Professors in Russia have an additional advantage, owing to the fact that they become habitual guests and in a measure members of the family. A professor with some pretension to distinction, occupies on the hearth, between friend and relation, a position which is of the nature of both, and keeps it as long as he likes, scarcely ever losing it except through his own fault.

  Many of my pupils wished to regard me as such, and among others the head of the police, M. de Gorgoli, one of the noblest and best-hearted men I ever knew. Of Greek origin, handsome, tall, well set up and skilled in all exercises, he, with Count Alexis Orlov and M. de Bobrinski, was certainly typical of the real nobility. Excelling in every form of sport, from riding to tennis, in the first rank as an amateur fencer, liberal as a Russian nobleman should be, he was at once the protector of strangers and of his fellow citizens, who could depend on an interview at any hour of the day or night. In a city like St. Petersburg, that is to say in this monarchical Venice, where no report gives back an echo, where the Mocka and Catherine canals, like those of the Giudecca and Orfano, give up their dead without a sound, where the butchniks who watch at the corner of every street often inspire terror rather than allay fear, Major Gorgoli was answerable for the public safety. Everyone, seeing him in his light drosky, drawn by horses as speedy as gazelles, with a fresh team four times a day, ceaselessly patrolling the twelve quarters of the city, the markets and the bazaars, shut the door of his house every night in peace and security, perfectly certain that this visible providence would keep his eyes open in the dark. I will give a proof of his ceaseless vigilance. During the twelve years that M. de Gorgoli had been head of the police he had not quitted St. Petersburg for a single day.

  Perhaps there is no city in the world where one can rest so secure at night as in St. Petersburg. The police watch over both those who are shut up in their houses and those who are traversing the streets. At various spots huge wooden towers have been erected tall enough to overlook all the houses, which indeed have seldom more than two or three floors. Two men are always on the look out at the top of the towers; the moment a spark or a flash or a cloud of smoke denotes a fire, they ring a bell communicating with the base of the tower, and while the horses which are kept in harness day and night are being fastened to the pumps and water barrows, they point out the quarter of the city where danger threatens. Firemen and engines set out at a gallop. The minimum time necessary to reach a given spot has been exactly calculated and they are bound to get there to the second; now in France it is the householder who comes and wakes up the police, whereas in St. Petersburg the police come to him shouting: “Get up, your house is on fire.”

  As to burglary, it is practically nonexistent. For though the Russian lower orders may be thieves, or rather, to make use of an expression which better describes how this failing is regarded by them, though they may be pilferers, they will never break a window pane or force open a door; so much is this the case that a letter may be entrusted confidently to a mujik so long as it is sealed, although he may have seen bank notes to the value of ten thousand roubles enclosed within it, while it would be unsafe to leave a kopek lying about within his reach.

  Thus do the stay-at-homes dwell in peace. As to the wanderers through the streets, they have little to fear except from the street sentries, whose business it is to protect them; but the latter are such cowards that a single man armed with a stick or a pistol can put ten of them to flight. These miserable creatures are forced then to fall back upon some unfortunate belated girl to whom in any case robbery can mean no great loss or an assault be the cause of much shame. However, everything has its good points; during the winter nights, when in spite of the public lamps, the darkness is so profound that the horses are in constant danger of running into each other, the sentry is always at hand to warn the drivers of the danger they are running. His eyesight is so accustomed to the obscurity in which he dwells that he can distinguish on the darkest night a sledge, a drosky or a barouche noiselessly approaching over the snow, which but for his warning would dash into some other vehicle coming up like lightning in the opposite direction.

  From November to March, the occupation, never an easy one, of these poor wretches, who are paid only twenty roubles a year, so I am told, is fraught with positive danger to life. In spite of the heavy clothes they wear, in spite of all the precautions taken to ward off its attack, the insidious cold penetrates through cloth and fur.

