RECOLLECTIONS OF IMPERIAL

RUSSIA

The Church of Saint Basil, Moscow.

Frontisinece.

RECOLLECTIONS OF
IMPERIAL RUSSIA

By MERIEL BUCHANAN ::

Author of "Petrograd," "Tania," "White
Witch" etc.

WITH N1NE7EEN ILLUSTRATIONS

U1a V

i

V

LONDON: HUTCHINSON & CO
PATERNOSTER ROW

1923

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. FIRST IMPRESSIONS 9

II. SOCIETY - - - - 21

III. THE COURT OF RUSSIA - - "33

IV. PETER THE GREAT - - - 51
V. CATHERINE — GRAND DUCHESS ! 69

VI. CATHERINE — EMPRESS ! - - - 90

VII. PAUL ------ 118

VIII. KIEV — THE MOTHER OF RUSSIAN CITIES - 141

IX. MOSCOW — IVAN THE TERRIBLE - - 164

X. THE LEGEND OF THE FALSE DIMITRI - - 183

XI. OTHER MEMORIES OF MOSCOW - 199

XII. THE SHORES OF THE BLACK SEA - - 215

XIII. THE COSSACKS - 229

XIV. RELIGION, MYSTICISM, MELODY AND COLOUR - 245
XV. THE SPIRIT OF BOLSHEVISM - 263

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

The Church of Saint Basil, Moscow Frontispiece

Facing page

The Palace of Peterhof - - - - 34

Podol Portion of Ancient Kiev - - - -58

A Village near Yalta - - - - - 80

Cherry Orchards near Bakhchi Serai - - - 80

Catherine the Great - - - - 94

Peter the Great - - - - - - 94

Moscow in Winter - - - - - 118

The Winter Palace, Petersburg - 142

Archway Facing the Winter Palace, Petersburg - - 142

The Neva — Spring - 166

The Neva— Winter - - - - - 166

A Bolshevik Demonstration in the Red Square, Moscow - 190

A Street in Petrograd, 1914 - 2I4

A Street in Petrograd, 1920 - 2I4

Members of the Aristocracy Selling their Clothes during the

Bolshevik Terror ----- 238

A Restaurant Wrecked by Bolsheviks - 238

Room in the Kremlin ----- 262

The Kremlin - - - - - " 262

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Recollections of Imperial Russia

CHAPTER I

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

It seems useless and futile to attempt to write another book
about Russia when so many hundreds have already been
written and when, in spite of all their quantity and length,
her secrets still remain unconquerable and unsolved. Radiant
beauty and stark, hideous ugliness, gladness and sorrow,
greatness and tragedy and brutal, savage cruelty — over them
all she draws a veil of impenetrable mystery, smiling with
soft, inscrutable eyes when people impatiently misjudge and
condemn her.

I myself cannot even attempt to understand, far less
explain, her wayward inconsistence ; all that I can do is
to try, very feebly and haltingly, to paint in words all those
different pictures of her that I have known and loved and
read of. Glowing and jewel-coloured the pageantries of
her past, like the splendid golden mosaics in her glorious
churches, and dark and sad and terrible the realities of her
tragic present.

Her history and legends are full of colour and romance and
mysticism, mingled always with crime and unspeakable
brutality. Her literature is great and wonderful, but
almost morbid in its utter hopelessness ; her music, even in
its turbulent gaiety, never loses its haunting sadness ; her
climate is grim and desolating and depressing ; and always,

9

io Recollections of Imperial Russia

in everything, she will remain divided from us by her abso-
lute dissimilarity and oppositeness.

In one of Claude Ahnet's Russian novels the heroine
exclaims : " £tes-vous sur que l'Angleterre soit parti du
monde que nous habitons, nous les Russes ? Ici, on ne
comprend rien a rien. Chez eux, on sait a l'avance tout
sur tout." And then, with true Russian inconsistency, she
adds : " C'est reposant, mais comme cela me parait vide."

Those words mark very clearly the division there is—
the fundamental difference which so many people cannot
realise. It is almost impossible for us, with our insular love
of order and regularity, and of life laid down in cut-and-dried
rules, to understand this obscure, confused impulsiveness
and uncertainty in all things, and, puzzled and impatient,
we pass judgment without pausing to consider the difference
of nature, climate, and temperament that will always leave
Russia an enigma and a mystery unsolved and incom-
prehensible.

The very first impression I had was one that is perhaps
not excessively poetical, but I think it must always have
forced itself with some intensity on any traveller getting out
of the train at one of the Russian frontier stations. It was,
in fact, impossible not to notice it, since it was a smell that
met one as soon as one let down the carriage window, and
I don't think there is any other smell in all the world quite
like it. So overpowering and all-pervading was it that one
thought despairingly that one would never get used to it ;
but gradually it became so much part of one's life that one
scarcely noticed it, and now I think of it almost with regret
because it is so individual to Russia that it has become
bound up with all my memories of her.

And yet it was not a smell of any one thing in par-
ticular, and though the Russian moujik took it with him

First Impressions n

wherever he went, it was not really because he himself was
unclean, as he invariably went to the public baths once a
week, boiled himself in steam, and had himself beaten with
birch rods afterwards by way of a rather drastic massage.
No, it was not actually a smell of dirt : it was made up, I
think, of high leather boots, of sheepskin coats, of cigarette
smoke, of cabbage soup, and of sunflower oil, which was
extensively used for cooking.

The other vivid memory I retain of our arrival at Wir-
ballen is the picture of the Tartar waiter who served us in
the Imperial waiting-rooms, which were always opened for
an Ambassador. He was a minute little man with a totally
bald head and a yellow, wizened face that was just like a
gnome's. He spoke an almost incomprehensible mixture
of English, French, German, and Russian, and he never
walked, but always ran, with small, quick, trotting steps and
flying coat-tails. He had been at the station for an un-
countable number of years ; he was there as usual the last
time we passed through Wirballen in the autumn of 1913,
smiling, bowing, scraping, fussing, and always glad to see
one. Poor little yellow-faced man ! I have often wondered
what became of him when the great cataclysms of War and
Revolution swept away all the old landmarks.

Of our arrival in St. Petersburg I can actually remember
very little, except that it was a hopelessly grey day of early
December, and that there seemed no light or colour anywhere .
The broad spaciousness of the streets somehow intensified
this general sense of magnificent dreariness. An early
snowfall had melted and was turning to yellow slush ; the
river looked dark and sullen, with pieces of half -frozen ice
floating slowly down towards the sea. The big red building
of the Embassy at the corner of the Quay and the Souvoroff
Square struck one at first as being more like a barracks than

12 Recollections of Imperial Russia

a residence, and it seemed impossible that one could ever
grow to look on it as a home.

That winter of 1910 happened to be a very late one, and
for days the same bleak sky stretched above the same
bleak streets, cold and grim and utterly cheerless. Then
at last the real snow came, and everything was changed.
The pieces of ice floating down the river from the Ladoga
Lake thickened, got jammed together, froze into white,
solid immobility. Here and there paths were smoothed and
cleared from one shore to another. By the Winter Palace,
where the old wooden bridge of boats had to be swung back
every winter, and where the big new bridge was still in
course of construction, a tramline was laid down on the ice,
and a little electric car spun across the fastness of the
imprisoned river. The dull, opaque greyness of the sky
lightened, a pale sunshine filtered through and struck
gleaming fire on the gold spire of the Cathedral of St. Peter
and Paul.

Sledges took the place of the rattling, noisy cabs and
carts ; a hush of peace and stillness settled over the town,
broken only by the occasional hoot of motors, the clang
of the tram-bells, the hoarse, warning shouts of the coach-
men. Moujiks in white aprons and brown fur caps swept
the snow in the streets, cartloads of it were thrown over into
the Neva, the hard frozen surface of the pavements was
strewn with sand and ashes. And slowly all the time the
clouds lifted; a deep, turquoise -blue sky laughed above a new
white world ; the yellow and red and pink stucco houses
struck gay, garish notes of colour ; spires and domes shone
with incredible brilliance ; the frozen river under its covering
of snow shimmered in a radiance that hurt one's eyes.

Vaguely I can detach certain individual pictures from
the bewildering chaos of memories, and I think almost one of

First Impressions 13

the clearest of these is our coachman, Ivan. He was an
enormous man with a square, black beard and slanting
dark eyes. His long, sapphire -blue coat, shaped like a
dressing-gown, was tied round the waist, lined with fur,
and padded out like a balloon. It was the absolute duty
of a Russian coachman to be as fat as possible, and, in addi-
tion, to have his coat filled out so as to add in every con-
ceivable way to his size. Apart from the fact of its being
necessary for the man's own sake, the original idea of this
was, I think, that in the little open one-horse sleighs people
sheltered themselves behind their coachman's back, and the
broader that back was, the more protection they got from
the icy wind.

In winter, Ivan wore a blue velvet three-cornered cap
with gold braid and fur round it, and a little cockade of
red, white, and blue in front, and in summer a queer little top-
hat that was very low and squat, and always looked rather
as if it had been sat on. He also had three broad gold
stripes down the back of his coat, these being the insignia
of an Ambassador's coachman, a Minister's having two stripes
and a Secretary's only one. Ivan drove with both arms
stretched stiffly out in front of him, the bright blue reins
wound round his fur-gloved hands, and he would always,
when nearing his destination, urge on the two long-tailed
horses to a terrific pace, and then, throwing himself back-
wards, would bring them to an abrupt standstill, during
which process they naturally very nearly sat down.

He was filled also with the absolute and immovable
conviction that everything must make way for an Am-
bassador's carriage, and he would accordingly drive straight
through the traffic, with a hoarse shout to trams, motors, and
carts to leave the road clear, which, needless to say, they were
not always obliging enough to do. He never seemed to mind

14 Recollections of Imperial Russia

how long one kept him waiting, but would sit for hours in
cold or heat, rain or snow, sometimes fast asleep and some-
times smoking a short clay pipe, which he would stuff hastily
inside his coat as soon as one appeared. But I never saw him
knock out the ashes, and I often wondered what happened
to a fully lighted pipe in the padded warmth of his volum-
inous clothes. Several times he came out dead drunk, and
was given notice ; but he inevitably came the next day,
asking to be forgiven, and swearing with tears in his eyes
that it should never happen again, and somehow he was
always believed and taken back.

In a Russian household there were always a countless
number of servants, and ours, though not purely Russian,
seemed to be no exception, for beside the chasseur, the porter,
the butler and footmen, the chef and sous-chef, Ivan, the
chauffeur, and the housemaids, there were an indefinite
number of moujiks who did everybody else's work as
well as their own. I don't know how many there were in
the kitchen and stables, but besides the big silent moujik
whose sole duty it was to carry logs of wood from room to
room, I can well remember the two little gnome-like brothers
who flitted about the house, beating carpets, cleaning win-
dows, and generally doing odd jobs. They were both tiny,
stunted men with thick curly hair, and I was never quite sure
which was which ; but I believe the eldest one was called
Feodor, and I know that he remained on with us during the
war and long after his brother had been called to the Front.

One of them had a wife, a hopelessly plain, pale-faced
slip of a woman, who seemed to be a sort of general scrub,
charwoman, and under-housemaid. For a long time it
didn't seem quite clear to which brother she really belonged,
and I well remember my poor mother's horror when she
discovered that they all three slept in the same room.

First Impressions 15

Eventually, however, she was identified as the younger
brother's wife, and when he was called to the Front I believe
she went back to her village.

But the most important member of the household, and
the one who ruled all the others with a rod of iron, was
William the chasseur. William's special business in life was
to look after my father and to accompany him everywhere,
armed with a huge sword with which, I assume, he was
expected to defend him against the assaults of possible
enemies ; but he seemed to add to this particular duty the
responsibility and care of the whole house and family.

It was William who drew up the list of visits that had
to be paid every afternoon. It was William who knew where
everybody lived, and who knew all the At Home days of
Ambassadresses, Ministers' wives, and Court ladies by heart.
It was William who always looked after our coats and over-
shoes, and would not allow anybody else to touch them.
It was he who, when we went to the Ballet, led the way to our
box, or, when we went shopping, told us which shops to go
to, or, when we travelled, arranged our journey and took our
tickets and looked after our luggage, and, when we went out,
always came with us on the box of the carriage or the motor,
and was furious and terribly hurt if he was left behind. He
was by birth a Lett, and before the war we always spoke to
him in German ; but from the day war was declared he
firmly refused to speak another German word, and we then
discovered that he spoke perfect and fluent English.

William wore a neat, dark green uniform with gold
epaulettes, and, on ordinary occasions, a military cap or
a helmet with dark green plumes, rather like a Bersaglieri ;
but if we were going to some official function or audience, he
would exchange this for a cocked hat with white feathers,

in which he looked nothing less than a field-marshal. He

B

1 6 Recollections of Imperial Russia

shared both Ivan's and the chauffeur's view that everything
must give way to an Ambassador's carriage, and the language
he used when sometimes a cart impeded our progress sounded
formidable and volcanic, though luckily we did not always
understand it.

In his way he was most distinctly an autocrat, and would
insist with a wooden and impassive face on what he con-
sidered to be the right thing. For instance, if after a long
round of visits, my mother suggested that we could go home,
William would often say severely, " It is Countess So-and-
So's At Home day, and Your Excellency has not yet been
to her." Wearily my mother would reply that Countess
So-and-So could be really left till next week, but William
remained entirely adamant. " I think it would be better
to go to her to-day," he would say, and we generally found
that in the end we had to give in to him.

Or sometimes, calling on some humble person whom
William (I am afraid he was not quite devoid of snobbishness)
considered not worthy of the attention, he would salute
respectfully when my mother told him to be sure and ask
whether Madame So-and-So were at home, disappear into
the house, and, coming out again in a few minutes, would
announce with a perfectly expressionless face that Madame
So-and-So was out, and that he had left cards. We knew, of
course, that he had never enquired at all ; but it was useless
to argue with him, and so, as usual, we let him have his own
way.

Very uncertain and confused are all these old memories
of mine, and I find I cannot arrange them in any order or
sequence, cannot tell when and how I first saw St. Isaac's
great golden dome, or the huge red building of the Winter
Palace, or the Cossacks riding past with long lances slant-
ing against a steel grey sky, or the first Ballet in the great blue

First Impressions 17

and white Opera House, or the first religious ceremony in
the Kazan Cathedral.

Certainly the bigness of everything was enormously
impressive, indeed, almost overwhelming, and perhaps it
was this very immensity that made it so difficult for one
to feel at home in a city that seemed in some strange way
impregnated with the bigness, the genius, and the cruelty
of the man who first dreamed of this northern capital which
was to be the window towards Europe of his huge, un-
ci vilised Empire.

