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Fred Markham in Russia, a novel by William H. G. Kingston |
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Chapter 7 |
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_ CHAPTER SEVEN Journey to Moscow--Russian Railway--Passengers--Mr Evergreen and his Hat-box--Refreshment Rooms--Scenes on the Road--Polite Spy--First View of Moscow--Unromantic Mode of Entering it--Hotel Chollet--The Chinese City--The Kremlin--The Great Bazaar--Cathedral of Saint Basil--The Holy Gate--Great Bell of Moscow--Tower of Ivan Veleki--Wonderful View from the Summit--The Tulip City.
The Moscow railroad station is at the end of the Nevsky Prospect. The travellers reached it soon after ten o'clock. Only one train started in the day, so that to miss it was to lose a day. The building is a fine one. It is entirely under Government superintendence, and the stationmaster, and ticket-clerks, and porters, and policemen, and guards are all in military uniform; it makes a person very much inclined to behave himself. A passenger must get to the station in good time, for there are all sorts of preliminaries to be gone through. One cannot jump out of a cab, rush to the ticket-office, sing out, "Porter, bring along my luggage!" jump into a carriage, and away to Edinburgh or Holyhead without a question being asked;--oh no! People do not go ahead quite so fast in the kingdom of the Czar. Before a ticket can be got, the passport must be shown at one office, where it is stamped; then one goes over to another office, where it is examined and the ticket granted,--all in the most deliberate way, rather trying to a person who fancies that he is late. Then the luggage must be taken to another place, and a ticket bought for it, and paid for according to the number of articles; then it must be delivered over the counter at another place; and lastly, the perplexed traveller is allowed to go on the platform and select his seat. The carriages are very long, the entrance, after the American model, being at each end, where there is a platform, a passage running down the whole length of the carriage, so that people can pass from one end of the train to the other. The second-class have seats arranged in rows like those in a church, and are not very comfortable for a long journey; but the first-class are more luxurious: at each end there is a small ante-room, then a saloon with ottomans round it, and the centre compartment is full of large, luxurious arm-chairs, far enough apart to allow long-legged men to stretch their legs to the full. The windows are large, and of plate glass, which, as Harry observed, would be very convenient if there was anything to look at out of them. Our friends had arranged themselves in one of the centre compartments, and the lime of departure was at hand, when Mr Evergreen made his appearance on the platform in a state of great agitation, first turning to one moustached fierce-looking official, then to another, appealing in vain to know, as it appeared, what had become of parts of his luggage. "Does any one know the Russian for hat-box?" he exclaimed. "Hatboxichoff! Hatboxichoff!" he cried in piteous accents. "Dear me, dear me--there are all my writing things in it, and my letters, and my money, and my best hat, and my gloves; and I shall be sent to prison as an impostor, and not be able to appear decent at the coronation, and have no means of paying my bills, and be starved, and--" At that moment he caught sight of Cousin Giles' face. His countenance brightened up. "Oh, Mr Fairman, I am so glad to see you!--can you help me?" he cried. Cousin Giles asked to see his luggage ticket, and, finding that the same number of packages which he possessed in all were marked on it, assured him that there could be no doubt his hat-box was safe. Thus assured in his mind, Mr Evergreen took his seat. The ticket is a long strip of paper, with the names of the chief places on the road marked on it, and the fares to each of them. The passengers having taken their places, the military officials waved their hands, and the long train began to move. The view as they left the city was not interesting. Some large red-brick houses appeared above the low huts in the outskirts, with a large reed-bordered lagoon, and a wide extent of dead level covered with low shrubs or rank dry grass. The distance to Moscow is about five hundred versts, nearly four hundred miles, and for the whole of that distance there is very little improvement towards picturesque beauty. Now and then, to be sure, they came to woods of birch or fir, but the trees were small and widely scattered; still the chief feature was a dead flat covered with scrub. Russia, however, is very far from being a barren and unfruitful country. There are large tracts near its numerous rivers which yield an abundant harvest of all descriptions of corn, and there are forests full of the finest trees, whilst fruits of many descriptions also are produced. This particular road, however, gives a stranger a very unfavourable impression of the country; still there were many things to interest our friends. About a