  Then the night watchman has not the determination to compel himself to keep walking; a profound languor takes possession of him, a treacherous drowsiness steals over him, he goes to sleep standing, and unless some officer on his rounds happens to pass at that moment and has him thrashed mercilessly until the blows cause his blood to circulate again through his body, there is an end of him, he wakes no more and on the morrow he is discovered stiff and stark in his sentry box.

  During the winter before my arrival in St. Petersburg, one of these poor fellows was found to have died like this, and when they tried to remove him, fell with his forehead against a post; his neck broke off short, and his head rolled like a ball to the other side of the road.

  After several days’ search, I at length lighted upon some suitable apartments by the side of the Catherine canal, that is to say, in the centre of the town. The rooms were furnished, with the exception of a mattress and a couch, which I procured, for the use of a bed is confined to the wealthy, and is looked upon as a luxury by the peasants, who go to rest on their stoves, and by the tradespeople, who sleep in skins on arm chairs.

  Very pleased with the fresh arrangements I had just concluded, I was returning from the Catherine canal to the Admiralty, when the desire seized me to have a vapour bath, quite oblivious of the fact that it was Sunday. In France I had often heard of these establishments, so as I was passing in front of a bathing house I decided I would profit by the occasion. I went up to the door and in exchange for two and a half roubles, say two shillings English, I received a ticket of admission and was shown into the first room, which is used for undressing; this room is of the ordinary temperature.

  While I was taking off my clothes in the company of a dozen other people, a youth came and asked me if I had brought a servant, and on my answering in the negative, he enquired of what age, price and sex I would like the person to be who was to rub me.

  Such a request necessitated an explanation; I asked for one and was told that children and men belonging to the establishment were always ready to perform this duty, but if women were wanted, they were summoned from a neighbouring house.

  When the choice is made, the person who has been selected strips like the bather and enters with him into the second room which is raised to blood heat. For an instant I stood dumbfounded; then my curiosity getting the better of my shame, I selected the youth who had spoken to me. Scarcely had I made known my choice than he began his preparations, and the next moment was as naked as myself.

  Then he opened the door and pushed me into the second room.

  I thought that some modern Mephistopheles had conducted me to his revels, without my suspecting it.

  Imagine three hundred people stark naked, of all ages and of both sexes, men, women, children and aged folks, of whom one half were buffeting the other, with cries, shouts of laughter and strange contortions, and all without the faintest idea of shame. The fact is that in Russia the people are so down-trodden and degraded that their habits closely resemble those of brute beasts.

  At the end of ten minutes I complained of the heat, so returning to the first room I put on my clothes, and throwing two roubles to my attendant, fled from the place, revolted at such demoralization, which seems to be so natural to the lower orders that no one had mentioned it to me.

  I followed the street of the Resurrection, my mind lost in thought at what I had just witnessed, when I ran up against a large crowd who were pressing into the courtyard of a magnificent mansion. Urged by curiosity, I followed on their heels and saw that this huge concourse had been attracted by the preparations being made to administer the knout to a serf. I was about to withdraw, feeling no inclination to witness such a spectacle, when one of the windows was opened and a couple of girls came out on to the balcony, placing there an armchair and a velvet cushion; behind the two girls there appeared the creature whose delicate limbs feared the contact with the stone, but whose eyes did not dread the sight of blood. Just then a murmur ran through the crowd and the words: “The Gossudarina, the Gossudarina,” were repeated in a low tone by a hundred voices, and there was no mistaking their meaning.

  In truth I recognized, in spite of the furs which enveloped her, the beautiful Machinka of the Minister’s household. One of her former companions, it was said, had had the misfortune to act disrespectfully towards her, and she had insisted that an exemplary punishment would act as a warning to the others not to imitate his example. One might have supposed that this would have satisfied her vengeance; on the contrary, it did not satisfy her to know that the victim had been punished, she wanted to see him take his punishment. For myself, I hoped, in spite of what Louise had told me of her cruelty, that she had come out to pardon the wretch, or at least to mitigate his sentence, I remained among the spectators.