Always, too, even on the most sunny days, there was a
sense of tragedy, a shadow that was indefinite and intangible,
but that seemed to creep up behind one like some evil,
haunting spirit, stretching out a claw-like, threatening hand
over the golden domes, the gay stucco houses, and the great
palaces along the quays. It had often been said that a
curse lay over Petersburg, and the old belief was that the
Neva would one day rise and swallow the town, leaving only
the spire of St. Peter and Paul sticking out of the waste of
grey waters. There were some people even who pretended
that on still evenings they had seen the head of some Gar-
gantuan, frightful monster lift itself out of the sullen waters
and look with evil gloating eyes on the town it would one
day devour.

Countless times in history the Neva had risen, flooding
the quays, submerging the lower quarters of the town,
sweeping away the wooden houses and rendering thousands
homeless. There are many old pictures and prints of
Petersburg with the streets turned into canals and people
going about in boats, and strange and sometimes gruesome
stories are told of the floods that at various times
threatened to destroy the town. Once, when the Winter
Palace was in danger, a cow and two calves were discovered

1 8 Recollections of Imperial Russia

in the moujiks' quarters on the top floor. Another time,
so great was the army of rats seeking refuge from the rising
water, that the Empress Catherine herself went round the
Palace placing traps to catch them. It was during one of
these floods, too, that the beautiful Helena Tarakanoff, who
was said to be the daughter of the Empress Elisabeth, was
drowned in her cell in the Fortress, where for twelve years
Catherine's fear and jealousy had held her prisoner.

Once the spoilt beauty of the Florentine Court, Charles
Radziwill, who schemed to be King of Poland, sought her
hand in marriage, but Catherine, divining, so the story goes,
his intriguing ambition, sent Alexis Orloff with three
ships to the coast of Italy. And Alexis, faithful to the
" Mother's " orders, ingratiated himself in Florentine society,
lured the unfortunate girl on board his flagship, and brought
her back to Petersburg to be shut in the lowest cell of the
Fortress and left there, till at last the waters of the Neva
topped the small open loophole and totally submerged the
wretched cell, while the jailers turned a deaf ear to the
prisoner's cries and entreaties to be saved.

Frequently during the years we were in Russia, if the wind
blew up from the sea, the smooth flowing river would be
turned into a heaving mass of yellow waters, lashing them-
selves against the bridges and parapets and rising with an
alarming velocity, while with every inchthey rose the cannons
from the Fortress boomed a warning to those living in the
low-lying quarters on the islands. I remember one night
especially, when it seemed that the monster hiding in the
waters would once more rise and devour the town. It was
during the winter months, and the river was chained in a
frozen mass of ice, but a gale of wind had been blowing all
day from the sea, added to a blinding snow-storm, which
made it almost impossible to go out. During the night the

First Impressions 19

gale became a hurricane, and, under their frozen, imprisoning
fastness, the waters rose, lifting the ice with them, and in
their mighty volume and strength breaking the thick blocks
asunder.

All night long the cannons thundered, the church bells
pealed, the mad wind howled up the desert of snow and ice
in the Gulf of Finland, and inch by inch the heaving,
cracking mass of the river rose, like a huge, white, threatening
animal straining at its leash. Then, just when the swaying
ice-blocks seemed as if they would top the stone parapets
of the quay, the wind changed, and slowly the turbulent
waters sank back into their prison, and the danger was over,
though already on the Petersburgskaya side many of the
low wooden houses had been inundated, and everywhere the
cellars and basements were flooded.

But always the menace of the river was there, and those
who remembered the stories of the bygone floods would
shake their heads and recall the old legend of the enormous
walnut tree that in long ago days grew on the square between
the Fortress of Peter and Paul and the little wooden Cathedral
of the Trinity. On its trunk it bore the marks of all the
different floods, and it was said that before Petersburg had
been built, and this tree stood solitary and lonely in the
desolation of marsh and swamp, the river one day had risen
so high as to submerge even its topmost branches. And
when, against his subjects' wishes, Peter began to build
his new capital, the whisper was spread abroad that one day
the river would again rise to the height of the walnut tree,
and that then Petersburg would be destroyed. Hearing
these stories, the Tsar, who feared neither God nor man,
had the tree cut down and those who had circulated the
legend cruelly punished.

And yet, with all his genius, all his power, all his absolute

20 Recollections of Imperial Russia

autocracy, Peter could not make his subjects love the town
he forced them to build. The damp, evil-smelling marshes
all round, the miasmas of the swamps, from which hundreds
died of malignant fever, the ever-present danger of floods,
made the nobles over and over again seek flight to their
beloved Moscow, only to be followed, bound, and brought
back by the pitiless order of the giant who ruled them, till
at last, with the passing of years, Petersburg was recognised
as the capital of Russia.

In the dim, golden dusk of the Cathedral of St. Peter and
Paul the body of the great Emperor rests in peace ; but
always it seemed to me that his spirit, with its strange
mingling of incredible genius, warm-hearted generosity, and
savage cruelty, still brooded over the city he had so loved.
Looking up at the marvellous equestrian statue by Falconet,
where Peter dominates the Neva, I have almost fancied that
the horse, brought back on its haunches, was checked only
for a moment in its furious gallop towards Eternity — that
the wind still swayed in the folds of the Emperor's cloak,
that the outstretched arm moved in a proud, sweeping
gesture, as if it said, " This town is mine, and I hold it
still."

On frosty mornings when the trees in the Alexander
Garden were a fairy-land of silver tracery, and the great dome
of St. Isaac's swum in a soft pink haze, on still, cold nights,
all blue and white beneath the faint, chill stars, on summer
evenings, magic in dim, opal-coloured loveliness, always that
statue seemed to stand out, vivid and alive, commanding
and threatening, with outflung arm and the thunder of
trampling hoofs.

Society 21

CHAPTER II

SOCIETY

The first Russian ball I ever went to was at the house of
Monsieur Stolypine, who was then Prime Minister. A few
years earlier, when he had been living out on the Islands,
there had been an attempt on his life ; the anarchist's
bomb, however, exploded prematurely, wrecked the balcony
of the nursery, and very seriously injured Monsieur Stoly-
pine 's eldest daughter. But though she was permanently
lame, she adored dancing, and the big white house, that was
so carefully guarded by the police, was often the centre of
a great deal of gaiety.

We had only just arrived, and therefore I knew nobody ;
but one was never allowed to feel out of it, or to suffer from
a lack of partners, owing to the custom of having at every
dance a master of ceremonies, whose duty it was to direct
the quadrilles and cotillon, and to see that no girl ever sat
out. There was no question, even, as to whether one wanted
to dance or whether the unfortunate young man on whom one
was foisted wanted to be one's partner. One was asked
before every quadrille whether one was engaged ; if one said
no, some outwardly submissive, but very likely inwardly
rebellious, young man was led up to one, meekly clicked his
heels, and asked whether he might have the pleasure of
dancing with one.

There were never very many waltzes, the one-step and

22 Recollections of Imperial Russia

two-step were considered slightly immoral, and most of the
evening was filled up with quadrilles, where everybody sat
round the room on little gold chairs and waited for their
turn. Generally these quadrilles began in a somewhat
formal and stately manner, but they invariably ended at
a hectic pace and in a scramble that rather resembled
kitchen lancers. After two or three quadrilles and a few
waltzes, the cotillon, which was the most important item
of the evening, and without which no ball was complete,
was announced with a great deal of fuss and preparation.
Here again the unfortunate master of ceremonies had to find
partners and vis-d-vis for everybody, and if there was an
overflow of men, and if one was sufficiently popular, one was
even occasionally allowed the luxury of two partners, and
after the little gold chairs had once more been put round
the room, sometimes three or four deep, everybody at last
settled down.

The cotillon figures differed, however, very little from
those of a quadrille, except that there were always a few
waltzes and a mazurka in between, and a wonderful succes-
sion of favours of ribbons and flowers, and it was the flowers
that were perhaps the most remarkable feature of all.
High hedges of huge pink roses were brought in, over which
girls reached up on tip-toe to grasp the hand of some un-
seen partner. Masses of golden-yellow daffodils were pushed
round in huge market baskets. Heavy bunches of Parma
violets were handed round, sweet-scented jonquils and
narcissus, drooping red roses, branches of frail white lilac.

All the way from the South of France in specially heated
carriages these flowers were sent to wilt and wither in the
blaze of electric light, carelessly passed from hand to hand.
When one knew the price of each pink rose, each golden daffo-
dil, one could not help wondering at the vast sums of money

Society 23

squandered, and by the time one had carried one's big arm-
ful of fragrant sweetness into the carriage, and from the
carriage into the house, the cruel, bitter frost would blacken
the delicate petals, and however carefully — sleepy and tired
though one was — one slit the stems and put them in
warm water, the next morning would find the white lilac
withered, the roses drooping, the violets curled up, the
daffodils and narcissus and tulips hanging tired, wistful
heads.

But the cotillon, though it lasted for ages, was not quite
the end of the evening, as after it was over there was still
a big supper, which one sat down to with one's partner,
and where the chaperones and older people were placed
according to rank. With its formality and set courses it
was really more like a regular dinner, and it lasted almost as
long, and though there was always a great deal of gaiety at
the small, round tables, by the time it was over one was
generally only too glad to go to bed, and only very energetic
couples, or those who happened to be very much in love,
started dancing again afterwards.

There was in Petersburg society a very marked line of
division between the girls and the young married women.
What was called a " Bal Blanc " was attended only by
girls, very few foreigners were ever invited, and rows of
alarming-looking mammas sat round the room, and one was
supposed to go up, shake hands, and make a little curtsey
to every one of them, or to be presented to any one of them
one had not met before. But when one did not know them
very well, they all looked exactly and hopelessly alike ,
were always dressed in black or dark grey, had a fur scarf
round their shoulders, wore wonderful pearls, and had their
hair incredibly smoothly brushed back from their fore-
heads, and I was always committing the unforgivable sin

24 Recollections of Imperial Russia

of being introduced two or three times over to the same old
lady during the same evening, or else going up to one I
did not know at all and being received with a surprised and
disapproving stare.

Sitting out at a Bal Blanc was, of course, unheard
of. A waltz was always enormously long, and one danced
once or perhaps twice round the room with some young man,
who then brought one back to one's place, clicked his heels,
murmured a polite " Thank you," and vanished. If one was
lucky another young man took his place immediately, and
the same formula was repeated, and if, greatly daring, one
took more than three turns round the room with the same
young man, the mammas looked at one severely and made
remarks in sibilant whispers. Hence it was only at supper
or when one sat on the little gold chairs round the room that
one was able to exchange any conversation, and then it was
always interrupted, and generally at the most critical
moment, by some shouted order from the red-faced master of
ceremonies to get up, join hands, or advance and retreat in
single file.

Another characteristic of a Bal Blanc was that there was
very seldom an orchestra, its place being taken by an old
grey-haired Tappeur, who was almost an historical institu-
tion, as he had played in the ballrooms of Petersburg for
an uncountable number of years. The mammas, sitting
round the room, would occasionally look at him with a
light of sentimental recollection in their eyes " How
beautifully he plays ! " they would say, swaying a little in
time to the music ; and then, " I shall never forget the night
he played at our ball when ..." and, whispering to each
other, they would float off on the tide of long-ago memories,
while their daughters danced to the old man's rhythmical
music, and he watched them with wise, grave eyes that

Society 25

seemed to know all the secrets of youth and the sorrows of the
human heart.

At the balls given by the young married women, on the
contrary, everything was far less conventional. In the
first place, there were no mammas sitting round the room
with eagle eyes alert to watch how many times one danced
with the same man. Quadrilles were few and far between,
and Colombo's Band gave one as many one-steps and waltzes
as one could wish. Only the best dancers were invited, a
few of the most popular diplomats, some of the older officers
of the Guard Regiments, and one or two Poles, who always
came for the winter season. Sometimes Goulesko's Gipsy
Orchestra played in the way only gipsies can play — a way
that made even bad dancers feel that they had wings to their
feet and their heads in the stars. There was, of course,
always the inevitable cotillon, with marvellous flowers ; but
it never lasted long, and the supper was entirely informal,
and took place early in the evening so as to allow dancing
afterwards.

Looking back now, it all seems so incredibly far away as
to belong to another life and another world. The big golden
rooms, so softly heated and lighted, the scent of flowers and
cigarette-smoke and perfume, the marvellously polished
floors, the absence of any crowd or jostling, the perfect
dancing, the wonderful, haunting gipsy music — and outside,
the still, frozen night that seemed, somehow, to press against
the windows, and Russia — immense, unreadable, mysterious,
and always a little terrifying.

There were naturally every year also a few enormous
balls where everybody was invited, and the big rooms blazed
with colour and shimmered with the gold braid of uniforms,
the glitter of decorations, the fire of jewels. But here,
too, the girls kept to one side of the room and the young

26 Recollections of Imperial Russia

married women to another, and the same men hardly ever
danced with both, as they both had an entirely separate set
of partners.

The time for dancing was, however, very short in
Petersburg, as Lent was kept with rigid strictness by the
Orthodox Church, and there were seldom any balls before
Christmas, when the bazaar held by the Grand Duchess
Vladimir officially opened the season. Everybody seemed to
have a stall at this bazaar, and everybody else seemed to be
selling, so that one wondered how there was anybody left
to buy. However, all the rich merchants and business people
came in crowds and spent money with lavish generosity,
so that for the three afternoons and evenings that the bazaar
lasted it was always thronged with people, and, in spite of
its atmosphere of gaiety that seemed to make it more a
Society function than anything else, a great deal of money
was made and many good causes were helped and supported.

The first year we were in Petersburg roller-skating was
the craze of the moment. A rink had been built on the
corner of the Champ de Mars, just opposite our house, and
if one did not roller-skate, or at least go and look on at
roller-skating, one simply did not exist in Society. In the
afternoons the rink was packed with a rather mixed assembly
of foreign diplomats, rich Russian merchants, artists, officers,
students, professors and doctors, with all their various
families, and the crowd was so great that it was almost
impossible to move. A certain section of Society therefore
decided to forfeit a little of their sleep and go in the mornings,
and it became the recognised thing that one should spend
an hour before luncheon skating as strenuously as one's
courage or proficiency allowed.

Some of the younger Grand Duchesses and a few of the
smartest married women were nearly always there. Richly

Society 27

bedecorated Generals, who wished to be considered dashing
and fashionable, were led carefully round by the professionals.
One or two Ambassadors, looking on it as combining a little
mild exercise with a not unpleasant social obligation, put in
an occasional appearance. A few young Secretaries of Em-
bassies and some of the most popular officers, escaping for
a few moments from barracks or chancery, would swing out
into the rink, dash round at hurricane speed, do surprising
and perilous tricks, and vanish regretfully back to their
respective duties. And at the little round tables, mothers
chaperoning their daughters, Ambassadors' or Ministers'
wives and some of the older ladies of the Court, would sit
and listen to the music, sip pale, very much sweetened tea,
and discuss the latest engagement or divorce.

