the guide, that no stranger of any pretensions to gentility ever offered him less than a ruble. I must confess I was a little nettled at the fellow’s manner, and directed Dominico to tell him that, having no pretensions to gentility, I must close my acquaintance with him, and therefore bid him good-morning. There never was an instance in which I disappointed any beggar with so much good will. I have no doubt, if he has read any thing of California, he labors under the impression that I am an escaped convict from San Quentin.
O most potent Alexander, Czar of all the Russias, is this the only way you have of paying your servants? Do you thus make a raree-show of the palace of your forefathers, and require every man who enters it for the purpose of enlightening his benighted understanding to pay your imperial lackeys the sum of three bits? Is it not enough that your soldiers and retainers should hawk old clothes through the markets of the Riadi for a decent living, without making a small speculation out of the beds and wash-stands in which your noble fathers slept and (possibly) washed their faces?
One of the most remarkable objects of interest within the walls of the Kremlin is the Tzar Kolokol, or King of Bells, cast in 1730 by order of the Empress Anne, and said to be not only the largest bell, but the largest metal casting in existence. This wonderful bell is formed chiefly of contributions of precious metals, bestowed as religious offerings by the people from all parts of the Russian empire. Spoons, plates, coins, and trinkets were thrown by the devout inhabitants into the melting mass, and thus, each having a share in it, the monarch bell is regarded with feelings of peculiar affection and veneration throughout Russia. Writers differ as to its original use and location, some contending that it was first hung in a tower, which was destroyed by fire in 1737, and that the large fragment was broken out of it in the fall, which is now exhibited by the side of the bell; others that it never was hung at all, but that this fragment resulted from a failure in the casting. Be that as it may, it was all dug out of the ground in 1837, and placed in its present position on a pedestal of granite, close by the tower of Ivan Veliki.
Standing in an open space, where the eye necessarily takes in many larger objects, including the great tower, but a very inadequate idea can be formed of the extraordinary dimensions of this bell. Cast in the usual form, its appearance at the distance of fifty or a hundred yards is not at all striking; but when you draw near and compare the height of the groups of figures usually gathered around it with that of the bell, it is easy to form some conception of its gigantic proportions. The fragment placed upright against the granite pedestal looks at a little distance scarcely three feet high, but as you approach you perceive that it is at least six. The bell itself is twenty-one feet three inches high, by twenty-two feet five inches in diameter, and varies from three feet to three inches in thickness. Underneath this immense metallic canopy is a chapel, in which is a shrine at which many thousands of the Russians every year offer up their devotions. The entrance to this is through an iron gateway, and the visitor descends several stone steps before he stands upon the paved floor of the chapel. Looking upward and around him, he then for the first time realizes the vast magnitude of this wonderful casting. It is almost impossible to conceive that such a prodigious body of metal was ever at one time a molten mass, seething over vast furnaces. Imagine a circular room more than twenty feet in diameter, and of proportionate height, and you have some faint idea of the interior of the Tzar Kolokol. It is said that it required ten strong men to draw the clapper from the centre to the inner rim, by means of ropes, so as to produce the ordinary sounds of which the bell was capable. This I can very well credit; for the great bell of the Ivan Tower, not a third of the size of this, has an iron tongue which requires the strength of three men to strike against the rim. The tremendous depth and volume of the tones sent forth for many leagues around by the monarch bell must have been sublime beyond conception, judging by this single fact, that while in Moscow, the largest bell I heard sounded was far inferior in size and weight to that of the Ivan Tower, which is rung only on state occasions, yet the sounds were so deep and powerful that they produced a reverberation in the air resembling the distant roar of thunder, mingled with the wailing of the winds in a storm. When all the bells of the tower, save the largest, were tolled together, the effect was absolutely sublime, surpassing in the grandeur and majesty of their harmony any thing I had ever heard produced through human agency. Judge, then, what must have been the effect when the Tzar Kolokol rolled forth a jubilee or a death-knell from his iron tongue!
I do not wonder that the Russians regard this bell with such peculiar feelings of reverence. There is something to arouse the most profound and reverential emotions of our nature in the simple, grand, and mysterious melody of all great bells—something of the infinite that exalts our thoughts and aspirations from the earth. In my recollections of travel I have few purer or more endearing pleasures than the impressions produced by sounds like these. Often the grand old strains of the bells of Lima, Mexico, and Spain seem still to linger on my ear, and I never dream the wild and varied dream of my travels over without feeling that these mysterious voices from many lands have not spoken without a meaning, that “Life, with all its dreams, shall be but as the passing bell.”