  The Gossudarina had heard the murmur which greeted her appearance; but instead of experiencing fear or shame, she ran her eyes over the multitude with so haughty and disdainful an air that a queen could not have acted better; then sitting in the armchair and placing her elbow on the cushion, she rested her head upon one of her hands while with the other she caressed a white greyhound which stretched out its long, snake-like head along its mistress’s knees.

  It seemed in fact that her appearance was the signal for the performance to begin, for no sooner was the fair spectator seated on the balcony than a door in the basement opened and the culprit was dragged forward by two mujiks, each holding a cord fastened around his wrists, and followed by two other executioners, each carrying a knout.

  He was a fair-haired youth, with an emotionless countenance and decided and striking features. Then a strange rumour passed through the crowd; some said that the young man, who was the minister’s head gardener, had fallen in love with Machinka when she was still a serf, and that the girl loved him, so much so that they were going to be married, when the minister cast his eyes upon her and raised or lowered her, which ever you will, to the position of mistress. From that moment, by a strange revulsion of feeling, the Gossudarina conceived a violent hatred towards the youth, and he had already experienced the effect of this change, as if she were afraid that her master might suspect her of still entertaining her former sentiments. The affair reached its climax the previous day, when she had encountered the companion of her slavery in a pathway in the garden, and in answer to something he had said, she cried out that he was insulting her, and on the minister’s return she had demanded the condign punishment of the culprit.

  Preparations for the punishment had been made beforehand. They consisted of a sloping board with an iron ring to encircle the victim’s neck and two posts fixed right and left to which his arms might be bound. The knout itself was a whip with a handle about two feet long; to this handle was fastened a lash of plaited leather about twice the length of the handle, and terminating in an iron ring to which was fastened another strip of leather not more than half the length of the other, about two inches in thickness but decreasing regularly until it ended in a point. This end is soaked in milk and then dried in the sun until it becomes as hard and sharp as the blade of a knife. As a rule the lash is changed after every six strokes, for the blood softens the leather; but, in the present instance, this was unnecessary, for the victim was to receive only twelve strokes and there were two performers. Moreover the two executioners were none other than the minister’s coachmen, who had been selected for the business owing to their familiarity with the whip; nor did they forfeit the friendship of their comrade, who, when the opportunity presented itself would take their revenge, but without any feeling of rancour and merely as dutiful servants obeying orders. Besides, it often happens that at the same performance the executioner and the culprit change places and more than once during my visit to Russia I saw great nobles, in a sudden burst of anger against their servants, and having nothing at hand with which to strike them, order them to catch hold of each others’ hair and hit each other on the nose. It must be owned that at first there was some hesitation and timidity about obeying this order, but presently the pain would stir them up, each one strove his hardest and hit with all his might, while the master kept shouting: “Harder, you rascals, harder,” and then when he thought the punishment enough, he had only to say “Enough.’’ At this word the combat ceased as if by magic, the pugilists retired to wash their bleeding faces in the same trough and returned arm in arm as if nothing had passed between them.

  On this occasion the culprit was not going to get off so easily. The mere preparations for the punishment were enough to inspire in me a profound feeling of disgust, and yet I felt rooted to the spot by that strange fascination which attracts human beings to the side of fellow sufferers, and I must confess that I remained; besides I wanted to see to what lengths this woman’s cruelty would go.

  The two executioners approached the young man, stripped him to the waist, stretched him on the scaffold, adjusted his neck within the iron band and bound his arms to the two posts; then one of the executioners having pushed back the crowd, in order to preserve for the actors of this terrible scene a semi-circular space which would allow them plenty of room, the other ran forward, stood on the tips of his toes, and gave a cut so that the lash wound itself twice round the culprit’s body where it left a bluish furrow. Although he must have felt frightful pain, the unhappy wretch uttered no cry.