One night a supper and a ball on roller-skates was given
by the Grand Duchess Cyrill, who hired the rink after it was
closed to the general public at midnight. I remember that
we had been to some big official dinner that evening, and it
was rather a wearying experience to come home at eleven,
change from evening into day clothes, and start out once
more. But the supper and ball was a great success, and
the quadrille on roller-skates, though mixed with a certain
amount of danger, as a good many of the dancers were mere
beginners, was decidedly amusing, and at moments extra-
ordinarily funny.

Roller-skating, however, was a craze that was too violent
to last for long. A year later already fewer people went, and
in the afternoons the attendance became more irregular,
exotic, and egregious. One or two scandals took place — I
vaguely remember some story of an officer shooting himself
or somebody else in the middle of the rink. Anyhow, the
place got a bad name, and was shortly afterwards closed and
then pulled down.

28 Recollections of Imperial Russia

In Russia, Lent begins on the Monday instead of on the
Wednesday as it does with us ; the last week of Carnival was
always therefore crammed with balls, and on the Sunday,
which the Russians called a journee folk, every hour that
remained was made use of in an entertainment, that generally
began with a luncheon, continued with games in the after-
noon, and ended up with an early dinner and dancing that
had to stop punctually on the stroke of twelve.

Very often this day was spent in the country, and one
year the Grand Duchess Cyrill had a big party in her mother-
in-law's palace out in Tsarskoe. For this, everybody started
by special train at eleven in the morning. In the hour
before lunch, somebody built a huge snow-man in the gardens
and a terrific battle of snowball followed. In the afternoon
we drove in a long line of sledges and troikas through the
quiet, frost-bound woods of Pavlosk, returning with a huge
appetite for tea. Between tea and dinner we played games —
hunt-the-slipper and blind man's buff, and bumps, when I
remember my father and the Grand Duchess Olga, the late
Emperor's sister, both sitting down on the same chair,
which collapsed with an ominous creak and deposited them
both none too gently on the floor. Then, after tidying as
much as we could, we had dinner, followed by a dance and a
small cotillon, and finally returned to Petersburg by a sleepy
train at half-past twelve.

During Lent the time was taken up by receptions,
bridge-parties, official dinners, and an endless succession of
the inevitable At-Home days ; and I remember that I
cordially disliked all this category, and had not always in
those days enough sense of humour to overcome my boredom
and see the funny side of things. At the time, so much of it
meant merely official restriction and etiquette, but looking
back now at those never-ending At-Home days, I can only

Society 29

see them as rather comical or intensely pathetic in the light
of all that has happened since.

I can still picture them all so clearly : the heated drawing-
rooms with their stiff gold chairs, their innumerable photo-
graphs, their countless ornaments, their atmosphere of
scent and hot tea and cigarette -smoke. The old ladies with
their immaculately brushed hair, the three or four Court
gentlemen with bald, round heads and somewhat indefinite
faces, the rows of young girls very much on their best
behaviour, and always one or two oddities one never met
anywhere else because nobody ever asked them out, and
their only form of social gaiety consisted in going to as many
At -Home days as possible, eating as many cream cakes as
they could swallow, and gathering up all the scraps of gossip
they heard.

And always, in every drawing-room, the same cups of
sweet, weak tea, the same everlasting oft -repeated questions :
' Do you like being in Russia ? And how do you support
the climate ? " I used to try and vary my answer to the
last question as much as I could, just for the sake of not
always saying the same thing,but even if I hadn't liked Russia
I should have had to say that I did, and when one had been
asked the same question about six times the same afternoon,
it was sometimes very hard to look enthusiastic.

And then the monotony of the official and diplomatic
dinners — though they are, I think, very much the same all
the world over. A long table covered generally with a bad
mixture of silver, a heavy mass of inartistically arranged
flowers, rather sweet champagne in tall, narrow glasses, a
mixture of languages, a buzz of forced conversation, every-
body trying to look amused and not always succeeding, and
all the time the women surreptitiously examining each other's
clothes, making remarks and taking notes as is the custom of

30 Recollections of Imperial Russia

women in all countries. " Madame So-and-So has a new
dress on. I suppose she got it from the little dressmaker on
the Spalernaia, but she's sure to say it came from Paris ! . . .

I am sure Countess L 's dress is the blue one we all know

so well, dyed and redone ! . . . Madame X has done her hair
a new way — it makes her look older, but I think I'll try it
when I get home ! " And after dinner the long hours when
the women sat on stiff chairs and made laboriously sweet
conversation to each other, while the men drifted into
corners to talk politics, and the clock seemed as if it would
never get nearer eleven, when it was possible for the most
important lady to make a move.

If Easter came early in the year there were again a few
balls ; but a great many people would already be leaving,
most of them going to Paris or the Riviera, and a few to their
estates in South Russia or their villas down in the Crimea.
And, as the days lengthened, there would be tennis and
boating out on the Islands, or long drives in the pearl-coloured
twilight, a few desultory luncheon parties or dinners, a
picnic, perhaps, or an excursion in a little steamer on the Gulf
of Finland.

Early in June all the Guard Regiments moved out to the
Summer Camp at Krassnoe, about twenty miles from Peters-
burg, and their wives and families followed them, living in
little wooden houses, passing the time with an endless amount
of gossip, the complications of rather difficult housekeeping
and small dinners and parties at the wooden theatre and
open-air restaurant. A good many people also had villas
at Tsarskoe, Strelna, or Peterhof, and during the summer
months there was a constant coming and going between
these places and a certain amount of intermittent enter-
taining, impromptu dances, dinners, and suppers.

In September, however, everybody who could left

Society 31

Petersburg, for the autumn is the worst time of all in Northern
Russia, when the grey days succeed each other in endless
and hopeless succession and the heavy clouds seem as if
they were never going to lift, when the daylight hours grow
shorter and briefer, and the river is the colour of dark steel,
and even the golden spires and domes seem to lose their
radiance.

But, like the glowing days of summer, those bleak, dull
days would pass. The first half-frozen flakes of snow would
drift down from the cold grey sky ; the first ice would float
down the sullen river ; the boxes at the Ballet would be filled
with familiar faces ; groups of laughing girls, accompanied
by English governesses, would walk up and down the quay
in the mornings ; the great length and breadth of the Nevsky
would be crowded by carriages, with bearded coachmen in
bright-coloured velvet caps, blue and crimson and orange
and green. Motors would flash by, driven by chauffeurs
in great fur coats like shaggy bears ; Court carriages, with
coachmen in bright scarlet livery and cocked hats, would
forge their way through the dense mass of traffic, which the
policemen with their little white wands controlled and
stemmed, while the air vibrated with the hoarse cries of the
drivers shouting out their warning to unwary pedestrians.

And over it all always the sound of bells: the tolling

majesty of the bells of St. Isaac's; the golden chime of the

Cathedral of St. Peter and Paul half drowned in the roar of

traffic from the Troitzky Bridge ; the silver clamour from the

Church of the Resurrection, built on the spot where the

Emperor Alexander II. was killed by a Nihilist bomb in

1881 ; and cracked and solemn and gay and sad and sweet,

the bells of all the other churches, with their coloured cupolas

and domes. And whispering in the air, sheltering against

the houses, fluttering almost under the horses' feet, flocks of

C

32 Recollections of Imperial Russia

pigeons, who were considered sacred in Russia on account of
the Holy Ghost always being pictured as a dove.

So if I shut my eyes I can still see Petersburg on some
bright wintry morning, with the yellow Imperial flag flying
against the ice-blue sky, and the sound of a military band
somewhere along the quay.

The Court of Russia 33

CHAPTER III

THE COURT OF RUSSIA

Ever since the Japanese War and the Revolution of 1905,
the Emperor and his family lived either at Tsarskoe or
Peterhof , and the gorgeous ceremonies that had always been
the teature of the Russian Court were practically a thing of
the past. The only time anything resembling the magnificent
spectacles of old days took place was at Epiphany, when the
Emperor took part in the ancient function of the Blessing
of the Waters.

A few years before our arrival at Petersburg, one of the
cannons firing the salute from the Fortress had been charged
— whether by accident or intention was never fully explained
— with shrapnel, which peppered the Pavilion where the
Emperor was standing, tore one of the flags to ribbons, and
shattered a window of the Winter Palace. Luckily nobody
was severely hurt, and throughout the whole incident the
Emperor never moved or turned his head, but for several
years after that he was strongly advised not to attend the
ceremony in person. During the last few summers, however,
cholera had raged in Petersburg, and the Russian people —
superstition always strongly mingled with their faith —
declared that it was because the Little Father had not
blessed the water of the Neva.

Therefore,ini9ii,it was decided that the Emperor was
once more to come up to Petersburg for the Feast of the

34 Recollections of Imperial Russia

Epiphany, though this time the guns that were to fire the
salute were placed on the Island of the Bourse, and trained
down the river instead of across. And, smile as one may at
the childish belief of the people, it is certain that the follow-
ing summer there was no recurrence of the violent cholera
that had for several years ravaged the capital.

The day of Epiphany was, I remember, one of brilliant
winter sunshine and icy wind. The yellow Imperial Standard
flying on the Fortress blew taut against a sky of clearest,
frozen blue, golden spires and domes flashed with almost
unbearable brilliance, flags waved and fluttered from all the
palaces along the quay ; on the white, frozen surface of
the Neva a little wooden pavilion had been built, covered
with crimson velvet hangings and gold braid, and close to
it a round hole had been cut in the thick ice, showing the
black sullen water of the river.

In the Winter Palace the warm, hushed stillness seemed
to dimly vibrate with a subdued murmur of voices, a rustle
of dresses, a soft, silver jingle of spurs. Court servants, in
gorgeous liveries with little round hats, covered with ostrich
feathers, perched on one side of their heads, lined the vastness
of the great staircase. A mass of uniforms that were inde-
scribably dazzling thronged the enormous rooms through
which we passed. The St. George's Hall with its marble
pillars, the Throne Room with deep, red velvet, the Field
Marshals' room, the Armorial saloon with its massive gilt
pillars — in every one of them colours, that took away one's
breath, moved and shifted in varying kaleidoscopic bril-
liance. Hussars in white and gold with scarlet dolmans
slung over their shoulders, officers of the Chevaliers Gardes
in white with shining silver breastplates, a Cossack in vivid
crimson, another in deep blue, officers of the Gardes a
Cheval looking like living figures of Lohengrin in white and

a.

H
W

-

O

w
o
<

<

The Court of Russia 35

gold, a colonel of some line regiment in orange tunic, some
others in emerald green.

A flood of sunshine was pouring through the long glass
windows in the enormous Gallery, where all the Diplomatic
Corps were assembled; but, after the marvel of glowing
colours that had dazzled one, the shimmer of the women's
dresses, even the gold on the diplomatic uniforms, looked
almost sober and dull. For a time there seemed nothing
much to do but to look out of the windows, pity the soldiers
and police on guard in front of the Palace, examine all the
other women's hats and gowns, and try and remember who
one had shaken hands with.

Then, at a given signal, everybody pressed to the long
open gallery at one end of the room, and a sudden hush
fell as the procession of Grand Duchesses and Court ladies,
headed by the Dowager Empress, passed through on their
way from the Imperial Chapel to the inner rooms of the
Winter Palace. The blaze of exquisite jewels, the resplen-
dent old Court dresses with their stiffly-embroidered gold
petticoats, their long hanging sleeves and trains of velvet,
their crown-shaped kakoshniks and soft white veils, made
one feel that just for a moment one had been transported
back into some old fairy-tale where princesses still wore
gold and damask and jewelled diadems.

Much of the details I have forgotten, but, all the same, I
can still remember the Dowager Empress' long sweeping
train of cream-white velvet with its deep border of priceless
sable. And I can recall, too, the soft, rose-coloured velvet
overdress of one of the young Grand Duchesses ; the vivid,
cornflower blue of the Grand Duchess Cyrill — the marvellous
sapphires and diamonds that flashed on her kakoshnik ; the
olive green of the older Court ladies ; the ruby velvet of the
Demoiselles d'Honneur.

36 Recollections of Imperial Russia

Slowly, in silence, with the rustle of their heavy trains,
the fire of their jewels, they passed, the heavy gold-studded
doors at the end of the gallery closed behind them ; but for
a moment still, the silence that had watched their passing
held, and women looked at each other and sighed, thinking,
perhaps regretfully, of the commonplace insignificance of
modern clothes.

Then, once more turning to the other side of the room,
everybody pressed close to the long windows to watch the
ceremony outside. The colours of the Guard Regiments
that had been blessed in the Chapel were carried out, and
the Emperor's slight figure crossed the quay on his way to
the wooden pavilion, followed by the Grand Dukes, the
gentlemen of the Court, the Cossacks, and a crowd of other
officers. The priests, in their gorgeous vestments, began the
service in the pavilion; dimly through the thick glass
window we could hear the chanting of the Gospel ; then the
Emperor, followed by the priests, stepped down to the ice,
the silver cross was dipped three times in the water, the
flags were sprinkled, the cannons thundered their salute ;
gold epaulettes glistened in the sunshine, bright -coloured
uniforms stood out vividly against the snow; the bells
of St. Peter and Paul rang out a silver chime across the
frozen river.

One might have thought one was looking at the page of
some old manuscript of Russian history when the Tsar des-
cended from the Kremlin, accompanied by the Strelitsii
in their many coloured kaftans, by the Court magnates and
Boyars in their robes of fur and cloth of gold, and the grey
bearded Patriarch received them on the ice of the river
Moskwa, and, in the little floating wooden structure
specially constructed, crossed three times over the open space
of water, which was stirred all the time in order to prevent it

The Court of Russia 37

freezing. Rituals and pageantries of long-ago days handed
down almost unchanged through the centuries. One looked
across the snow-covered river to the Fortress built by
Peter the Great, and one thought in one's ignorance that
the Russian Empire was a thing immutable, unchangeable,
and firm.

The religious ceremony over, old Court chamberlains and
generals thankfully covering their bald heads, the pro-
cession turned back into the Palace, and once more we
crossed the room to the long open gallery, a sudden hush
falling on the babel of voices that exclaimed and explained
in all languages as the Emperor passed through on his way
to join the Grand Duchesses. All of them remarkably tall
men, the Grand Dukes who accompanied him might have
made his slight figure seem almost insignificant had he not
somehow been possessed of such dignity and majesty that,
when one bent in the stereotyped Court courtesy, one seemed
to be doing obeisance, not only to his title and power, but
to something else that was hard to explain.

Perhaps, if anybody had asked me what that something
was, I should have said that it was a look in his eyes, that,
blue-grey like nearly all the Romanoff's eyes, had a wonder-
ful expression of steadfast tranquillity, and then, having got
so far, I should not have been able to explain any further.

But the big gold-studded doors closed behind him too,
an old Court chamberlain opened the great centre doors, and
we were told that lunch was ready. The Ambassadors and
Ambassadresses were placed according to rank, but every-
body else was allowed to sit or stand as they pleased ; gay
parties were formed at the little round tables, and there
was a general scramble and a great deal of laughter.