From the Tzar Kolokol I took my way, under the guidance of Dominico, to the tower of Ivan Veliki, which we ascended by the winding stairway of stone. The view from the top of this tower is incomparably the finest to be had from any point within the limits of Moscow. Here, outspread before us in one vast circle, lay the whole wondrous city of the Tzars—a perfect sea of green roofs, dotted over with innumerable spires and cupolas. The predominant features are Asiatic, though in the quarter to the west, called the Beloi Gorod, or White City, are the evidences of a more advanced civilization. Apart from the churches, which give the city its chief interest and most picturesque effect, the public buildings, such as the theatres, hospitals, military barracks, colleges, and riding-school possess no great attractions in point of architectural display, and add but little to the scenic beauties of the view. In gazing over this bewildering maze of habitations and temples of worship, I was again strongly impressed with some two or three leading characteristics, which, being directly opposed to the idea I had formed of Moscow before seeing it, may be worthy of repetition. The general colors of the buildings, roofs, and churches are light, gay, and sparkling, so that the whole, taken in one sweep of the eye, presents an exceedingly brilliant appearance, more like some well-contrived and highly-wrought optical illusions in a theatre—such, for example, as the fairy scenery of the “Prophete”—than any thing I can now remember. The vast extent of the city, compared with its population (the circuit of its outer wall being twenty miles, while the population is but little over 300,000), is another characteristic feature; but this is in some measure accounted for by the great average of small houses, the amount of ground occupied by the Kremlin, the inner and outer boulevards, and the suburbs within the outer wall, the number of gardens and vacant lots, and the large spaces occupied by the ploschads or public squares.
Looking beyond the city and its immediate suburbs, a series of undulating plains lies outstretched toward the eastward and southward, while toward the northward and westward the horizon is bounded by low pine-covered hills and occasional forests of birch. No high mountains or abrupt outlines are any where visible—all is broad and sweeping, conveying some premonition of the vastness of the steppes that divide this region from the Ural Mountains. Waving fields of grain, pastures of almost boundless extent, and solitary farm-houses lie dim in the distance, while in the immediate vicinity of the city cultivation has been carried to considerable perfection, and the villas and estates of the nobility present something more of the appearance of civilization than perhaps any thing of a similar kind to be seen in Russia. Contrasted with the country around St. Petersburg, and the desert of scrubby pines and marshes lying for a distance of nearly five hundred miles along the line of the railway between the two great cities, the neighborhood of Moscow is wonderfully rich in rural and pastoral beauties. Viewing it in connection with the city from the tower of Ivan Veliki, I certainly derived the most exquisite sensations of pleasure from the novelty, extent, and variety of the whole scene. Yet, calmly and peacefully as it now slumbers in the genial sunshine of a summer’s afternoon, what visions it conjures up of bloodshed and rapine, plague, pestilence, and famine, and of all the calamities wrought by human hands, and all the appalling visitations of a divine power by which this ill-fated spot has been afflicted. Looking back through the wide waste of years, the mighty hosts of Tamerlane uprise before us, pouring through the passes of the Ural, and sweeping over the plains with their glittering and bloodstained crests like demons of destruction carrying death and desolation before them. Then the giant Czars, half saints, half devils, loom through the flames of the ill-fated city, with their myriads of fierce and defiant warriors stemming the torrent of invasion with the bodies of the dying and the dead. Then are the streets choked with blackened ruins and putrid masses, and the days of sorrow and wailing come, when the living are unable to bury the dead. Again, a great famine has come upon the city after the days of its early tribulations have passed away, and strong men, driven to desperation by the pangs of hunger, slay their wives and children, and feed upon the dead bodies, and mothers devour the sucking babes in their arms; and horror grows upon horror, till, amid the slaughter, ruin, and madness wrought by this unparalleled calamity, a hundred thousand corpses lie rotting in the streets in a single day, and the city is decimated of its inhabitants! The scene changes again. Centuries roll on; a dreary day has come, when the foreign invader once more holds possession of the citadel. With the prize in his hands, fires burst from every roof in every quarter. Three hundred thousand of the inhabitants have fled; a wind arises and fans the devouring flame; churches and houses, temples and palaces, are wrapped in its relentless embraces; the convicts and the rabble run like demons through the streets, drunk with wine and reveling in excesses; soldiers, slaves, and prostitutes pillage the burning ruins, all wild and mad with the unholy lust of gain. Soon nothing is left but blackened and smoking masses, the ruins of palaces, temples, and hospitals, and the seared and mutilated corpses of the dead who have been crushed by the falling walls or burnt in the flames. Then the invading hosts, stricken with dismay, fly from this fated and ill-starred city to darken the snows of Lithuania with their bodies; and of five hundred thousand men—the flower of French chivalry—but forty thousand cross the Beresina to tell the tale! Surely Moscow, like Jerusalem, hath “wept sore in the night.”