  At the second blow some drops of blood oozed from his skin.

  At the third it spouted out.

  From this moment the whip fell upon raw flesh, so much so that after each cut the executioner drew the lash through his fingers to squeeze out the blood.

  After six strokes the other executioner took his place with a fresh whip; from the fifth stroke to the twelfth, the sufferer gave no sign of sensibility, with the exception of a nervous contraction of the hands, and if it had not been for a slight muscular movement, which caused his fingers to quiver at each blow, one would have thought him dead.

  When the punishment was over, they untied the victim; he had almost fainted and could not stand up; yet he had not uttered a single cry, nor even emitted a groan. As for me I must confess I could not understand such insensibility or such courage.

  Two mujiks held him up under the arms and led him back towards the door through which he had made his appearance; just as he was entering, he turned round, looked at Machinka and muttered a few words in Russian which I could not understand. No doubt these words were an insult or a threat, for his companions pushed him hurriedly under the arch. The only answer the Gossudarina vouchsafed was a haughty smile, then drawing a gold box from her pocket she gave her favourite greyhound some bonbons, summoned her attendants and went off leaning on their shoulders.

  The window shut behind her, and the crowd seeing that all was over melted away in silence. Some of those who composed it shook their heads, as if to say that such inhumanity in a young and beautiful creature would, sooner or later, draw upon her the vengeance of God.

  CHAPTER IX

  CATHERINE used to say that St.

  Petersburg could not boast of a winter and a summer, but only two winters; one white, the other green.

  We were rapidly approaching the white winter, and I must say, that as far as I was concerned, it was not without a certain amount of curiosity that I saw it coming. I like an exaggerated view of a country, for it is only then its true character shows up.

  It would be better to stay in France than visit St. Petersburg in summer, or Naples in winter, for really nothing representative of either can be seen at such times.

  The Czarevitch Constantine had returned to Warsaw without having discovered anything of the plot which had brought him to St. Petersburg; and the Emperor Alexander, who felt himself invisibly surrounded by a vast conspiracy, sadder than ever, had left the beautiful trees of his beloved Tsarskoe-Selo, when leaves began to cover the ground. The glowing days and the pale nights had disappeared, no more azure skies, no more sapphires rolling along the waves of the Neva, no more Aeolian music, no more gondolas filled with women and flowers. I had a fancy to revisit once more those wonderful islands which I found on my arrival carpeted with strange plants, dense foliage and gigantic blossoms; but the plants had been removed into their greenhouses for the next eight months. I came in search of palaces, temples and delightful parks, I saw bare spots like floating rafts enveloped in fog, around which the birches were waving their dismantled branches, and the fir trees their sombre limbs, all laden with funeral fringes, while the inhabitants, those brilliant birds of summer, had already fled to St. Petersburg. I had followed the advice which had been given me on my arrival by my friend from Lyons at the table d’hôte, and wrapped up in furs purchased at his establishment, I ran from one end of the town to the other to give my lessons, which however almost always developed into chats rather than instruction on fencing. M. de Gorgoli particularly, who, after thirteen years’ service as Chief of the Police, had sent in his resignation as the result of an altercation with General Milarodovitch, the Governor of the town, and had returned to private life, was feeling the need of rest after so strenuous a time, made me stay for hours at a time talking to him about France, and giving an account of my adventures as if to a friend. Next to him M. de Bobrinski showed me the greatest marks of affection, and among the presents which he was always giving me was a very handsome Turkish sabre. As to Count Alexis, he was always my most enthusiastic supporter, although I rarely visited him since he was always busy with his acquaintances in St. Petersburg or even in Moscow, for notwithstanding the two hundred leagues which separate the two capitals, he was always on the road. Of such strange contradictions is the Russian fashioned that, by nature the slave of indolence, he easily allows himself to be captured by the feverish activity of ennui.

 

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