mile, it seemed, from each other were little oblong wooden cottages, with a square enclosure in the rear and a platform in front, all so exactly alike that Harry said they looked as if they had been taken out of some Dutch brobdignag toy-box and placed along the road. In front of each hut, as the train passed along, appeared a guard, presenting arms with an iron-headed pike; and so exactly did one look like the other that Harry said he was certain there must be some spring underground which made them all pop up as the train passed along. There must be at least five hundred along the line--every hut, man, cap, pike, and greatcoat formed after the same model; there were guards, also, at all the signal stations. Whenever, also, the train stopped, a fierce-looking guard, in the uniform of the French gendarmes,-- bright-blue coats, helmets, and silver ornaments,--stood immoveable as sentries before each of the carriages, to prevent people from doing anything they ought not to do: altogether there seemed to be a very wholesome discipline established along the line. At all the stopping-places there were a number of Swiss-looking cottages, apparently newly erected; while the bridges and palings, and flights of steps and banisters, and refreshment booths, and vast long sheds in which heaps of logs were piled up, all looked as if they had been made in Switzerland, and were exactly like the models which come in neat white wooden boxes to England from that country of mountains and snow. They were very neat, and pretty, and picturesque, but certainly did not look as if they belonged to the place. At every station there are refreshments of some sort. Our friends observed fruits, raspberries, strawberries, and peaches, though of an untempting appearance and very dear; and also cakes of various forms, bread, beer, and of course quass. At all the larger stations there are large, long, handsome refreshment rooms, equal in appearance to those at the large stations in England,-- there is one for each class. At one of these they stopped for three-quarters of an hour, when a good dinner was served at about half-past four. They did not note the name of the place, but Harry suggested that it must have been _Chudova_, which was one of the principal places on the road. _Chew_! "Oh, oh, Harry!" exclaimed Fred as he heard his brother's atrocious pun. The tea is excellent at these places; a tumblerful costs ten kopecks, but a regular tea costs thirty, about fifteen-pence; indeed, the charges are much the same as in England. Probably at home, more substantial and better fare is to be got at the same price. As soon as the train stops, out get all the passengers, and a very motley assemblage they form as they pace up and down on the platform. Uniforms of all sorts predominate, from the modern-coated, richly-laced officer of the Emperor's guard, to the sombre-dressed rank and file of the line. There were Circassians and Georgians, and Cossacks of the Don and Volga, and other remote districts, in blue and silver coats, fur caps with red tops, and wide trousers, and yellow boots, and gauntlets on their hands, and jewelled daggers, and chain armour, and carved scimitars, with black, flashing eyes, and thickly curling glossy beards and moustaches, their language as well as their appearance telling of far-off southern regions, which have succumbed before the arms or the diplomacy of Russia. Then there were Armenians and Persians, men of peace, intent only on making money, with high-pointed fur caps, long gowns, full, dark trousers, and waists belted not to carry swords, but inkhorns; and Tartars with turbans, and rich shawls, and gold-embroidered slippers; and priests with low-crowned, broad-brimmed hats, beneath which straggled huge quantities of long light hair, and long green coats, and crosses rather ostentatiously shown at their breasts. There were traders, too, from the northern cities of the Empire, dressed in long dressing-gown-looking coats, more properly described as dirty than clean, and high boots, and low-crowned hats, and beards of considerable length and thickness; while the humbler classes, the mujicks, evidently delighted in pink shirts with their tails worn outside their trousers, and fastened round their waist with a sash or belt. These wore caps, and high boots, and long coats, like the rest; indeed, the inhabitants of Russia may be said to be a long-coated, boot-wearing population. There were women passengers, but there was nothing very peculiar in their appearance. The upper classes wore bonnets, and the lower had handkerchiefs tied over their heads, or caps, with thick-padded cloaks. They all had brought huge leather pillows, and cloaks, and shawls, to make themselves comfortable in the carriages. No sooner did the train stop than all the men lighted their cigars and pipes, and began to puff away most assiduously. Our friends were much amused at seeing a servant bring his master, an old gentleman, his pipe at every station. It was the servant's business not only to light it but to draw it up, and the cunning rogue took good care to get as many whiffs out of it as possible