While lounging about through the gilded and glittering mazes of the Uspenski Saber, almost wearied by the perpetual glare of burnished shrines, my attention was attracted by a curious yet characteristic ceremony within these sacred precincts. In a gold-cased frame, placed in a horizontal position in one of the alcoves or small chapels, was a picture of a saint whose cheeks and robes were resplendent with gaudy colors. This must have been St. Nicholas or some other popular personage belonging to the holy phalanx. His mouth was very nearly obliterated by the labial caresses of the worshipers who came there to bestow upon him their devotions. A stone step, raised about a foot from the flagged pavement, was nearly worn through by the knees of the penitents, who were forever dropping down to snatch a kiss from his sacred lips—or at least what was left of them, for his mouth was now little more than a dirty blotch, without the semblance of its original outline. While pondering over the marvelous ways in which men strive to cast off the burden of their sins, I observed a very graceful and elegantly-dressed female approach, and with an air of profound humility kneel in the accustomed place. As she drew back her veil she displayed a remarkably pretty face, and there was something quite enchanting in the coquetry with which she ignored the presence of a stranger. Of course she could have had no idea that any person of the opposite sex would dare to think of female loveliness in such a place, and the charming unconsciousness of her manner, as she adjusted the folds of her dress, and revealed the exquisitely rounded contour of her form, was the very best proof of that fact. A perfect withdrawal of self from the world and all its vanities was her ruling expression. Thrice did this lovely creature gracefully incline her head and kiss the blotched countenance of that inanimate saint. Ah me! what a luxury it must be to be a saint! What a lucky fellow is St. Nicholas, to be kissed by such honeyed and pouting lips as these! Chaste and pious kisses they may be, but, notwithstanding that, it must be very hard to keep cool, under the circumstances. Who would not suffer a life of martyrdom, and be turned into a picture or an image on such terms? Surely this bewitching damsel must have committed some dreadful sin to be thus soliciting the saintly intercession of a little picture with a dirty mouth! Perhaps she had recently suffered her own delectable lips to be pressed by the bearded mouth-piece of some tender and persuasive lover, and now sought to make atonement by kissing St. Nicholas! By all the powers of beauty, I’ll forswear sack, Dominico, and try—ha! here comes a devotee of another sort. Let us wait a while. For, as I live, it is a great puncheon of a woman, weighing over three hundred pounds—puffing and steaming as she waddles toward the shrine—a perfect Falstaff in petticoats. Shade of Venus! what a face and figure! Carbuncled with wine, and bloated with quass and cabbage soup, I’ll bet my head, Dominico, she’s a countess! How the juices of high living roll from her brow as she stoops down, and gives the unfortunate St. Nicholas a greasy dish-cloth of her fat lips! Faugh! I’ll consider about my course of life, Dominico. There are some inconveniences in being a saint. Next comes an old and toothless crone, all draggled with dirt, limping on crutches—a most pitiful object to look upon. She hobbles slowly and painfully up to the place just vacated—puts her crutches aside, kneels down, and, bowing low her palsied head, presses a dry, shriveled, and leathery kiss upon the grease-spot left by the fat woman. Thrice she performed this ceremony, mumbling over in her guttural way the prescribed formula; and then rising, regained her crutches, and begged for alms. Well, of course I gave the alms; but the other part of the performance suggested some painful thoughts. It was surely enough to moderate the ardor of one’s aspirations toward a saintly life. Yet, after all, Dominico, every sweet must have its bitter. Let us not despair yet. Next comes a great bearded Mujik, all tattered and torn—a regular grizzly bear on his hind legs, and drunk at that. This horrid monster has evidently not known the use of either soap or water for many a long day. His accustomed beverage must be vodka, and grease the only application ever used to purify his skin. He, too, kneels down and gives the image three cordial smacks—a pretty heavy penalty to endure on the part of any saint. Upon my word, Dominico, I don’t think it would be possible for me to stand that! But hold—here comes a fellow who caps the climax. A bilious, yellow-skinned, black-eyed fop, dressed in the height of fashion, with frizzled black hair, divided behind, and smelling strong of pomatum, a well-oiled mustache, and a simpering, supercilious expression—one of those nasty creatures that old Kit North says never can be washed clean. He looks conceited and silly enough to be an attache to the court of his imperial highness the emperor. When this fellow knelt before the picture and slavered it with his ugly mouth, a dizzy sensation of disgust came over me. Upon a general review of all the circumstances, Dominico, I have concluded that it might not be so pleasant, after all, to be a saint—in Russia.
It must not be supposed from this little sketch of a characteristic scene that I wish to ridicule any form of religion. I saw precisely what I state, and am in no way responsible for it. If people imagine this sort of thing does them any good, they are quite welcome to enjoy it; but they must not expect every body else to be impressed with the profound sensations of solemnity which they feel themselves. The Russians may kiss the heads off every saint in Moscow without the slightest concern or opposition on my part. The Romans have kissed a pound of brass off the big toe of St. Peter, in the grand Cathedral at Rome, and I see no reason why other races should not enjoy similar privileges, only it does not produce the same effect upon every body.