And, meanwhile, at the enormous buffet, one could see a
little Chinese secretary diving under the arm of a huge

38 Recollections of Imperial Russia

colonel of Hussars to get a sandwich ; an Austrian, in a
gorgeous old Hungarian uniform, deep in conversation over a
plate of cold chicken with an officer of the Chevaliers
Gardes ; a secretary of the Spanish Embassy slowly eating
some fruit salad while he listened to the excited explana-
tions of an Italian, who was describing his first experience of
a party out on the ice-hills ; a Bulgarian and a Serbian,
stretching out for the same glass of champagne, frowned, and
then gave way to each other politely; a superb Cossack
officer made room for the Japanese Military Attache with a
stiff, frozen formality ; a Greek and a Turk discussed the
rival merits of chocolate and vanilla ice ; and old gentlemen
who held some courtesy titles at Court made the most of their
opportunity of eating lobster salad, chicken-patties, and
whipped-cream.

There were also often special services for the Emperor's
birthday, nameday, or various other commemorations.
Then the Kazan Cathedral, with its great Corinthian columns,
its jewelled ikons, its torn French flags blazoned with the
Imperial eagles of Napoleon, seemed like a casket of pure
gold overflowing with the fire of precious stones. The green
and purple and crimson vestments of the priests, the richness
of uniforms — military and diplomatic — the shimmer of
decorations, the flickering light of a thousand candles, the
faint blue haze of incense ; and, above it all, the marvellous
deep intoning of the priests, the wonderful, clear singing
voices of the choir.

I remember, too, a gala performance at the Marinsky
Theatre for the Romanoff Tercentenary Celebrations, when
the three tiers of boxes flamed with the blaze of jewels, and
the huge parterre was filled with Court officials in scarlet
uniforms. Rather like a gigantic field of poppies they
looked when, with one movement as it seemed, they rose

The Court of Russia

39

and turned towards the Imperial box to welcome the
Emperor's entry. On the occasion of the Romanoff Ter-
centenary there was also a ball given in the Assembly
Hall of the nobles which the Emperor and Empress opened
in a formal polonaise, and where the Grand Duchess Olga,
fair and graceful in a soft white dress, danced every dance
and enjoyed herself as simply and whole-heartedly as any
girl at her first ball.

I have a vivid recollection of her, standing on the steps
leading down from the gallery to the floor of the ball-room,
her hair shining golden against the crimson velvet curtains,
her cheeks softly flushed, her blue eyes very bright, while
one or two of her cousins, and several other young officers,
all clamoured for her attention.

A few other ceremonies there were. Some reviews on
the big sandy plains of Krassnoe, when the Russian army
passed in seemingly unending lines before the Emperor, and
the ringing shouts of the soldiers cheered the Little Father,
for whom so soon they were going into battle and whom,
alas ! they were going to desert and betray. Then the funeral
of an old Grand Duchess in the Cathedral of St. Peter and
Paul, an interminable service of three hours, candles that
guttered and flared perilously near crepe veils, the low solemn
chanting of priests, the open coffin with the high baldachin of
black velvet and ermine ; and in the dusky shadows all round,
the tombs of sleeping Emperors. And every year the small
parade of the Gardes a Cheval in the big riding-school of
their barracks, when, in the faint, grey, dusty light, the
Emperor and all the Grand Dukes reviewed the serried
fines of men, who, in their golden helmets and breast-
plates, seemed like shifting gleaming ribbons of flame.

But the glory of the old Russian Court had been shattered
like a cup of glowing jewels, the broken pieces still retaining

40 Recollections of Imperial Russia

their old-time colour, but the pattern and symmetry des-
troyed for ever.

The Byzantine splendour of old Muscovy was a strange
medley of Eastern voluptuous intemperance and cruelty,
and an almost monastic austerity. The Kremlin itself,
with its cluster of churches and palaces huddling together, is
a symbol of how closely religion was bound up with the
everyday life of the Tsars ; and, indeed, most of the gorgeous
pageantries of those days were of a religious character.
The Festival of the Patriarch was one of the chief feasts of
the year, when the Tsar and all his Court attended an
enormous banquet in the Patriarchal Palace, and on New
Year's Day, there was a public celebration in the Square
before the Cathedral of the Assumption.

There was the ceremony of the Blessing of the Waters,
and the quaint festival of Palm Sunday, when the Tsar led
the Patriarch, mounted on a donkey, from the Red Square up
to the Cathedral of the Assumption. And whenever war
wasdeclared there was a solemn service, whenthe Tsar betook
of the Sacrament, and laid the plan of campaign at the feet
of the Holy Ikon of the Virgin of Vladimir, and the Patriarch
blessed the generals and officers, and prayed for the success of
the Russian arms. On the declaration of war in 1914, this
ceremony was once more held. For the last time the Emperor
of all the Russias descended the Red Staircase of the Palace
and went slowly through the kneeling crowds of his subjects
to the Cathedral of the Assumption, and for the last time
the golden bells of the Kremlin rang out their prayers for
victory above the huge concourse of people who wept and
prayed, and bent to kiss the passing shadow of the Little
Father.

The day of the Tsar of Muscovy in the Middle Ages was
mapped out in an almost unchanging routine. Having risen

The Court of Russia 41

at four, he went to early Mass, and then held a reception of
courtiers, Boyars, members of public offices, counsellors or
envoys to foreign parts, who all gathered at the foot of the
Red Staircase ; those who had the superior right going up
into the Ante-Chamber, the rest, according to their respective
ranks, waiting on the steps or in the courtyard. Then came
another service in church, which lasted for two hours ; and
after the midday meal, the Tsar retired for a siesta. At four,
he rose and went to Vespers, after which there was a banquet,
followed by a religious play, or else the rest of the evening
was spent listening to singers, harpers, or story tellers, and
watching the antics of the Court fools and dwarfs. Occa-
sionally, too, the Tsar went hunting or hawking ; and the
savage sport of bear-fighting in an enclosed pit was a
favourite pastime of the Court.

The women of old Russia were looked on practically as
Eastern slaves, and some of the proverbs and sayings of those
days clearly show with what general contempt they were
treated. " A horse must be guided with a bit and a woman
with threats " is one example ; and another : " One must fly
from the beauty of women as Noah fled from the deluge."
The Terem, or women's quarter in the Kremlin, was guarded
almost more severely than a Turkish harem ; and it is said
that when a Tsarina was ill, the room was darkened for the
visit of the doctor and her pulse felt through a veil of gauze.

Peter the Great's mother, the beautiful Nathalie Narish-
kin, and his vigorous, strong-minded Aunt Sophie Alexeievna
were the first who dared openly to protest and rebel against
this treatment, and Peter himself, enforcing his laws of
Western civilisation on Russia, altered the position of women
for ever. It was Peter, too, who abolished the old semi-
Oriental clothes worn by Russians up till his day, and issued
a decree that all his subjects, with the exception of the clergy,

42 Recollections of Imperial Russia

were to shave, or pay a tax, even sometimes going so far as
to cut off the cherished beards of his protesting and indignant
Boyars with his own hands. The great reformer who trans-
ferred the Capital from Moscow to Petersburg hated the
old Eastern splendour of the Court, and had no taste for
the formality and sumptuous luxury his ancestors had so
cherished. The old Ukase which forced people meeting the
Tsar in the streets to descend from their carriage in order to
salute him was abolished, and Peter even severely chastised
one or two loyal subjects who persisted in doing it. Building
palaces for his descendants and favourites — the Emperor
himself lived always in small, simple houses ; and it was
Menshikoff who gave all the banquets and formal recep-
tions, revelling in the magnificence which his fabulous
wealth made possible.

When Peter died and his second wife succeeded him as
Catherine II., the Court became incredibly immoral and
debauched, and with Peter II., the son of Alexis, deteriorated
still further. Menshikoff had honestly tried to educate the
boy, who, graceful and intelligent, had at first seemed full
of promise ; but the intrigues of the Dolgorouki caused the
downfall of the great favourite, Peter's engagement with
Marie Menshikoff was broken off, and the man who had
governed Russia, and had a thousand slaves to do his
bidding, was banished to Siberia, and died in misery and
the utmost poverty.

Left to his own devices, thinking only of hunting, drink-
ing and pleasure, the young Emperor let the reins of Govern-
ment fall, deserted Petersburg, flirted with his beautiful
young aunt Elisabeth Petrowna, became engaged to
Catherine Dolgorouki, and finally died of smallpox at
Moscow in 1730.

The Crown of Russia, snatched at by greedy hands,

The Court of Russia 43

swayed above an abyss of darkness ; the great Empire Peter
had sought to reform seemed likely to slip back into even
greater disorders. The Regency is said to have been offered
to Eudoxia, Peter's first wife, the Dolgoroukis made a vain
and spasmodic attempt to gain the Throne for Catherine, a
few voices called loudly for Peter's daughter Elisabeth, but
finally the Duchess of Courland, who was a daughter of Peter
the Great's half-brother Ivan, was elected Empress.

Vulgar and common in her tastes, slovenly in her dress,
Anna Ivanovna reigned for ten years, and the Court in her
days must have borne a strange resemblance to some
travelling circus — hunchbacks, dwarfs, dogs, and animals of
all kinds swarming in the palace ; the Empress amusing
herself by shooting at sparrows from the windows, or, lying
half-dressed on a couch covered with bear-skins, listening
to story-tellers or singers. She definitely, however, made
Petersburg once more the capital of Russia, living in the
palace of Count Appraxin, while the Winter Palace, which
had fallen into disrepair, was being rebuilt.

On her death in 1740 she left the Throne to Ivan, the
baby son of her niece Anna Leopoldovna, who had married
a Duke of Brunswick, under the Regency of Buhren, who,
said to have started life as a stove-lighter, had then become
manuscript writer; and bringing some papers for Anna to sign
when she was still Duchess of Courland, had won his way
into her favour, and made himself ruler of Russia. But, like
so many of the great favourites, Buhren was to tread the way
of exile to Siberia while Anna Leopoldovna claimed the
Regency for her son, until, a few months later, another coup
d'etat convulsed the Palace, and the Crown of Russia was
seized by the soft white hands of Elisabeth, the only remain-
ing daughter of Peter the Great.

Though for the last few years she had made very few

44 Recollections of Imperial Russia

public appearances, and had been living in a way that caused
scandal and gossip even in the utterly dissolute society of
those days, she was still possessed of the radiant, volup-
tuous beauty which won all hearts, and had so stirred the
youthful passion of Peter II. During her reign the Court of
Russia attained a brilliance which, till then, had been
unknown. Her love of gorgeous apparel was inordinate,
and she was said at one time to have possessed fifteen
thousand dresses of silk and five thousand pairs of shoes.
She had a passion for ceremonial display, and delighted in
masquerades, for which she generally put on men's clothes,
which showed off her magnificent figure to perfection.

Refusing to marry on the ground that she had never got
over the death of Charles of Holstein,to whom she had been
engaged, she made her nephew, Peter-Ulric of Holstein,
her heir. Serious questions of policy and affairs of State
were neglected while the Empress chose new lovers ; and
festivals of all kinds succeeded each other in endless succes-
sion till, in a sudden spasmodic fit of repentance, Elisabeth
set off on a pilgrimage to some distant shrine or convent, her
reluctant suite forced to follow her.

And under all the incredible magnificence there was
always a hopeless discomfort that almost amounted to
squalor. In her memoirs, the Grand Duchess Catherine
describes her bedroom in the Palace at Moscow that led into
a small inner chamber where seventeen of her ladies andmaids
were herded together and which was alive with vermin;
while in the Winter Palace at Petersburg there was an alcove
just behind her bed where her husband kept six of his hounds.

When, later, Elisabeth died and Catherine became sole
Sovereign of Russia, her" Court rivalled in grandeur and re-
finement that of Versailles. For the big balls at the Winter
Palace, twenty apartments were thrown open; the Russian

The Court of Russia 45

nobles seeking to outshine each other in the splendour of
their costumes, the magnificence of their jewels ; Polish,
Hungarian and foreign uniforms adding to the wealth of
colour. At a given moment the doors of the vast room would
be flung open, and Catherine, in a stiff dress of cloth of
gold, blazing with diamonds, would make her solemn entry.

Unlike Elisabeth, Catherine herself loved simplicity,
seldom drank anything, and was sober and frugal in her
meals, delighting in small, informal receptions at the
Hermitage, where conventions and etiquette were forgotten,
and games of forfeits of all kinds were played. A list of
rules was hung at the door, bidding all those who entered,
leave hats and swords outside, forget formality and arro-
gance, be gay without becoming overbearing, sit or stand or
walk as they pleased, talk as they liked, but not too much or
too loud, argue without heat, not yawn or sigh, eat as they
pleased, but not drink to excess, and when they left let all
they heard pass in at one ear and out at the other.

During the reign of Paul, the Court was subjected to a
form of tyranny that was almost a reign of terror. The
Emperor's love of inspiring awe and fear made him insist on
his courtiers going down on one knee to salute him ; he
issued strict orders that the new round hats were never to
be worn, and even gave instructions concerning the dressing
of ladies' hair.

Alexander I., his life shadowed for ever by the death
of his father, had not much love for Court ceremonies ; but
with the accession of his brother Nicholas, autocratic and
powerful, magnificent entertainments of all kinds were
again introduced. In 1837 tne Winter Palace was entirely
destroyed by fire, which, starting in a flue while the Emperor
and his family were at a theatre, raged for thirty hours.
Nearly all the treasures were, however, saved, and the Palace

46 Recollections of Imperial Russia

was rebuilt in three years on almost exactly the same lines
as the original edifice. So, through the reigns of Nicholas I.,
of Alexander II., and of Alexander III., in spite of wars in
the Crimea and the Balkans, in spite of the sudden upsurging
of the Nihilists and their conspiracies and bombs, in spite
of Palace intrigues, the death of great Emperors, and the
swift, shifting passing of days, the Court still maintained its
luxury and splendour.

At the beginning of Nicholas II. 's reign, the balls at the
Winter Palace were perhaps the most gorgeous spectacles
seen in modern times. About 3,000 guests were invited,
and the wealth of all the different uniforms, the fire of
priceless jewels and decorations, the moving throng of
shifting colours in the vast rooms, must have made a picture
hard to forget. The Emperor and Empress always opened
these balls by a formal polonaise, going three times round
the room and changing partners at each turn — the Emperor
taking the arm of one of the Grand Duchesses or Ambassa-
dresses, and the Empress doing likewise with a Grand Duke
or Ambassador. At midnight, an enormous sit-down supper
was served, the Emperor going from one table to another,
and stopping at each one individually to converse with his
guests.

There were also somewhat smaller balls, where at supper
the tables to seat about sixteen persons were each surmounted
by an enormous palm tree, so that the whole vast room looked
like a forest of palms ; and then there were the small,
informal dances at the Hermitage, the private performances
in the theatre there, the formal celebration of St. George's
Day, as well as many other banquets and receptions of all
kinds.