before he removed it from his own mouth. "That's what I call smoking made easy," said Harry. "I've heard of a man being another's mouthpiece, and this old gentleman seems to make use of his serf for the same purpose." Some of the priests wore fur caps and dark gowns, and others had on broad-brimmed hats and green gowns, with dark overcoats; some had several crosses on their breasts, frizzy or straggling hair being common to all. One of them, who was in a first-class carriage, pulled out a comb and began combing his beard and hair with great assiduity--an operation more pleasant, doubtless, to himself than to his neighbours. There was a fine Abasian officer--Abasia is a province bordering on the Caucasus, conquered by the Russians. He wore a black fur cap with a red-and-white top to it,--night-cap fashion,--a white coat with cartridge cases in the breast and trimmed and lined with fur, a silver-lace belt round his waist, white gloves with fur backs, and green trousers with a silver stripe down the legs; yellow boots, a curved scimitar behind, and a richly-jewelled dagger in his belt in front completed his costume. He was a very fine-looking fellow, and was most evidently aware of the fact. He was on good terms with every one, and laughed and chatted with all the officers of rank. Such were some of the companions our friends had on their journey. Mr Evergreen said that he considered it his duty to taste the tea at each stopping-place, to ascertain whether it was really superior to any to be found out of China. At some places he took only a tumblerful, but at others the samovar, with the little teapot on the top of it, and a small china cup were placed before him, with a tumbler also. Those who have not drunk tea out of a tumbler may be assured that it is by far the best way of taking it to quench thirst. The Americans put a lump of ice into it, which keeps bobbing up against the nose while the hot tea is being quaffed--also a very agreeable fashion. The result of all this tea-drinking was, that poor Evergreen could not manage to close his eyes when night came on, and the rest of his party went to sleep. After some hours had passed, he was accosted by an officer in uniform. "Ah, sir, I see that sleep has fled your eyelids," said the officer in very good English. "Oh, yes; but I can do very well without it," replied Evergreen, delighted to have some one to talk to; "there is always so much to think about and interest one in a strange country." "Your first visit here, I presume?" said the stranger. "Never out of England before," replied Evergreen. "What do you think of affairs in general in this country?" asked the stranger. "Very large country--very fine country--inhabitants very polite. Big city Saint Petersburg. People may not say exactly what they think, I hear; but that's nothing to me, you know," observed our friend. "Oh, that's quite a mistake, my dear sir," replied the stranger; "people may say exactly what they think, I assure you: no one interferes with them. Now, for instance, in the friendly way in which we are talking, one man might unbosom himself to another of his most secret thoughts, and no harm could come to him." "Very pleasant state of society; exactly what I like," said Evergreen, who thereupon, taking the hint, launched forth on several little bits of his own family history, with which he was fond of entertaining any casual acquaintance. The strange officer appeared to be listening attentively, and finally offered to call upon Evergreen and to show him the lions of Moscow. Cousin Giles awoke while the conversation was going on, and was exceedingly amused at what he overheard, especially with the warm way in which Evergreen accepted the stranger's offer. After the latter had made numerous inquiries about Cousin Giles, and Fred, and Harry, he got up and went into another carriage. "Wonderfully polite man that was who came and talked to me last night," observed Evergreen in the morning, after the passengers had rubbed their eyes and stretched themselves. "I wonder who he can be. A man of some consequence, I should think." Among the passengers were some merchants from the north, who had never before been at Moscow. They had for some time been putting their heads out of the windows, and as they caught sight of a few gilt domes and gaily-coloured roofs, and some convents scattered about, which was all that was visible of the holy city, they began crossing themselves and bowing most vigorously. This ceremony lasted till the train rushed into the station. The luggage was handed out as each person presented his ticket, and Mr Evergreen found, to his delight, that his hat-box was safe. A vast number of ishvoshtsticks presented their tickets, and offered their droskies for hire, and, two being selected, away the whole party rattled through broadish streets, paved with pebbles, up and down hill, among gardens, and green-roofed houses, and pink, and yellow, and grey, and blue walls, till they reached their hotel. They had been recommended to go to that of Monsieur Chollet, in the Grand Lubianka, and they had no reason to regret their choice. Nowhere could a