Yet, in some sense, such scenes are not without an aspect of sadness. It is melancholy to look upon such a mingling of glitter and barbarism, wealth and poverty, sincerity, debasement, and crime. No human being is truly ridiculous, however grotesque may be the expression of his feelings, when they are the genuine outpouring of a contrite heart. These nobles, common citizens, and beggars, thus meeting upon common ground, in a country where the distinctions of rank are so rigidly observed, and for the time being disregarding all differences of condition; forgetting their ambitions, their jealousies, and animosities, and giving themselves up with such unselfish zeal to all the demands made upon them by their forms of religion, is, in itself, a touching and impressive sight. I confess that when the first shock of grotesqueness, so strikingly connected with all I saw, passed away, the feeling left was one of unutterable sadness. These people were all fellow-beings, and, right or wrong, they were profoundly in earnest; yet, while thinking thus, I could not but fancy the same divine strain of warning that was wafted to the house of Israel still lingered in the air: “Every man is brutish in his knowledge; every founder is confounded by the graven image; for his molten image is falsehood, and there is no breath in them; they are vanity and the work of errors; in the time of their visitation they shall perish.”
In reference to the interiors of the churches of the Kremlin, I can only find space to say, after having visited them all, that they present a confusion of gilded and glittering aisles, pillars, alcoves, chapels, and painted domes, which baffles any thing like accurate description. The Cathedral of the Assumption is literally lined with gilding, daubs of paintings representing scriptural scenes, figures and pictures of saints, dragons and devils of every conceivable color and oddity of design and costume, and burnished shrines and candelabras. Through the dazzling mazes of this sacred edifice crowds of devotees, priests, and penitents are continually wandering; here, casting themselves upon their knees, and bowing down before some gold-covered shrine; there standing in mute and rapt adoration before some pictured symbol of eternity—grandees, beggars, and all; the priests bearing tapers and chanting; the air filled with incense; the whole scene an indescribable combination of moving appeals to the senses. All the churches of the Kremlin partake, more or less, of this character. In some of them, the old bones and other relics held peculiarly sacred are inclosed within iron gratings or railings, and are only accessible to the visitor through the services of a priestly guide. Every visitor must, of course, pay for the gratification of his curiosity; so that the bones of the most venerated characters in the history of the Russian Church are turned into a considerable source of profit. It may well be said that every saint pays his own way, so long as there is a fragment of him left in this world. If one could be assured of the truth of all he learns during a tour of inspection through these receptacles of sacred relics, it would indeed confound all his previous impressions that the days of miracles had passed. There is a picture in the Uspenski Saber, the bare contemplation of which, combined with a fervent appeal, it is confidently asserted, recently effected a sudden and wonderful cure in the case of a crippled man, who was carried there from his bed, but after his devotions before this picture walked out of the door as well as ever; and every where about these sacred precincts pictures and carved images are abundant which at stated intervals shed tears and manifest other tokens of vitality.
Outside, on the steps of those churches, the stranger encounters innumerable gangs of beggars, who watch his incoming and his outgoing with the most intense eagerness—rushing toward him with outstretched hands, calling upon all the saints to bless him and his issue forever and ever, and sometimes bowing down to the earth before him, in their accustomed way, as if he himself partook of some sacred attributes. Apart from the wretched aspect of these poor creatures, among which were the lame, the halt, and the blind from all the purlieus of Moscow, there was something very revolting in the debasement of their attitudes. To assist them all was impossible; and I often had to struggle through the crowds with feelings akin to remorse in being compelled to leave them thus vainly appealing to my charity. When alone, hours after, the weary and pathetic strain of their supplications would haunt me, bearing in its sorrowful intonations a weird warning that we are all bound together in the great fellowship of sin.
And now, while we are taking our last lingering look at the Kremlin, the mighty bells of the tower toll forth a funeral knell. A priest lies dead in one of the churches, his coffin draped in the habiliments of woe. The chanting rises ever and anon above the death-knell that sweeps through the air. Standing aloof, we listen to the solemn sounds of mourning. The funeral cortÉge comes forth from the church. The hearse, with its plumed horses all draped in black, receives the coffin; priests and mourners, bearing lighted tapers, lead the way, chanting a requiem for the departed; and thus they pass before us—the living and the dead—till they reach the Holy Gate. Then the priests and the crowd bow down and pray; and when they have passed out from under the sacred arch, they turn before the image of the Savior and pray again; then rising, they cross themselves devoutly and pass on to the last earthly resting-place of their friend and brother.
Surely death draws us nearer together in life. I thought no more of forms. What matters it if we are all true to our Creator and to our convictions of duty! Life is too short to spend in earthly contentions.
“In the morning it flourisheth and groweth up; in the evening it is cut down and withereth.”