Most of all, however, the Emperor had always been
devoted to a country life, and, during the latter years before

The Court of Russia 47

the war, his days were passed in a routine of the utmost sim-
plicity at Tsarskoe or Peterhof. Working with untiring
conscientiousness from an early hour in the morning, he
would receive foreign diplomats, members of the Govern-
ment, representatives of all classes, and spend the rest of
the day in the quiet round of the family circle, playing games
or going for long walks in the gardens. But it was the white
Palace of Livadia, in the Crimea, that he loved the best ; for
there, above the blue sea, among the flowers of the wonder-
ful gardens, the shadows that surrounded his path must have
seemed further away, and, listening to his children's happy
voices, perhaps his face lost some of its grave, fixed sadness.

In the hideous tragedy of Siberia, the grim awfulness of
the days that, recorded, read like an incredible, ghastly
nightmare too frightful to be true, the most heart-breaking
note of all, I think, isthe marvellous, unselfish love that united
the Imperial Family. And for me the saddest memory of
all is the picture of the Grand Duchess Olga, radiant and
laughing at the ball in the Assembly Hall of the Nobles, or,
sadder still, that other vision I have of her ridingthroughthe
Park at Peterhof one early-summer morning with her sisters,
the Grand Duchesses Tatiana and Anastasia, the light of
youth and glowing health on their faces, and the clear sound
of their laughter echoing back through the sunny dew-
drenched woods.

I have, too, unforgettably impressed on my mind my
earliest recollection of the Emperor many years before we
ever went to Russia. I was, at the time, about eight or nine
years old, and my father was accredited to the Court of the
Grand Duke of Hesse, the late Empress's brother, at Darm-
stadt. What the exact occasion was I have forgotten, but
I know that, in a frilly white frock, I was taken as a great
treat to see a special performance of " Hansel and Gretel."

D

48 Recollections of Imperial Russia

Our box was next door to one of the Royal boxes, and when
we first came in my mother whispered to me that the slight,
grave-faced young man who was sitting just next to me was
the Emperor of Russia.

In one act of the opera the witches' cottage in the wood
blows up with a terrific bang, and, though I knew the story
and was prepared for it, the noise was louder than I expected
and gave me a tremendous start. I don't think I screamed,
but I certainly shut my eyes very tight and held on to the
edge of the box, and when, after a few seconds, I dared look
up again, I found that the Emperor had turned round and
was smiling at me. Child though I was, the singular charm
of that smile and the softness of the grave blue eyes stirred
me strangely, and when, later, my mother told me that the
Emperor had said that he had quite understood that I was
frightened at the noise, and had added, " Please tell her
that I hated it, too," I was overcome with pride and
delight.

Still earlier than this was my first meeting with the
Empress. It was shortly after we had arrived at Darm-
stadt, and when she was still only Princess Alix of Hesse,
and one sunny summer afternoon my nurse took me for a
walk in one of the Royal Gardens to which my father and
mother had been given the key. We were sitting on one of
the benches when a slight, graceful young lady in deep
mourning passed by. Fascinated by her beautiful face and
wonderful golden hair, I stared with wide-open eyes, and,
pausing with a little smile, she began to talk to my nurse
who had hastily got up, and then turning to me said she and
her brother were giving a tea-party to a lot of children in
the gardens, and would I like to come too. I was, in those
days, so well brought up that I must have come very near
to being a little prig, and I can still hear myself saying

The Court of Russia 49

sedately that I wasn't allowed to go out to tea without my
mother's permission.

The beautiful lady in black, however, only laughed and
said I needn't worry, it would be quite all right, and eventu-
ally, sending my nurse home to fetch my mother, took me
with her — her sweetness and charm making my heart go out
to her in quick, childish devotion. Shortly after this I had
a serious illness, and though I believe Princess Alix came
very often to sit with my mother, I was, I suppose, too bad
to know much about it ; but one day I clearly remember
waking up from semi-unconsciousness to find her lovely face
looking down at me, and I remember, too, her saying to my
mother in a whisper, " Look, she smiled — she actually
smiled at me."

So soon were the responsibilities and cares of a great
position, the suspense of incessant danger, the shadows of
calumny and suspicion to dim the radiant beauty of her
youth, and harden all her softness and glowing colour.
Suffering always from an unconquerable shyness, she was
accused of being stiff and cold ; while the shocks and terror
of the Revolution of 1905, the constant anxiety for the little
Tsarevitch's health, had a serious effect on her nerves.
Influenced by Anna Vyroubova, she believed that Rasputin
was a holy man, and that he had the gift of healing which
alone could save her son. She refused to listen to any of
the advice or warnings given to her, was set in her idea of
preserving the autocracy, and convinced that whatever
happened the Army would remain loyal.

The rumours that charged her with being a violent pro-
German, the slanders that imputed unspeakable things in her
relations with Rasputin, are all only iniquitous lies ; and
whatever other indictment there may be against her, surely
the accusing voices must fall into silence as the smoke from

50 Recollections of Imperial Russia

the murderous rifles rises and fades on the vast grey horizon
of Siberia.

So the happy laughter of the young Grand Duchesses, the
slight figure of the Emperor, the tragic, beautiful face of the
Empress, the old Court of Russia, with its glitter and pomp
and majesty, pass and vanish in darkness and chaos. And
yet amidst the ruin and emptiness of desolation, the shadows
of the old long-forgotten days still seem to linger. Ivan
the Terrible, Peter the Great, Catherine, the furtive figure
of Paul, they shift and move and fade away like pictures
on a screen. A splendid Cossack in scarlet standing in one
of the rooms of the Winter Palace ! An old Court Chamber-
lain, baldheaded, a little bent under the weight of his heavy,
gold-braided coat ! A tall, slim girl in the ruby velvet robes
of the Demoiselle d'Honneur that gave to every girl elected
to this honour an independent rank, by which she very
often took precedence of her own parents ! The figure of
a young Grand Duke in a dazzling uniform, the blue ribbon
of St. Andre across his breast, the golden aguillets, that
marked him as aide-de-camp to the Emperor, on his
shoulder !

The smoke of spattering machine-guns, a rabble of fierce-
eyed, dirty men hide them from sight. The yellow Imperial
Standard with the double-headed eagle lies torn and stained
with blood on the ground, and the red flag of so-called Liberty
flutters above the bullet -scarred walls of the Winter Palace.

Peter the Great 51

CHAPTER IV

PETER THE GREAT

One glorious summer evening during the first year of the
war, I remember we hired a little steam yacht and went out
to Peterhof, having obtained permission to land at the har-
bour and go over the palaces. We started out late in the
afternoon, round the islands, past the Point of Yelagin, the
Yacht Club and the shallow reeded marshes, and headed
across the gulf towards Kronstadt, while behind us Peters-
burg lay shrouded in misty heat and dust, with the slim
spire of St. Peter and Paul rising, a flame of gold, into
the sky.

The waters of the gulf were as smooth as a sheet of
glass ; Kronstadt, with the round dome of its Cathedral,
the grim, brown walls of its fortifications, seemed wrapped in
impenetrable silence, and might almost have been an island
of the dead swimming in a haze of softest lilac on the
turquoise -coloured sea. Slowly we steamed by under the
silent shadow of the fortresses, and on across the gulf to the
wooded shores of Oranienbaum, past the pink palace of
the Duke of Leuchtenberg, till at last we reached the
landing-stage of Peterhof.

Above the silver cascades of fountains rushing down the
falling terraces to the sea, rose the great Palace, with its
painted walls of cream and red, its three ranges of windows
gUttering in the low sunshine, and the five golden domes of
the chapel shimmering against the soft dim sky.

52 Recollections of Imperial Russia

Built by order of Peter the Great by the French architect,
Leblond, in imitation of Versailles, and enlarged by Elisa-
beth, it is perhaps a little ostentatious, almost too ponderous
and formal with its sweeping terrace, its vast staircases, its
great gaudy rooms, its Chinese lacquer, its marble and gold.
It is the shining vista of the blue Gulf of Finland, the rushing
music of the waterfalls, and the green dusk of the park where
silver fountains whisper that make the charm of Peterhof.
And it is in the little palaces of the Hermitage and of Marly,
in the white cottage of Mon Plaisir, with its terrace on the
sea, its blue-tiled kitchen and simple furniture, that one finds
the intimate memories of Peter the Great, who hated and
detested all formality and sumptuous grandeur.

So often has the story of Peter the Great been told, and
under so many different names of Brute and Genius, Murderer,
Libertine or Reformer has he been shown to posterity, that,
in the end, one does not clearly know which he is when he
seems in his greatness to be them all. Terrible, relentless,
and absolutely pitiless in his fury, unmeasured in his excesses,
coarse in his revelry, untiring in his work of regeneration,
inexhaustible in his energy, almost child-like at times in
his simple gaiety, capable of very great devotion — great,
anyhow, in all that he did, either good or evil.

When, in 1671, the Tsar Alexis married the beautiful
Nathalie Narishkin, ward of his favourite Matveieff, Russia
was still an almost Oriental Empire ; Eastern in the magnifi-
cence of its palaces, its churches and its jewels, but uncivilised
and dreading the inroads of civilisation ; shutting itself within
the rose-red walls of the Kremlin, with its churches, its
priests, its soldiers and its nobles ; keeping its women shut
up in the Terem ; drinking, fighting, praying in an ignorance
that did not want to be enlightened. The man who was to
revolutionise his country was born in 1672, but there were

Peter the Great 53

insistent and recurrent rumours that Nathalie, in reality,
bore a daughter, and that a German surgeon replaced it by
a boy ; and over and over again it was asserted that the
kindly, weakly Tsar Alexis could never have been the
father of the turbulent, vigorous giant who succeeded him.

When he was three days old the baby was measured
according to the ancient custom which decreed that the
image of the Patron Saint of each prince born to the Royal
Family should be painted on apiece of wood cut to the exact
size, and Peter was then found to be nineteen and a quarter
inches long, and five and a quarter inches broad. Later,
when he grew to his full size, he measured seven feet
exactly, and was enormously broad and strong, with
muscles of iron.

During the first few years of his childhood he was sur-
rounded by loving care and incredible luxury. He had
jewels and furs in profusion, sheets of white silk embroidered
with gold, an army of dwarfs as slaves, miniature ponies
to draw his brightly-painted carriage. In 1676, however,
Alexis died, and the terrors and shocks inflicted on the
child's receptive mind during the revolts and insurrections
that followed hardened and coarsened his sunny-tempered
nature, darkening his days and filling his nights withterror,
leaving him also with a perpetual nervous twitch, and sub-
ject to occasional fits of convulsion, that were said by some
to have been caused by some secret poison administered by
his enemies.

On the death of Alexis, Theodore, his son by his first
marriage with Maria Miloslavski, succeeded him ; the
Miloslavskis, therefore, came back into power, Matveierf
was banished, and Nathalie was forced to fly with Peter to
the castle of Preobojensk. Theodore, however, only reigned
a few years, and when he died, Peter was brought back to

54 Recollections of Imperial Russia

Moscow to be chosen as Tsar, in preference to Theodore's
younger brother, the half-blind weakling Ivan. But a few
days later, the Strelitsii, urged on by Peter's masterful,
intriguing aunt, the Tsarevna Sophia, revolted, and the
little boy had to watch the carnage that ensued, and was
finally crowned joint -Tsar with his step-brother Ivan, under
the regency of Sophia.

Ambassadors to the Court of Moscow in those days spoke
always of Peter's good looks, his quick grasp of a subject, his
intelligence and vivacity ; but the Archbishop of Novgorod,
when he was presented, quailed before the direct, almost
fierce, look of the child's eyes, as if already he knew that the
boy who looked at him so haughtily would one day over-
throw the supreme power of the Church in Russia. Terrible
and ruthless as Peter was, those years of his childhood can
be held accountable for much when one thinks of the im-
morality, the coarseness, the duplicity with which he was
surrounded ; the constant plots there were against his life ;
the dangers that threatened him always on every side . Per-
haps the happiest days were those he spent at Preobojensk,
to which Sophia's intriguing jealousy once more exiled him.

The stories of his parades and games of soldiers, of his
work as a carpenter, the legend of the old English ship,
stranded, Heaven knows how, at Ismailoff, and supposed to
have given him that first passionate craving for the sea,
are well known, and have a certain picturesqueness that one
loves to associate with him when one cannot help turning
in disgust from some of the other pursuits and pastimes of
his youth, as well as from the brutal acts of his later life.

When he was barely eighteen he was married to Eudoxia
Laphoukin, a marriage that almost from the first was a
tragic failure. Gentle, dull, intensely religious, she hated
all Peter's modern ideas and reforms, while he tired and

Peter the Great 55

fretted impatiently under the drag of her boring company,
and at last, when Ivan's death made him sole ruler of Russia,
exiled her into a convent and forced her to take the veil.

Poor sweet-faced Eudoxia, colourless, insipid and tire-
some as Peter found her, she yet had her romance, her love-
story, that only, however, intensified the tragedy of her
unhappy life. In the exile of her convent, Major Gleboff,
who was said to be one of the handsomest men in Russia,
took pity on her poverty and loneliness, and tried, by sending
her furs and comforts of all sorts, to relieve the hardness and
monotony of her life. Friendship and gratitude soon turned
to love on the deposed Tsarina's side, and her starved nature
expanded in an outburst of almost hysterical devotion.
The letters written at her dictation to Gleboff were im-
prudently kept by him ; and when, twenty years later, during
the trial of Alexis, Peter, searching for proofs to still further
implicate his unfortunate son, heard of Eudoxia's supposed
intrigue, his passion-distorted mind seized on these letters
and, with hideous savagery, tore the poor romance to shreds.

Tortured with every form of cruelty, impaled on an
icy March day, wrapped in furs so as to prolong his life,
dragging on his suffering for more than twenty-four hours,
Gleboff stoically and heroically refused to utter one word
that could in any way further implicate the woman who had
loved him ; and, baffled in his fury, Peter could only send
Eudoxia into a still grimmer seclusion in another convent
near Lake Ladoga. Later still, she was imprisoned in the
Fortress of Schliisselberg till after the death of Peter and
his second wife Catherine, when the doors of her prison were
opened and she was received in Moscow by the son of Alexis
who had succeeded to the Throne. But her eyes that had
shed so many tears could no longer bear the light of day, and
when the final sorrow of her grandson's death left the world

56 Recollections of Imperial Russia

empty of all joy, she retired of her own accord into a convent .

So, a pitiful, pale, wavering ghost, she stands amongst
those others who, crowding near to Peter,stretch out accusing
hands, and in low- whispering voices remind us of his crimes,
his inhumanity, his Homeric violence.