more civil, active, attentive landlord be found. Every language seemed to flow with the greatest ease from his tongue. He would be talking to three or four customers in German, and English, and Italian, addressing his wife in French, and scolding his servants in their native Russian, answering fifty questions, giving advice, and receiving accounts, all in one breath. He did all sorts of things better than any one else. He went to market, came back and cooked the dinner, mixed the salad, and in another instant appeared dressed as if for a ball, and took his place at the head of the table. His dinners were very good, somewhat in the German fashion; and his rooms were very comfortable, and excessively clean for Russia. As soon as our friends had dressed and breakfasted, they sallied forth to gain a general view of the city. Evergreen said he thought he ought to wait for his new acquaintance, who had promised to call; but an English merchant, who happened to overhear him, assured him that he must not be delicate on the subject, as the person in question was simply one of the guards of the train, and that he was employed by the police to pick up any information he could about passengers. "Had he thought you a suspicious character, you would certainly have been honoured by a visit from him," he added. "Dear me, if I had said anything treasonable, I should have been whirled off to a dungeon to a certainty," exclaimed poor Evergreen, shuddering at the thought of the danger he had escaped. Moscow is one of the most romantic cities in Europe--indeed, there is no other to be compared with it; but our friends had entered it in so ordinary, every-day a manner that at first they could hardly persuade themselves that they had reached a considerable way towards the centre of Russia, and were really and truly in that far-famed city. "Now, my boys, we will steer a course for the Kremlin," cried Cousin Giles, having taken the bearings of their hotel as they walked along the street called the Grand Lubianka. Their course was nearly a straight one. In a little time, crossing an open space, they found themselves before a line of fortified walls, and a gateway, such as they might have expected to see in a picture of China or Tartary, with strange-looking eastern turrets, and domes, and roofs rising within them. "This must be the Chinese city we have heard of," said Cousin Giles. So it was. It is a city within a city. It has three sides, the walls of the Kremlin making the fourth. They passed through the gateway and found themselves in a narrow street, the buildings on either side of them having a still more Chinese appearance. On the left was a little church, with numerous parti-coloured domes, and minarets, and towers, and outside staircases leading nowhere, and railings, and balconies, and little excrescences of roofs, altogether forming an edifice much more like a Chinese than a Christian temple. Close to it, on the left, they saw a long open space, just inside the walls, crowded with people of the lowest order, with booths on either side. This was what may be called the rag fair of Moscow. The booths or shops contain all the articles either for dress or household purposes used by the mujicks. The sellers and purchasers were all talking and laughing, and haggling and chattering away as if the affairs of the nation depended on what they were about, and yet probably a few kopecks would have paid for any one of the articles bought or sold. At the end of the street the travellers came to the entrance of the great bazaar of Moscow, and as they looked down its numerous long alleys, glazed over at the top, they saw lines of little shops,--jewellers, and silversmiths, and makers of images, and hatters, and shoemakers, and tinmen, and trunk-makers, and other workers in leather, and head-dress makers, and blacksmiths, and toy sellers,-- indeed, it would be difficult to enumerate all the various trades and handicrafts there represented, each trade being in a row by itself. Each shop was little more than a recess, with a counter in front of it, before which the shopmen stood, praising in loud voices their wares, and inviting passers-by to stop and inspect them. No time, however, was spent at the bazaar, for across a wide open space appeared a high pinnacled wall, with a line of curious green-pointed roofed towers, with golden crescents surmounted by crosses on their summits, and two gateways up a steep slope. Over the walls appeared a confused mass of golden and blue-and-silver domes, and spires, and towers, and green roofs, and crescents, and crosses, and gold and silver chains, glittering in the sun, altogether forming a scene such as is pictured in the _Arabian Nights Entertainments_ or other Oriental romances, but such as one scarcely expects to find within eight days' easy journey of sober-minded, old, matter-of-fact England. "That must be the Kremlin," exclaimed Fred. "Well, it is a curious place!" "There can be no doubt about it," observed Cousin Giles. "And that gate to the left, under the high tower, with the lamp and the picture over it, must be the Holy Gate. Let us go through it. It