A Winter in Russia

THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES I j^ e^^i>2>t / (r^ A «- <^ / z<^^^ /z- ^^^ I c /' /^'^ ^ ' ^y / <5^ «^' '^ <^ ^^ ^ r t. «- <r ^ /;^7V A Winter in Russia FROM THE FJiENCS OF THf:OPHILE GAUTIER BY M. M. RIPLEY Tratislator ofMadame Craven's '' Fletirange''^ NEW YORK HENBY HOLT AND COMPANY 187.t /^.**-«. 1'rz^l^t'->. oj-: iJep^^ ^y Entered accortUng txj Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by HENRY HOLT, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. John F. Trow & Son, Printers, 205-213 East i2TH St., New York. Maclauchlan, Storeotypor, 145 & 147 Mulberry St., near Grand, N. Y. PK TO E. M. C. i.»<^fVvviG5x —— CONTENTS OnAPTER TAQB I, —Beblin 1 II.—IlAMBXIRa 13 III. —SCHLESWIG 23 rV,—LUBECK 44 v.—CBossiNa THE Baltic 56 VI.—St. Petersbueg 66 VIL—Winter.—The Neva 88 VIII.—Winter 100 IX. Races on the Neva 115 X. Details op Interiors 125 XI.—A Ball at the Winter Palace 136 XII. —The Theatres 145 XIII.—The Tchoukine-dvor 154 Xrv.—ZiCHY 103 XV.—St. Isaac's 187 XVI.—Moscow 236 XVn.—The Kremlin 2G1 XVIII.—Troitza 279 XIX.—Byzantine Art 298 XX. Eeturn to France 324 A WINTER IN RUSSIA. BEKLKSr. seem scarce!}^ to have started, and yet already WE inter- France lies far behind lis. Concerning the mediate space traversed in his flight by the nocturnal hijipogriff, I shall say nothing. Imagine me at Deutz, across the Ehine, contemplat- ing from the end of the bridge of boats that silhouette of^Cologne, which the Jean-Marie Farina boxes have rendered so familiar, now outlined against the splendors of a sunset sky; The bell of the Rhenish railway strikes. We take our seats, and steam rushes off with the train at a gallop. To-morrow 'at six, I shall bo in Berlin; yesterday, wlien the street-lamps Avcrc lighted, I was in Paris. This surprises no one but myself, in our marvellous nineteenth century. The train spins along across great plains gilded by with it, sleep. tlie setting sun ; soon night comes, and At stations remote from one another, German voices shout German names; I do not recognize them by the sound, and look for them in vain upon the map. Mag- nificent great station-houses are shown up by gaslight in the midst of surrounding darlcness, then disappear.^ train keeps on its We pass Hanover and Minden ; the way ; and morning dawns. 1 2 A WINTER IJV RUSSIA. On either side stretched a peat-moss, upon which the mist was producing a singuhir mirage. We seemed to be upon a canseway traversing an immense lake whose waves crept np gently, djnng in transparent folds along the edge of the embankment. Here and there a group of trees or a cottage, emerging like an island, completed the illusion, for such it was. A sheet of bluish mist, floating a little above the ground and curling up all along its upper surface under the rays of the sun, caused this aqueous phantasmagoria, resembling the Fata Mor- gana of Sicily. In vain did ray geographical knov,'l- edge protest, disconcerted, against this inland sea, which no map of Prussia indicates ; my eyes would not give it up, and later in the day, when the sun, rising higher, had dried up this imp^ginary lake, they I'equired the presence of a boat to make them admit that any body of water could be real. Suddenly, upon the left were massed the trees of a great park ; Tritons and Nereids appeared, dabbling in the basin of a fountain ; there was a dome and a circle of columns rising above extensive buildings ; and this was Potsdam. Notwithstanding the rapidity of the train, I observed a couple, matutinally sentimental, pacing one of the de- serted avenues. The lover had an excellent chance to liken his mistress to Aurora ; doubtless he had recited to her all the sonnets that ever were made upon "Zc^ 6elle viatineuse.'''' A few moments later we were in Berlin, and a flacrc set me down at the Hotel de llussie. One of the keenest pleasures of a traveller is that first drive through a hitherto unknown city, destroying or confirming his preconceived idea of it. All that is pe- culiar and characteristic seizes upon the yet virgin eye, wliose percei)tive power is never more clear. My idea of Berlin had been drawn in great measure from Hoffman's fantastic stories. In spite of myself, a Berlin, strange and grotesque, peopled with Anlic conn- BERLIN. 