“But then the Czar, just like Louis XIV. in France, fearing the growing influence of the aristocracy, gave to the peasantry the lands they had hitherto merely farmed. The Emperor himself undertook to indemnify the lords, reserving to himself the right of receiving, in the form of a land tax, the established rents, which, in the absence of such a liberality,—a liberality more apparent than real—the peasant would have continued paying to his lord. Since that time, the lords, deprived of their authority, have almost all abandoned their lands; the peasantry discover that the profits of their lands are absorbed by the Imperial tax; and this tax, itself inequitably assessed, does not, without much difficulty, find its way into the coffers of the state. The consequence of this enfranchisement, accorded solely with the object of increasing the Czar’s authority, is an injury in the first place to the serfs, then to the nobility, and finally to the state.”
This noble, as it appears, would admit no advantage whatever. The most insignificant social changes, however just—and there are none now in Russia that are not—appeared to him in the light of iniquities.
In the presence of these retrograde views, the political creed of the most ardent French Legitimists would appear revolutionary.
I was very much entertained, nevertheless, the evening I passed with him, where the old Russian manners and habits were scrupulously observed. When we rose from the supper table each of the guests went up to the host and hostess to shake hands in token of gratitude, to which they replied in the prescribed form: “I beg you will excuse me for what God has this day given me to eat, when I have the honour to receive you.” And to this they added such compliments as: “À votre santé”; “Les absents n’ont pas toujours tort.”
These complimentary customs, however amiable they may seem externally, lose a great deal of their sincerity when the motive that gives rise to them becomes apparent; and this undoubtedly is vanity, and especially the vain desire of exhibiting a little magnificence and expense. The real meaning of these fine phrases is: “I pray you to take notice that I have just offered myself a bottle of champagne, and the satisfaction it gives me in making you a witness of this luxurious habit surpasses any other pleasure I could possibly get out of it.”
The Tartar population that enlivens the streets of Kazan contributes very much to the picturesqueness of the city. Notwithstanding that they have been deprived of their territory ever since 1552, the Tartars can, with a very good grace, hold up their heads wherever they show themselves in Kazan, for they are not only the founders of the city, but they defended it with great bravery against their enemies, who captured it only after severe losses. After having made several bold sorties and repelled many desperate assaults, they courageously bore their sufferings from the want of water—a calamity the Russians inflicted on them by cutting off their communications with the Volga. When the last hope of victory died away the Tartar queen flung herself headlong from the top of the Sonnbec tower—a building which remains well preserved to the present day.
This interesting tower, from its combination of the minaret and the pagoda, reminds one of the people whose features are half Arab and half Mongol. It stands on a commanding eminence over the city, and forms certainly one of its most beautiful and attractive objects.
The Tartar harems are much less accessible than those of the Bosphorus or of Tunis, perhaps because Mahomedan fanaticism, in being here roused through impatience of Christian domination, has become all the more uncompromising. I therefore found it impossible to catch a glimpse of a single individual of these jealously guarded communities; and I was rather disappointed, because in judging from their lords, I had formed an idea that they must be very beautiful. The regularity and symmetry of features of the Arab race are associated in the Tartars with great muscular strength, and the dignified and haughty glance of a race impatient of conquest. This highly favoured physique is accompanied with moral attributes as elevated, and the Russians, however disdainfully they treat this people, have nevertheless adopted the proverb: “Honest and faithful as a Tartar.”
Kazan is the last European city on the road to Siberia that still preserves a European aspect, in so far as many of its houses are built of stone, and are ranged in streets of definite form. I was, therefore, getting impatient to quit it, and to see something of an Asiatic character.
Constantine and I went together to purchase a supply of eatables for our journey. We laid in a supply of sausages, some caviare, cheese, not forgetting white bread, which, when soaked in tea, is the principal part of the subsistence on a journey in Siberia. To venture on a journey in these parts, one should be neither a gourmet nor a gourmand. I have often been astonished to find how very little is necessary to sustain the human body, and wonder why we Frenchmen at home take so much trouble to give our stomachs so little rest and so much unnecessary work.
We went through the operation, for the second time, of getting into our three heavy fur garments, and on the 22nd of December, at four in the afternoon, we were gliding along again cosily, side by side, over the frozen snowy dust of the road leading to Siberia.
In order to go at a brisk rate in a sledge, it is necessary that the snow over which it is moving be well beaten down. Private sledges are not numerous enough to prepare a way by crushing the snow, so this work is done by sledges carrying goods; and since these follow in a line in the wake of one another, the beaten part of the road, on which one is desirous of gliding, is of very limited width. The consequence of this narrowness of the chosen way is that two sledges never pass without clashing against each other; nor are the yemschiks very solicitous about avoiding a collision, since they know perfectly well their own necks are quite safe, the long projecting wooden guards, which I have already described, being amply sufficient to protect them from danger. The sledges thus guarded whisk rapidly along one against the other, sometimes striking one another with a shock in which horses and sledge are thrown down and shot off at a tangent across the road.
The worst kind of these collisions is the shock from two sledges of unequal size: the larger of the two, being generally too heavy to be simply hurled aside by its adversary, as is the case with the lighter vehicle, is taken underneath and lifted instead, and occasionally high enough to be almost overturned.
But it is never a complete overthrow: the sledge thus thrown off or lifted slides along on a single skate and on the end of the long wooden guard, and they do not stop for so trifling a matter. The yemschik, unable to keep himself on an inclined plane without holding, hangs on to the apron and maintains his place by the sheer strength of his arms; the horses still go on at a gallop, and the travellers proceed three or even five hundred yards in this half-tilted posture till some rut in the road brings the sledge down again on both skates.
Each part of the road to Siberia has its special advantages and disadvantages, but the incidents just mentioned are of common occurrence when the wanderer no longer travels over a frozen river. The most disagreeable effect of this constant jolting, to an inexperienced traveller, is the want of sleep. During the whole night after we left Kazan I never closed my eyes a moment, whilst Constantine gave evident proofs of the soundness of his slumber by a prolonged sonorous snoring, equally uninterrupted whether he fell on me or I fell on him, crushing him even with all my weight.
I was bemoaning sadly within myself a long, tedious night, passed without sleep, when we came up at daybreak with a caravan of exiles. These poor wretches, dragging their chains afoot, were wearily trudging along, with a long journey before them, to the far end of Eastern Siberia. I had not at that time more pity for assassins and thieves than I have now, and since the day I passed the Russian frontier, conspirators have appeared to me no better, perhaps even worse; still it touched me to the heart to see these unhappy creatures, with a wearisome journey of three thousand leagues before them, and their fate too—if they lived to reach the end of the dreary march—instead of there finding a home to cheer them, to find nothing but a gaol!
A few sledges were following this caravan, and when I inquired why they thus accompanied it, I was briefly informed: “For the invalids and princes.” A phrase that had on reflection a great deal of meaning in it, and suggested