In their kaftans of crimson, of emerald green, and deep
cornflower blue they follow him, an army of shadows, the
ghosts of the Strelitsii Guards, cut down in their hundreds,
swept away and annihilated completely, because the clear,
far -seeing mind of the Great Reformer saw in them an ever
present danger and menace to his plans of regeneration — a
part of the old Russia that would always be his enemy.

A creation of Ivan the Terrible, the Strelitsii were
practically of the same standing as the Praetorian Guard of
Rome or the Musketeers of France. They numbered
altogether twenty regiments of eight hundred men each ;
they had their own suburb in Moscow ; they were kept and
paid by the State ; in war-time they were the rear -guard and
vanguard of the Army, in peace they took the place of
police in patrolling the streets, were called up to put out
fires, or to settle disputes, and were used as guards of honour
on special occasions. But their force and strength were in
themselves a danger to the Tsar they served, and though
they were his protection against foreign foes within his
Palace walls, they might at any moment take possession,
hack him to pieces, and set up a Tsar of their own choosing.
Always they were a power to be reckoned with — a menace
the Tsar could never afford to neglect or ignore.

Peter had never forgotten that day when they clamoured
belowthe windows of the Kremlin, demanding to see his half-
brother Ivan, whom they believed murdered. When at last,
to show them that it was not true, his mother, holding him
by one hand and Ivan by the other, went out unto the top of

Peter the Great 57

the Red Staircase, the little boy of ten looked down at all
those threatening bearded faces, at the bared arms that
brandished swords and pikes, and must have shrunk back,
covering his face with his hands, when old Prince Dolgorouki,
going to the head of the Red Staircase, tried to placate the
furious rabble, and was seized by a soldier who had swung
himself up, dragged down and brutally cut to pieces.

During the three days of terror that followed, Peter must
have shared his mother's anguish when one by one the
Narishkins and Matveieff were torn from her, tortured, and
put to death. In the golden dimness of the Terem he must
have wept with her when finally she was forced to surrender
her favourite brother Ivan Narishkin, who, having com-
municated, went quietly out to his murderers, holding a
Crucifix before him.

All this the young Tsar remembered. He knew, too, the
unpopularity of the reforms he was introducing ; ' he knew
that the Strelitsii would be the first to rise against him, to
murder him if need be, place his Aunt Sophia on the Throne,
and push Russia back into the shadows of barbarism. It
was when he was on his first foreign tour to Holland, England,
and Vienna that he heard of the approaching insurrection
against him, and hurried home, determined to stamp out
the ever-threatening danger once for all.

The torture chambers of the Palace of Preobojensk, the
massed executions in the Red Square at Moscow, show him
once more the inhuman, implacable savage, a monster who
knew no pity and no compassion, who himself even handled
knout and axe because there were not enough men to do his
bidding. But half measures did not satisfy Peter. The
Strelitsii were an impediment in his path — as long as they
existed the new Russia he dreamt of would not be safe — so he
swept them away with a wholesale, inexorable thoroughness

58 Recollections of Imperial Russia

that made his subjects cower in abject terror of his wrath.
" What man is this who rules us ? " The question was
often repeated in scared whispers, behind fast -locked doors :
" Is it anti-Christ who has wrested to himself the Crown of
Holy Russia ? "

But with inflexible perseverance the iron hand held the
murmuring in check. There were conspiracies to over-
throw him, plots against his life, insurrections, disturbances
of all kinds, that all, however, ended in failure ; while from
the shores of the White Sea to the Caspian, from the Neva to
the Volga and back again to the Baltic, Peter travelled with
inflexible determination to civilise and reform his giant
Empire. The old style of beginning the new year in Sep-
tember was abolished, the doors of the Terem were flung
open, the women of Russia who had been treated as Eastern
slaves were given their liberty, the old, barbarous laws of
marriage were reformed, social reunions were encouraged,
dancing was introduced into Society, the Navy was born,
against all opposition Petersburg was built and proclaimed
the capital.

And all the time the war with Charles XII. of Sweden
dragged on interminably, and there was, too, a war with
Turkey, which nearly ended in disaster when the Russian
Army was surrounded by Tartar hordes on the shores of
the Pruth. But at last, in 1721, peace was signed, and Peter
was definitely given the title of Great Gossedar, Emperor of
all the Russias; the title of Tsar, in spite of its resemblance
to that of Caesar, being really very little more than a
derivation from the old Tartar princes.

His subjects might complain and murmur, the nobles
might refuse to acknowledge his reforms, the Church might
call him anti-Christ and blasphemer, Petersburg might be
nearly swept away by floods, the indomitable will of Peter

Peter the Great 59

forged its way straight on, through obstacles, unpopularity,
and superhuman difficulties, ruthlessly sweeping away
everything that stood in his path.

That pitiless harshness did not even in its inexorable,
uncompromising severity spare the son, whose ghost stands
foremost amongst the accusing, shadowy throng of victims
darkening the glory of the great Emperor's reign. The
magnificence of Peter's work for his country, the story of his
achievements which might have been written in gold on the
pages of history, will always be stained with blood and shame ;
for whatever was the mystery surrounding the death of Alexis,
nothing can wipe away the fact that his father was directly
responsible for it.

Erratic, capricious, weak and vacillating, a dreamer with
bursts of almost fanatical religiousness, Alexis, the son of
the unhappy Eudoxia, had been born in 1690, and, ever
since his childhood, there had been an impassable gulf of
misunderstanding, fear, dislike, and impatience between
him and his iron-handed father. Alexis dreaded and
disliked Peter's innovations ; he loved the patriarchal
palaces, the gorgeous churches, the narrow streets of Moscow,
all the mode of life, the customs and manners of old Russia
that were being gradually stamped out.

In vain his father tried to make a soldier of him, tried
to instil into him a little of his own superabundant energy,
the boy only failed lamentably ; his nerves and health weak
and feeble ; his fear of his father forcing him into every sort
of deceit and crookedness, causing him even, when at one
moment Peter ordered him to draw out some plans and
problems of mechanics, to wound himself in the right hand
in order to escape an examination which he knew himself
incapable of passing.

In 171 1, he married the Princess Charlotte of Wolfenbuttel,

60 Recollections of Imperial Russia

and, for a short time, it almost seemed as if the union
was to be a happy one ; but Charlotte, with her languid grace
and delicate charm, had not the strength of mind to keep
Alexis to her or to help him mould his life on saner, stronger
lines. More and more the old Russian party were gaining
a hold on him ; more and more he was slipping into dissolute
self-indulgence, was constantly incapacitated by drink, and
finally had the Finnish servant girl Afrosina publicly installed
as his mistress.

The secret conflict between him and his father seemed to
reach a crisis when, in I7i5,his wife died in giving birth to a
boy only a few days before a son was born to Peter and his
second wife, Catherine. In the letter the Tsar wrote to
Alexis at this time he enforced on him the necessity of
either reforming or abdicating from the succession to the
Crown, accusing him of being, in his present state, unfit to
carry on the work that had been begun. " As I have not
spared my own life, nor those of my subjects," Peter added in
his usual point -blank, unvarnished style, " so I shall not spare
yours. Better a deserving stranger than an unworthy
son."

With abject humbleness, Alexis sent back a reply agreeing
to abdicate, but his father, perhaps disarmed by his ready
acquiescence, perhaps relenting and willing to give him
another chance, came to no definite decision, and left for a
long tour abroad, leaving behind him another letter for his
son, in which he gave him six months to make up his mind
eit.ter to reform or become a monk. Punctually at the end
of the time, however, he wrote to him again, curtly command-
ing him to join him at once and take up the duties of Heir
Apparent, or else to retire definitely into a monastery.

Terrified at the idea of the gloom of monastic life,
equally afraid of joining his father, Alexis listened to the bad

Peter the Great 61

advice of certain of his followers and committed the fatal
error that was to lead to such appalling tragedy. Announc-
ing to Menshikoff that he was going to meet his father, he
left Russia, but, having crossed the frontier, he turned, and
instead of attempting to join Peter, fled to Austria, and
arrived in Vienna in a pitiable state of panic to beg the pro-
tection of his brother-in-law, the Emperor Charles VI.
For the latter it was an uncomfortable predicament, for he
could not afford to make an enemy of Peter, and Russia
was at all times a dangerous neighbour. The pitiable terror
of Alexis, however, at last induced him to give him shelte-
in the old Castle of Ehrenberg, allowing him to keep Alfror
sina, disguised as a page, and a few other trusted followers,
later even transferring him to Naples in order to remove him
still further from his father's wrath.

Peter's half-sister, Maria Alexeievna, when she met
Alexis on the Russian frontier and heard of his projected
flight, had cried out in horror. " Where do you think you
can hide yourself ? " she exclaimed. " HE will find you
anywhere." Her words proved themselves quickly and
terribly true, for, all too soon, RoumantsiorT and Tolstoi, the
emissaries of his father, tracked down the terrified Prince,
forced themselves into his presence, and with a fabric of
lies and threats and promises — that at one moment assured
him of his father's forgiveness, at another warned him that
Charles would no longer protect him, that Peter was on his
way to Naples, and that Afrosina would be taken from him —
undermined his feeble, trembling resistance, and finally
induced him to accompany them. So, with tears in his eyes,
Alexis left the blue bay of Naples with its sunshine and
freedom, its brown-faced fishermen and moonlit nights,
and started back to the darkness and terror that awaited
him, his two gaolers smuggling him through Vienna and

62 Recollections of Imperial Russia

not allowing him an interview with the Emperor Charles,
who might still have tried to save him.

Slowly the last grim act of the tragedy unrolled itself.
In the Kremlin at Moscow, before a solemn assembly,
Alexis — prostrate, pitiful, his shaking hands plucking at his
quivering lips — flung himself at the feet of his terrible father,
begging, with tears and sobs, to be forgiven. In the Cathedral
of the Assumption — a furtive, trembling figure, surrounded
by all the grandeur and pomp — he made a public and open
act of abdication, swearing allegiance to Catherine's baby
son, who was proclaimed Heir to the Throne.

A few days later he gave the names of those who had
sympathised with him and encouraged him, and in the
pitiless and terrible inquisition that followed, Peter, urged
on it seemed by some monster of implacable fury, showed
himself not the reformer and civiliser of an uneducated
people, but the brutal barbarian who revelled in unspeakable
cruelty. Once more the Red Square before the Kremlin was
stained with blood, once more pikes with severed heads were
erected round the Lobnoie Mest (or Place of the Skull),
and yet neither terror, nor torture, nor executions could gain
the definite proof of conspiracy he sought for, and at last,
accompanied by Alexis, he returned to Petersburg.

It seemed at first as if the wholesale persecutions were
over ; Alexis perhaps sustained himself with the hope that
at last he would be allowed to live in peace and happiness ;
but in April, Afrosina, who had remained on in Italy for her
confinement, arrived in Petersburg, and was promptly
sent for and severely interrogated by the Emperor.

A common, uneducated, self-seeking peasant, she was
only too ready to win favour by repeating all Alexis' foolish
thoughtless words. He had spoken of a party being formed
which would put him on the Throne after Peter's death ;

Peter the Great 63

he had said he would abolish the Navy, give up Petersburg,
do away with all reforms and innovations. It was still no
conclusive proof of a conspiracy, but it was enough for Peter,
who saw that as long as Alexis lived no formal act of abdica-
tion, not even the exile of a monastery, would protect his
crown from the intriguing grasp of the reactionary party,
who would always look on Alexis as the rightful heir. Once
more the Russia of his dreams was in danger ; to save her
this man, even though he was his son, must be destroyed.

On the 14th of June, Alexis was arrested and imprisoned
in the Fortress, an assembly of priests and high dignitaries
was convened, and men who trembled before the Emperor's
frown sought through the Scriptures to find authority
giving him the power to punish his son by death. All through
the golden days of June, when the Neva was as blue as the
sky above it, and the fires of sunset and sunrise burnt through
the hot, still nights, the huge granite-like figure of Peter
stood over his trembling son and listened to the pitiable
confessions that the cruel knout wrung from the twitching
lips — confessions that even now gave no proof of having
gone beyond having wished the death of his father, in
cowering fear and dislike having, perhaps, prayed for it :
thoughts and prayers alike never having materialised into
any plan of action.

Then at last, on the 26th of June, the official report was

given out that, having heard the sentence of death read out

to him, the Tsarevitch Alexis had succumbed under a stroke

of apoplexy, only recovering sufficiently to beg his father's

forgiveness before he died. For eight days the body was

exposed in the Cathedral of the Trinity near the Fortress,

for eight days the priests prayed for the peace of the Tsare-

vitch's soul but the true manner of his death remained a

mystery that has never yet been completely solved.

E

64 Recollections of Imperial Russia

Countless stories, of course, were told, which all contradicted
each other : some stating that Peter had actually killed his
son with his own hands; others holding Catherine responsible,
saying that she had sent poison to Alexis, others again
declaring that he had been beheaded by Peter's orders and
the head sewn on again, that his veins had been opened, that
he had been suffocated in his sleep.

And when Peter came to the Cathedral of the Trinity,
in the light of the nickering candles, the haze of incense, the
shimmer of jewelled ikons and priests 'embroidered vestments,
did he look down on the white, still face of the son whose life
he had made one long nightmare of fear without one tremor
of sorrow or remorse ? They say he wept at the funeral,
and yet the day after his son's death he had attended a Te
Deum celebrating the anniversary of the Battle of Poltava,
and a few days later he was present at the launching of a
new ship, accompanied by all his Ministers.

And yet, with all his violence and his harshness, he adored
his second wife, Catherine, and when their little son Pet-
rouchka, or Chichenka as he was sometimes called, died at
four years old, the Emperor was almost inconsolable. His
letters to Catherine are full of real affection, and of confi-
dences that are at times almost boyish in their candid spont-
aneous frankness. They give glimpses of a home-life that was
simple and sincere; they show the great Reformer of Russia
lamenting the fact that, in his absence from his beloved
wife, he has no one to look after his linen, no one to see that
his hair is combed, no one to talk toinhis loneliness without
" the friend of his heart." One sees him the big, restless
untidy man for the coronation of Catherine patiently sub-
mitting to her wish — discarding his old green suit, his thick
woollen stockings and bullet-holed hat, and, laughing perhaps
at his own foolishness, putting on the gorgeous blue and

Peter the Great 65

silver Court dress she had made for him with her own
hands.

When he first saw her she was only just a Livonian
peasant girl, an orphan, who had been adopted by a clergy-
man, married to a Swedish soldier, who, luckily for her, dis-
appeared the day of the wedding, and finally had been pro-
tected first by General Cheremetyeff, then by Menshikoff.
To Peter at that time all women were much alike, and the
fact that she was Menshikoff' s mistress in no way affected
him. She pleased him, and that was sufficient and perfectly
excused his taking her away from the favourite.