leads us at once, I see by the map, to the terrace overlooking the river." As they went down the place towards the river, they found themselves before a fine bronze group on a high pedestal. "Oh, those must be the statues of the two patriots, Posharskoi, the general who drove away the Tartars, and Minin, the merchant who devoted his fortune to the support of the army with which the victory was won. We will read about them by and by," said Cousin Giles. As they stood there, on their right side were the walls of the Kremlin, on their left the front of the bazaar, while some way beyond appeared a most extraordinary-looking church, the Cathedral of Saint Basil. It has nine domes or cupolas,--one large one in the centre, and eight round it, each one painted of a different colour, with various ornaments; some are in stripes, some in checks, some red, some blue, some green, while the structure on which these domes stand consists of all sorts of ins and outs; windows, and stairs, and pillars, and arches--all, too, of different colours, green, and yellow, and red predominating. Harry looked at it for a minute, and then burst into a fit of laughter. "Well, that is the funniest building I ever saw," he exclaimed. "It looks as if it was built up of sentry-boxes, and Hansom's cabs, and dovecots, and windmills, and pig-sties, and all sorts of other things. It was built, I see, by Ivan the Cruel, and it is said that he was so pleased with its strangeness that he put out the eyes of the unfortunate architect, to prevent his ever building another like it." "Pleasant gentleman he must have been," observed Evergreen. "A new way he took to reward merit." "Rather an old way," said Cousin Giles. "I do not think that any sovereign would venture on such a proceeding now-a-days." Putting off their visit to the bizarre little cathedral, they turned to the right through the Sacred Gate. Mr Evergreen did not observe that every one passing under it took off his hat, and very nearly got a prod from the sentry's bayonet for his neglect of that ceremony. The story goes, that the picture over the gateway was unscorched by fire, and that the lamp continued burning all the time the French were in occupation of the city, untrimmed and unattended. A newly-recruited regiment of soldiers, without arms, were marching through, and it was curious to observe each man in succession doff his cap and cross himself as he passed the spot. High and low, rich and poor, all do the same. The only persons who neglected the duty were some wild-looking, dark-eyed lads, whose marked features and olive complexions at once proclaimed them to be Zingari or gipsies, of whom a great number are found in Russia. Moscow is said, like Rome, to stand on seven hills, of which that occupied by the Kremlin is the highest. It is not, however, as much as a hundred feet above the Moscowa, which flows in a horseshoe form directly to the south of it. It is enclosed by four walls of irregular length--that at the west end being so short that the space it occupies is almost triangular. Round the walls are about eighteen towers, which vary in shape and height, though they all have high-pointed roofs covered with green tiles. Outside the walls are gardens with grass, and trees, and gravel walks. In the interior, on the south side, is a magnificent esplanade and terrace overlooking the river, and the strange jumble of coloured buildings which compose the city. The rest of the ground is occupied with a collection of churches of all shapes and sizes and colours, and towers, and convents, and palaces. One palace, however, surpasses them all in beauty and size, though its shining white walls and richly-carved facade and general bran-new appearance look sadly out of place among all the venerable, grotesque, many-coloured, odd-shaped, Byzantine edifices which are dotted about in its neighbourhood. It looks like some huge intruder into the place, which all the old inhabitants are collecting to put forth again; or like an emu in a poultry-yard, at which all the parti-coloured cocks and hens and ducks are crowing, and cackling, and quacking, in a vain endeavour to frighten him out. It required more than one visit to the spot before our friends could learn the geography of the place, and distinguish the numerous churches of all sizes, and heights, and shapes, and varieties of outside and inside adornment. The chief, called the Cathedral, has its walls painted with subjects taken from Scripture, which to the purer taste of Protestants appear shocking and blasphemous. However, our travellers did not then attend to the details of the strange occupants of the Kremlin. Their object was to obtain a comprehensive view of the city from the summit of that gaunt old monster, the Tower of Ivan Veleki. They first, however, examined the huge bell which stands on a pedestal at its foot. This bell was once suspended on the top of a tower, which was burnt, and the bell in its fall had a little piece broken out of it. When they got up to it, they found that this little piece was far too heavy for any ten men to lift, and that the gap it left was big enough for a