3 cillors, sandmen, Kreislcrs, archivist Lindnrsts, and stu- dent Ansehns, had reared itself within my brain, amid a fo£? of t()l)acco-sm()ke ; and here before me was a city re^-idarly built, stately, with wide streets, extensive public (grounds, imposing edifices of a style half-English, half-German, and modern to the last degree. As we drove along I glanced down into those cellars, with steps so polished, so slippei-y, so well-soaped, that one might slide in as into the den of an ant-lion,—to see if I might not discover Hoffman himself seated on a tun, his feet crossed upon the bowl of his gigantic pipe, and surrounded by a tangle of grotesque chimei-as, as he is represented in the vignette of the French translation of his stories; and, to tell the truth, there was nothing of the kind in tliese subterranean shops whose proprie- tors were just opening their doors ! The cats, of be- nignant aspect, rolled no phosphorescent eyeballs, like the cat Murr in the story, and they seemed quite incapa- ble of writing their memoirs, or of deciphering a score of Richard Wagner's. jSTothing is more prosaic than Berlin, and it needed all the wild imagination of the story-teller to lodge ]>han- toms in a city so full of daylight, so regular, so well- built, where the bats of hallucination could not find one dark corner in which to cling. These handsome stately houses, which are like palaces, with their columns and pediments and architraves, are built of l)rick f<jr the most part, for stone seems rare in tinted Berlin ; l)ut the brick is covered with cement or stucco, to simulate hewn stone ; deceitful seams indicate imaginary layers, and the illusion would be complete, were it not that in spots the winter frosts have detached the cement, revealing the red shades of the baked clay. Tiie necessity of ])aiiiting the whole fa9ade, in order to mask the nature of the material, gives the effect of enor- mous architectural decorations seen in open air. The salient parts, mouldings, cornices, entablatures, (consoles, are of wood, bronze, or cast-iron, to which suitable forms ; 4 A WINTER m RUSSIA. have been given ; wlien you do not look too closely tlic effect is satisfactory. Truth is the only thing lacking in all this splendor. The palatial buildings which border Regent's Park in London present also these porticos, and these columns with brick cores and plaster-fluting, which, by aid of a coating of oil paint, are expected to pass for stone or marble. Why not build in brick frankly, since its warm coloring and capacity for ingeniously varied arrange- ment furnish so many resources ? Even in Berlin I have seen charming houses of this kind which had the advan- tage of being truthful. A fictitious material always in- spires a certain uneasiness. The Hotel de Russie is very well located, and I pro- pose to sketch the view seen from its steps. It will give a fair idea of the general character of the city. The foreground is a quay bordering the Spree. A few boats witli slender masts are sleeping on the brown water. Vessels upon a canal or a river, in the heart of a city, have always a charming effect. Along the opposite quay stretches a line of liouses ; a few of them ai'C ancient, and bear the stamp thereof tlie king's palace makes the corner. A cupola upon an octagonal tower rises proudly above the other roofs, the square sides of the to'^ver adding grace to the curve of the dome. A bridge spans the river, reminding me, with its white marble groups, of the Ponte San Angelo at Pome. These groups—eight in number, if my memory does not deceive me—are each composed of two figures ; one aHogorical, winged, representing the country, or Glory; the other, a young man, guided through many trials to victory or immortality. These groups, in purely classic taste, are not wanting in merit, and show in some parts good study of the nude ; their pedestals are ornamented with medallions, whereon the Prussian eagle, half-real, half-heraldic, makes a flue appearance. Considered as a decoration, the whole is, in my opinion, somewhat too BERLIN. 5 ricli for the slmplicitj of the bridge, whicli opens mid- way to allow the passage of vessels. Farther on, through the trees of a public garden of some kind, a[>pcars tlie old Musenm, a gi'eat stmctnre in the Greek style, with Doric columns relieved against a painted background. At the corners of the roof, bronze horses hold by grooms are outlined npo;ii the sky. Behind this building, and looking sideways, you per- ceive the triangular pediment of the new Museum. On crossing the bridge, the dark fa9ade of the palace comes in view, v/itli its balustradod terrace; the carv- ings around the main entrance are in that old, exagger- ated (lerman rocoGo whicli I have seen before and have admired in the palace in Dresden.

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