But Catherine was to be more than just a passing attrac-
tion in his life, and her power over him grew in a way that
was almost amazing. In the accesses of nervous prostration,
and intolerable headaches to which he was occasionally
subject, and which caused all his friends to fly from his
fury, she alone retained the ability to calm him, nursing that
savage, throbbing head against her breast, speaking to him
softly and soothingly as a mother to a child. Though after
his death she herself led a life of excess, she recognised the
danger of his over-indulgence, and, whenever it was possible,
attempted to stop his intemperate drinking, even going to
the door behind which he had shut himself to celebrate
with a few boon companions the launching of a new ship.
" It is time to go home, Little Father," she cried, and
obediently the Ruler of Russia rose from table and followed
her.

Above all things she was his companion, his comrade,
and his friend; she went with him on all his campaigns;
her courage was supreme and unrivalled ; a true soldier's
wife she feared neither danger nor discomforts, and would
sleep in a rough tent and ride all day without showing signs
of fatigue.

66 Recollections of Imperial Russia

The stories of her giving up her diamonds, of her bargain-
ing with the Turks, and of her ready wit and tact which saved
the Russian Army when it was surrounded on the banks of
the Pruth are well known — though perhaps slightly exag-
gerated ; but it was in memory of her assistance to him there
that Peter instituted the Order of St. Catherine, and it was
shortly after the campaign of the Pruth that he married her
publicly in the Chapel adjoining Menshikoff's Palace.

After the death of their son in 1719, Peter decided on a
step that was almost unprecedented in the history of Russia,
and in 1724, Catherine, a Livonian peasant girl, a camp-fol-
lower and a servant, was crowned Empress of Russia — the
special diadem of pearls and diamonds that was made for
her costing a million and a half roubles. In the golden dusk
of the old Cathedral she knelt before the man who had raised
her to such incredible heights and, overcome with emotion,
wept as she bent to kiss his hand ; and yet it was she, the
woman to whom he had given his love and trust and the
highest honour in the land, who, six months later, struck a
blow at his heart from which he was never to recover.

Knowing Peter as she must have done, one wonders at
her temerity in betraying him, marvels at the foolishness
that led her to believe that her intrigue with William Mons,
a Chamberlain of the Court, would remain undiscovered.
But, even when her lover was arrested, tried on a false
charge of treason, condemned and executed, her courage
never faltered, nor could Peter, forcing her to drive with
him past the scaffold where the body was still hanging,
wring a word of protest or complaint from her.

Perhaps it was a secret admiration of this fortitude of
hers that induced him to spare her when, in his first insane,
frenzied rage, he had contemplated having her publicly J
disgraced and executed. Morose and silent, fatally ill

Peter the Great 67

already and tortured by incessant pain, he held his hand
while a gloom that was ominous and sinister pervaded the
Court, and the grim northern winter settled slowly down over
the new capital. In January, however, there was a patched-
up reconciliation, and Catherine was pardoned by the man
who loved her but who could never forget ; who, when she
knelt to ask his forgiveness raised her from her knees, but
went his way unsmiling, a savage pain in his heart, a sullen
despair on his ravaged face. A few weeks later, refusing to
listen to the doctors' advice, he set out for Ladoga to super-
vise the works on the canal, and, seeing a boat with some
soldiers in it wrecked near the shore, plunged into the lake
to their rescue, bringing them to land by almost super-
human strength.

By many people Catherine was accused of having hastened
Peter's end with the aid of Menshikoff, but the violent fever
brought on by his immersion in the icy water was enough to
prove fatal to a man in the Emperor's condition, and, return-
ing to Petersburg, he died after a short illness on the 28th of
January, leaving behind him no will or testament that
bequeathed the mighty work of regeneration to a successor,
the last feeble words scrawled in his failing hand breaking

off with " Give everything to " leaving the sentence for

ever unfinished and the name of his successor for ever
unknown.

Immense, incredible, gigantic, his shadow towers in the
history of Russia, a turbulent force that swept good and
evil before it, that laughed at defeat and seemed to pass with
callous indifference over tragedy. Raising Russia out of
the darkness of ignorance, liberating women from the slavery
of the Terem, building cities, planting forests, constructing
canals, fighting Swedes and Turks and Persians, learning
ship-building in Holland and in England, visiting the King

68 Recollections of Imperial Russia

of France in Paris, the Emperor of Austria in Vienna, over-
coming enemies abroad and at home, subjugating the will of
the people, planting a seed of progress that, in spite of dis-
orders and confusion, was to take root and flourish.

The long summer evenings of Northern Russia seem
always full of ghosts, spirits that steal down the twilight
paths, dreams that gather round the sleeping trees, grey
shadows of dead loves and hope and laughter that the dark-
ness of night-time covers, but that stretch-out beckoning
hands in the strange, dim light that is neither dusk nor
dawn. So, that evening at Peterhof, when at last we
boarded our little steamer and the silvermurmur of the hidden
fountains in the park came to us softly across the water,
I seemed to see on the terrace of Mon Plaisir a giant figure
standing with folded arms and fierce, wild, sombre eyes
looking out across the sea. Slowly, as we steamed away, the
churches and houses he had dreamt of rose out of the hya-
cinth-coloured mist, and when we crept silently up the river ;
past the great palaces along the quays, the fire of the long-
dead sunset still gleamed on the golden spires and the great
dome of the Isaac Cathedral, even as the deeds of the long-
dead Emperor still burn in fire and gold in the pages of
history.

Catherine — Grand Duchess ! 69

CHAPTER V

CATHERINE — GRAND DUCHESS !

In the month of January of the year 1744 there arrived in
Russia a little girl who had been given before she left Ger-
many many injunctions and much good advice from a rigid
Protestant father, and whose sole wealth consisted of four
silk dresses, a length of blue and silver stuff, and a Lutheran
Prayer Book. She had with her, too, a tiresome, petulant,
intriguing mother who very often slapped and scolded her,
who complained and groaned and cast up her eyes at the
bad roads, the uncomfortable inns, the lack of decent accom-
modation and food, and who became still more aggravating
in her puffed-out pride when the travellers were received
with great ceremony and honours at Riga and Petersburg.

The little girl, however, was used to her mother's cross-
ness, and also to her petulance and her vanity, and, looking
at the snow-bound wastes, the endless forests of pine and
birch, the frozen rivers, her thoughts were already busy
with other things : her mind, that was no longer so very
childish, was made up to conquer the heart of this great
strange country, and make herself beloved and worshipped
by its people.

After a rest in Petersburg, the journey to Moscow, where
the Empress Elisabeth was then in residence, was performed
in pomp and luxury that greatly pleased the little girl's
mother. The enormous sledge painted in scarlet and silver,

70 Recollections of Imperial Russia

with its costly furs, its cushions, and mattresses, and silken
coverlets lined with wool, delighted her with its comfort,
while the guard of honour and suite who accompanied them
gave her an almost childish pleasure. One can see her,
the poor, blundering, unwise woman, rather red about the
face, rather watery about the eyes, lying in that gorgeous
sledge, muffled in furs, thinking her foolish, injudicious
thoughts.

Had she not been asked to bring her daughter Sophie,
familiarly known as " Figchen," to marry the Heir to this
great Empire ? And had not she herself, the Princess Jeanne
of Anhalt Zerbst, been entrusted by Frederick of Prussia
with a secret mission, namely, that of working with the
Marquis de la Chetardie, the French Ambassador, against
the powerful Chancellor Besthouzhew ? The Princess Jeanne
could not get over the greatness of her own importance,
and the ceremony attending their arrival at Moscow and the
gracious reception of the Empress still further swelled out
her vanity, making her for the time being insufferably con-
sequential and arrogant.

Her daughter, her mind still engrossed with her one fixed
intention, took it all more quietly, looking with her big
bright eyes at the ugly, awkward, gawky boy, whom she
remembered having once seen at Eutin when he was eleven
years old, and whom she had on that first occasion instan-
taneously disliked and despised. But he was now no longer
just Prince Peter Ulric of Schleswig Holstein, he was the
Grand Duke Peter, hereditary Heir to the Throne of Russia,
and she had been brought all the way from Germany to
marry him ! If she showed her distaste, her contempt and
repugnance, she might be sent back in disgrace, and then
she would never be Empressof Russia.

So the starry eyes looked at him gravely, weighing and

Catherine — Grand Duchess ! 71

considering his crookedness, his sallowness, his general
unlovely awkwardness, while the fresh, soft colour deepened
a little on the smooth cheeks, at having perforce to listen to
his foolish confidences, for almost the first thing he told her
was his consuming passion for a Mademoiselle Laphoukin
who had just been exiled with her aunt to Siberia, and the
Princess Sophie, who had been well brought up, thanked him
prettily for his trust in her, but kept her secret thoughts to
herself.

But very nearly Fate decreed that the name of a clever
woman and a great Empress should never be known to
history, for scarcely ten days after her arrival in Moscow the
little girl, unaccustomed to the Russian climate, contracted
a severe chill by walking up and down her room all night in a
dogged determination to master the beginnings of the Russian
language, and lay dying of pleurisy in the Kremlin. Sum-
moned back from the Troitski Monastery, where she had just
gone on one of her frequent pilgrimages, the Empress arrived
at last, chased away the foolish, hysterical mother, and
insisted on the patient being bled ; a treatment that had
to be repeated sixteen times in twenty-seven days, but which
ultimately saved the child's life.

At last, on the 28th of June (old style), the Princess
Sophie of Anhalt Zerbst, still rather pale, and very slender in
a red dress trimmed with silver, was received into the Ortho-
dox Church under the name of Catherine Alexeievna, and
the next day was publicly betrothed to the Grand Duke
Peter in the glorious old Uspensky Cathedral.

Her determined ambition to be Empress of Russia seemed
on the way to be realised, but twice again she was very nearly
cheated of her heritage : once when the Empress discovered
Princess Jeanne's intrigues against Besthouzhew, and
threatened to send both her and her daughter back to

72 Recollections of Imperial Russia

Germany ; and again when Peter, barely recovered from the
measles, suddenly developed smallpox on his way from Mos-
cow to Petersburg, and had to be left at Hatilof ; Elisabeth,
who had already gone on to the capital, hurriedly returning
to nurse him.

Catherine and her mother continued the journey to
Petersburg alone, and, arrived there, took up their quarters
in the Winter Palace, the grey days dragging themselves
away in lugubrious and intolerable boredom. The Princess
Jeanne, still smarting from the Empress's severe reprimand,
was petulant and dissatisfied, complained that her daughter
had better apartments than she had, and made herself
generally as insupportable as a foolish, gossiping, peevish
old lady could well do.

Catherine filled the long empty hours with reading history
and philosophy and with unremitting study of the Russian
language, and, perhaps, looking out across the frozen Neva,
walking or driving down the wide, unfinished, untidy streets
she dreamt of the palaces she was to build one day when the
world would acclaim her as Star of the North. It was not to
be too easy though, the path for her young feet, her ardent
imagination and temperament, her passionate love of beauty ;
for at the beginning of January of the year 1745 the Em-
press Elisabeth returned to Petersburg, bringing with her the
Heir to the Throne, only barely recovered from his attack
of smallpox.

Castera pretends that, after her first meeting with Peter,
Catherine, on returning to her room, fell into a dead faint
which lasted for three hours ; and, in her Memoirs, she
herself acknowledges that she was " nearly frightened " by
Peter's changed appearance, that " his features had become
coarsened and thick, that his face was still swollen, while an
enormous wig he wore to hide his baldness still further

Catherine — Grand Duchess ! 73

added to his grotesque appearance." The picture is hardly a
pretty one, but the Crown of Russia — was that not worth a
sacrifice ? It was surely the luminous shadow of that
crown she saw always above the grey mists ot the frozen river,
while the fire of its jewels burnt before her when, alone in her
room, she thought of Peter, and shuddered a little, closing
her eyes against the vision of his sallow, pock-marked face.

His treatment of her also bitterly wounded her pride,
for he neglected her publicly, treated her always with care-
less indifference, and, when, in May, Elisabeth moved into
the Summer Palace, and Catherine and her mother were given
apartments in a house adjoining on the Fontanka, he sent her
a message to say that, as she now lived so far away, it would
not be possible for him to come and see her every day.
Her self-esteem suffered from his evident lack of affection
for her, but, if she cried secretly, she showed no signs of her
grief in public, but went on her way determined always to
win the affection, the respect and admiration of all with
whom she came in contact, making it a rule to believe that
everybody she met was necessary to her in some way, or
would be of use to her in the future.

Soon after their removal to the Summer Palace, the
Court again changed its abode and went to Peterhof, and
here, by the blue Gulf of Finland, in the shady park with its
many whispering fountains, the time passed quickly, and in
the company of her ladies-in-waiting, who were young and
gay and full of spirits, Catherine tried to forget what lay
before her, though as the day fixed for the wedding
approached, she became more and more melancholy — her
indomitable, resolute ambition alone sustaining her.

At last, on August 21st, the marriage was celebrated in
Petersburg with all the pomp of magnificent ceremony that
was habitual to the Court of Russia, and a month later the

74 Recollections of Imperial Russia

Princess Jeanneof AnhaltZerbstsaidgood-byetoherdaughter
and returned to Germany. Tiresome she had been, foolish
and petulant and domineering, but yet Catherine wept to
see her go, feeling herself now really alone and defenceless,
her depression not in any way lightened by the removal
from her service of her favourite lady-in-waiting, Mademoi-
selle Choukoff.

That winter passed in an endless series of balls and
masquerades which the Empress adored. Elisabeth was
at this time at the height of her mature, voluptuous beauty,
and, though already beginning to get too stout, she still
retained a splendid figure, her head with the beautiful neck
and shoulders was superbly held, her eyes were so dark a
blue as almost to be black, her hair was abundant and
softly fair ; and yet, for all her loveliness, this daughter
of Peter the Great had inherited a great deal of her father's
harshness, his pitiless inflexible cruelty and relentlessness.
Before her accession to the Throne she had sworn, kneeling
before a silver crucifix, to abolish the death penalty ; but
this did not prevent her sometimes punishing those who
crossed her path with almost inhuman brutality. Hundreds
were tortured and beaten ; hundreds more were exiled to
Siberia and never heard of again.

The most glaring of all her acts of intolerance was her
punishment of the beautiful Madame Laphoukin, who
had dared at a ball in the Palace to appear in a pink dress,
which was the Empress's favourite colour, and which nobody
else at Court ever ventured to wear. Whatever fancied
crimes of conspiracy and intrigue were later imputed to
Madame Laphoukin, the crime of being more beautiful
than the Empress was still the greatest, and for this she had
her tongue cut out, was sentenced to twenty strokes of the
knout, and exiled to Siberia.

Catherine — Grand Duchess ! 75

Against this woman, ruthless when her anger was aroused,
vain, luxury-loving, indolent, intensely superstitious, at
times drinking to excess, or else fanatically religious, and
always absolutely immoral, Catherine, young and inex-
perienced, was pitted ; and more and more Peter made it
evident to her that she meant nothing to him, and that, if
ever she was in trouble, he would not stand by her. Flag-
rantly unfaithful to her, he passed most of his days in smok-
ing, drinking, playing the violin atrociously badly, or else
amusing himself with his marionette theatre, his tin soldiers
and toy fortresses ; his passion for military parades making
him dress up his unfortunate chamberlains and servants in
uniforms, and drill them for hours on end in his bedroom.