man to walk through. The door of the old tower was open, and they mounted a well-conditioned flight of circular steps towards the summit. Having climbed to the top of the first flight, they passed through a door into another tower, where there hung a peal of huge bells,--one more vast than the rest, which, on being struck, gave forth a wondrously musical sound. "I should not like to be near that fellow while he was ringing," cried Harry; "he would make noise enough to deafen a rhinoceros." They did not stop to hear those famous bells, but climbed on till they stood high above all the surrounding edifices. As they gazed forth from the narrow stone balcony which ran round the dome, they beheld rising on every side a sea of spires, domes, cupolas, minarets, towers, and roofs of every conceivable colour, shape, and size, not altogether unlike a vast garden filled with brobdignagian tulips, but with more hues than any tulip bed ever possessed; and, in addition to the many-coloured tints of the rainbow, there appeared numberless balls of burnished gold and silver, glittering brightly in the sun. Cousin Giles first ascertained their position by his compass. Turning to the north, they observed in that direction fewer churches, but numerous villas and lines of wood, with the arid steppe beyond them. To the south-west arose the Sparrow Hills, those celebrated heights whence Napoleon and his then victorious army first caught sight of that magic city which they deemed was soon to be the reward of all their toils, but yet which, ere many days had passed, was to prove the cause of their destruction. In the same direction the Moscowa was seen flowing down towards the city, to circle round a portion of it under the walls of the Kremlin, and then to run off again at an acute angle to the east. To the south, on a plain near the banks of the river, rose high above other buildings the red towers and walls of the Donskoy Convent, several other convents, carefully painted of different colours, being scattered about. "The birds which have their nests there can have no fear of mistaking their proper abodes on their return from their morning flight," observed Harry, who generally formed quaint notions on what he saw. Directly below them were the numerous and strange gold, and black, and blue, and green domes of the churches of the Kremlin,--its dark-green pointed towers, its wide gravelled esplanade, the roofs of its vast palaces and public buildings, its belt of turreted walls and gardens with their green lawns and shade-giving trees; but stranger still was the city itself, with its thousands of coloured cupolas, turrets, domes, spires, roofs, and walls. To define this strangeness more clearly, there were domes of bright-blue, with golden stars and golden chains hanging from the golden crosses which surmounted them. There were some domes of size so vast that they looked like huge mountains of gold; some were of dark blue, and others of green and gold; some were black, and others shone like burnished steel; some were perfectly white, others grey, and others of the lightest blue, scarcely to be distinguished from the tint of the azure expanse amid which they reared their heads, except by the golden ball and cross and glittering chains above their summits. Again, some of the domes were of red and green stripes, and some of bright yellow, and pale yellow, and red; and some towers were surmounted by gigantic crowns, open and outspreading, as well as globe-like. The roofs and walls also exhibited a strange difference in their tints, though green, and red, and black, and grey, and brown predominated among the first; while the latter were white, and buff, and green, and blue, and deep red, and pink. Truly it was a strange scene, such as they had never before beheld, and could scarcely hope to behold elsewhere. They returned to the top of the tower again in the evening, just as the setting sun was throwing his glory giving rays across this richly-jewelled expanse, which shone forth in a perfect blaze of light, coloured by every hue of which the rainbow can boast. It is difficult to imagine the vast number of domes and cupolas which meet the eye in this strange city. There are said to be a thousand churches, though probably there are not so many. Few of these churches have less than five domes, and some have ten. Each tower also has a dome on its top, surmounted by a golden cross and chains. A large proportion of these domes are covered with gold, and some with sheets of silver; the others are either black and white, or of the various hues already described. Moscow may, indeed, most properly be called the Golden City. The only rule which the church architect here appears to observe is, to endeavour to make every new church as dissimilar as possible to every other existing in the city, in colour, shape, and size; yet they all evidently belong to the same style. Altogether the venerable Kremlin and the buildings it contains, with the mass of coloured edifices which surround it, form one of the strangest architectural jumbles in the universe. _ |
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