In every way he was unpleasant, coarse-minded, and
dirty in his habits to such an extent that, when the Empress
ordered him to have a bath, he refused on the ground of his
health ; his wife saying of him with a certain plaintive
maliciousness : " His Imperial Highness was insupportable
in summer."

Although she found her chief consolation in books, the
life Catherine was forced to lead often wearied her with its
irksome repression and constraint. Watched on all sides,
not allowed to go out without permission, she was kept
almost a prisoner, with a husband she could not trust, who
shamelessly neglected her, from whose presence she shrank
even though her pride suffered at his indifference.

Only when they were in residence at Oranienbaum, the
estate the Empress had given the Grand Duke near Peterhof,
was Catherine a little more free. The early mornings,
with the rising sun on the blue waters and the dew on the
grass, saw her, fresh and fair, in man's attire, a gun on her
shoulder, accompanied by one old servant, going off to shoot
ducks in the reedy marshes. Or else, riding astride, she

j6 Recollections of Imperial Russia

would gallop through the pine woods round Peterhof, the
soft air bringing a flush of colour to her cheeks, a sparkle of
joyous laughter to her wonderful eyes. She forgot during
those moments the constant pit-falls and dangers that beset
her path ; she forgot the crooked, foul-minded boy who was
her husband, and the stern, tiresome Madame Tchoglokoff,
who had been made Grand Mistress of her Court and whose
spying watchfulness and prim virtue was a trying burden
to bear.

From Petersburg to Moscow and back again, from Peter-
hof and Oranienbaum to the new Palace at Tsarskoe, just
under construction, the Court journeyed, with occasional
visits to Gostilitza, the country estate of Count Razumovsky,
Elisabeth's chief favourite. With endless packings, endless
trails of servants, of sledges and carriages, of boxes, cases,
furniture and provisions, these constant removals were
made ; and during the long absences, Petersburg, deserted
and almost empty, seemed to become a silent city of the
dead.

Then at last the Court returned ; the windows of the
palaces were cleaned of cobwebs and dust ; the streets, over-
grown with grass and weeds, were full once more of painted
coaches, carriages and sledges, while the golden peal of
a hundred bells rang out from the brightly-domed churches.
There were picnics out on the ice -hills, shooting parties on
the islands ; concerts, receptions and balls at the Winter
Palace ; masquerades where, sometimes, by the command of
the Empress, women had to dress as men, and men as
women — a disguisement that, becoming to a very few, was
hopelessly unflattering to the company in general : fat old
ladies with short legs trying in vain to look unconscious and
at ease, while Court Chamberlains with yellow, scraggy necks
tried to hide their shortcomings with jewels or a scarf of lace.

Catherine — Grand Duchess ! 77

Elisabeth's love of dress and adornment had given rise
to endless extravagance — the Courtiers competing and trying
to outshine each other in the elaborate splendour of their
attire. At one ball, Catherine, in despair of being able to
have a new costume richer than any of the other ladies,
appeared in the simplest of white dresses, a pink rose-bud
tucked in the front of her dress, and another half hidden in
the masses of her luxuriant hair. Her dazzling youth and
freshness, her vivacity and vitality, chaimed all beholders,
and many a Courtier's heart beat a little faster when the
magnetic eyes, whose colour no chronicler seems to be certain
of, smiled into his.

But one heart remained apparently unresponsive and
entirely insensible to her charm, for the Grand Duke con-
tinued to treat her with the utmost unconcern, never even
attempting to hide his many infidelities from her, indeed,
boasting to her of his conquests, or else making her his
confidente when his advances were repulsed. And presently
the girl, whose love stories were to be famous all over
Europe, stretched out eager hands to the first faint warmth
of that fire that later on was to light her life with such con-
suming heat.

Her husband had inspired her with nothing but distaste,
the affection she might at first have given him had been
thrown back on itself by his abominable behaviour. Zachar
Tchernichoff, who had made ardent love to her, seemingly
gained nothing but an exchange of letters and verses ;
Count Tchoglokoff, fat and sly and foolish, had only dis-
gusted her by his heavy attempts at paying court ; but
Serge Soltikoff, twenty-six years old, audacious, gay, a
practised and finished love-maker, was a very different
matter.

During a hunt on Tchoglokoff's estate on one of the

78 Recollections of Imperial Russia

islands near Petersburg, he managed to get separated from
the rest of the suite with Catherine, riding close to her under
the dripping trees, while the sound of the hunt died away
in the distance. When at last he put spurs to his horse and
galloped away, she was seized by a sudden terror. " No —
no — no," she called after him, and, laughingly above the
thud of his horse's hoofs, his answer came back to her :
" Yes — yes — yes "

And yet this love story of Catherine's was hardly a very
happy one, for Serge Soltikoff, with all his charm, was stupid,
fickle and changeable, and already that summer, when
he returned from the country where he had gone on account
of the gossip that was linking his name with that of the
Grand Duchess, he seemed to her less ardent and attentive ;
indeed, she once called him " Fat — arrogant et dissipe."

After a short stay at Peterhof and Oranienbaum the
Court moved to Moscow, and here again Soltikoff showed
his diminished affection, excusing himself on the plea that he
affected a coolness in his manner so as to hoodwink the over-
curious Courtiers. Knowing that he lied to her, Catherine
pretended ignorance, showing herself calm and collected
before the world, laughing gaily at the jokes and antics of
Leon Narishkin, that " born Harlequin " who was to be
such a true friend to her all through her life.

It was during this visit to Moscow that Madame Tchoglo-
koff , drawing Catherine aside one day, read her the lecture
that has since been so much discussed, telling her that, as
after nine years she had had no child from the Grand Duke,
she, Madame Tchoglokoff, would put no obstacle in her way
if she chose to show any preference for either Soltikoff
or Narishkin ; that special circumstances excused many
things, and that it was necessary for the good of the country
that an heir should be born to the Throne. To all of which

Catherine — Grand Duchess ! 79

Catherine listened with such a well-acted air of pretended
innocence and ignorance, that Madame Tchoglokoff finally
threw up her hands in despair and scolded her impatiently
for being a dunce.

In the early autumn of that year, the big wooden Palace
at Moscow was totally destroyed by fire in the space of
three hours, and the Empress and all the Court had to
seek accommodation in different parts of the city. Under all
her riches and splendour Russia was still uncivilised in many
ways ; and Catherine, lodged first in Tchoglokoff's house,
and then in the Bishop's Palace, was overjoyed, after the
incredible, sordid discomfort of these two habitations, to
receive permission from the Empress to go to Liberitza,
the estate Peter had just been given not far from Moscow.
Meanwhile the Palace in the Kremlin was hastily rebuilt,
and, for the feasts of the New Year, the Court was once more
able to take up its abode there — balls and entertainments of
all kinds succeeding each other without end. But Catherine
was now expecting a child and was unable to take part
in many of the ceremonies, and, solitary and neglected, was
overwhelmed with a deep melancholy, seeing more clearly
that Soltikorfwas no longer faithful to her, and yet, woman-
like, dreading every moment to hear that he was to be
removed from Court. To add to the difficulties of her
position Tchoglokoff died, just when she had succeeded in
completely winning him over to her side, and Alexander
Shouvaloff, who replaced him, was hated and feared by
everybody, so that Catherine found herself watched and spied
on even more closely than before.

The journey from Moscow to Petersburg was a torture of
discomfort and endless boredom ; the rooms assigned to her
in the Summer Palace were dark and gloomy ; even the
birth of her son brought her no joy, for the Empress took

F

80 Recollections of Imperial Russia

him away into her own apartments at once, and Catherine
was left, exhausted and suffering, with no one to attend to
her, while hardly anyone came near her during the days and
weeks that followed ; and her misery was deepened by Serge
Soltikoff being sent on a missionto Sweden, while, at the same
time, Princess Gagarine, her favourite lady-in-waiting, left
her service and got married. When she was still con-
valescent the Court moved into the Winter Palace, and here,
her bedroom being uninhabitable owing to its proximity to
Peter's apartments, with the acrid smell of his tobacco and
the incessant noise of his shouting and drilling, Catherine
slept on a sofa in an ante-room which, though small, was at
least quiet and warm.

Nobody worried about her, and she seemed suddenly to
have become a person of very little importance. The
necessary Heir to the Throne had been produced and was
now the Empress's sole interest, and meanwhile the mother
counted for nothing. Even the mystery that surrounded
the birth of the child was for the moment immaterial. Russia
and Europe might raise questioning eyebrows, ask in
cynical curiosity : " Whose son is the Tsarevitch ? Zachar
Tchernichoff's ? Leon Narishkin's ? Serge Soltikoff 's ? "
Nobody troubled to find the answer. Virtually, of course,
Peter was the father, but — Russia and Europe shrugged
expressive shoulders. Later, when he grew up, Paul was
to show such marked resemblance to his official father that
the problem of his parentage became once more a vexed and
unanswerable question, surrounded by a cloud of scandals,
intrigues and mysteries ; it was even at one moment whis-
pered that the child was not Catherine's at all, but Elisa-
beth's, whom she had placed in its stead.

Catherine herself, plunging into her studies, trying to
forget Soltikoff's infidelities and her husband's hopeless,

A Village near Yalta.

Cherry Orchards near Bakhchi Serai.

p. so.

Catherine — Grand Duchess ! 81

uncouth coarseness, isolated herself almost completely from
the Court on the plea of ill-health, and during the long,
lonely days — reading, thinking, and preparing herself for
the future — seemed to be forming herself into the Empress,
who, though of foreign blood, was to be a worthy successor
to Peter the Great. The little girl with the fresh complexion
and the shining eyes was gone now for ever, and in her place
was a woman. A woman who faced her enemies with a
proud disdain, at the same time outwitting them with gay,
malicious laughter ; a woman who watched and waited
and laid her plans with slow and careful purpose.

At last Serge Soltikoff arrived in Petersburg ; but
Catherine's joy at his return was dimmed, for, at the first
meeting arranged with her, he failed to appear, keeping her
waiting in an agony of suspense till three o'clock in the
morning, and merely sending an excuse the next day to say
that he had been inveigled into a Free Mason's Lodge and
had not been able to get away. Finally, however, he came
to see her a few days later, persuaded her, all too easily, to
forgive him, and induced her even to come out of her retire-
ment and take her place at Court.

So, in a splendid dress of blue velvet embroidered with
gold, she made her official appearance once more, causing
Count Shouvaloff many moments of acute discomfort and
annoyance by her arrogance and haughtiness, laughing at
him all the time behind his back, and imitating his continual
grimaces to the amusement of all the Court. Shouvaloff's
complaints being brought to Peter's hearing, he went in a
furious passion to his wife and accused her of being insuffer-
ably proud. Catherine gently asked him in what this
excessive pride consisted ; to which he could only answer
that she held herself too straight ; and when she burst out
laughing, lost all control, and threatened to draw his sword.

82 Recollections of Imperial Russia

During the spring, Sir Charles Hanbury Williams came
as English Ambassador to Petersburg, bringing in his train
Stanislas Poniatowsky, the man who was to inspire Catherine
with a romantic tenderness that not all her subsequent
infidelities could quite efface. In spite of her many lovers,
in spite of her later treatment of his country when he was
King of Poland, she seemed never quite to forget the first
real passion that had come to her when she had deemed
herself deserted and unhappy. The young Pole, with his
slender, graceful figure, his pale face and soft luminous eyes,
his manners of Paris and London, quickly consoled her for
the absence of Serge Soltikoff, whose flirtations in Sweden
and Dresden were constantly being brought to her ears.

It was Leon Narishkin again who acted as go-between
in the romance, sending the Grand Duchess letters which,
though supposed to come from him, she easily saw were
written by a different hand ; and when in the autumn the
Court returned to Petersburg, and were installed in the
newly-reconstructed Winter Palace, Leon's gay audacious-
ness completely overcame Catherine's habitual caution. The
apartments that had been given her were somewhat removed
from those of the Grand Duke, and Leon persuaded her one
night to pretend to retire to bed early, dismiss Madame
Vladislava, and then get up again, put on a man's dress,
and wait for him to come and mew at her door like a cat and
lead her to his sister-in-law's house, where Poniatowsky was
waiting for her. So was the first secret meeting arranged,
to be succeeded by many others ; return visits to Catherine's
rooms also being engineered with elaborate precautions
— the risk and danger that attended these gatherings only
adding to their enjoyment.

Those evenings when, slim and slender in her man's
attire, she slipped past the sentries at the Palace gates,

Catherine — Grand Duchess ! 83

Catherine was only a girl going to meet her lover ; but the

shadows were gathering round her path ; and at other

moments she was a woman who faced decisions of tremendous

importance, who waited and calculated, watched every trick

of the complicated game, and wisely chose the moment to

make a move.

The great Chancellor Besthouzhew, who had formerly

been her implacable enemy, was nowentirely won over to her

side ; and when Poniatowski was forced to leave Petersburg,

it was through his help that she succeeded in getting him

recalled as Polish Minister to Russia. More and more

her influence began to be felt in politics, and more and more

foreign diplomats began to foresee that she was a power to

be reckoned with.

But her approaching confinement, which her husband,

in a fit of temper, declared had nothing to do with him; the
failing health of the Empress, who had become subject
to prolonged fainting fits; and Peter's renewed and violent
passion for Elisabeth Worontzoff — all warned Catherine that
the moment for a definite choice had come. Either she
must share Peter's life and whatever fate had in store for
him, or she must be exposed to his pleasure; or, on the other
hand, she must take a path entirely independent of him.
In fact, she must either perish with him, or by him, or try
and save herself, her children, and the State from the danger
with which he threatened them. Deciding on the latter
course, she determined to advise him whenever it was
possible, to try not to rouse his anger, and all the time to
work tor the favour of the public and show the people that
in her they had a refuge.

When Catherine's daughter Anne was born, the Empress,
as before, immediately removed the baby to her own apart-
ments ; but this time Catherine had taken her precautions,

84 Recollections of Imperial Russia

and was determined not to be left lonely and solitary during
her convalescence. Accordingly, on the pretext of protecting
herself from draughts, she had huge screens placed at one
side of her bed so arranged as to cut off one part of the room.
In this cunningly-constructed alcove she could receive
visitors, and, if anybody came in, could pull the curtains of
her bed and hide it from sight.

Poniatowsky, disguised in a fair wig, and declaring
himself, when challenged, to be one of the Grand Duke's
musicians, was naturally a frequent visitor ; Leon Narishkin
and his sister-in-law, and one or two others were admitted,
and one evening were nearly discovered by Count Shouvaloff ,
who asked to be received in order to show Catherine the
plans for some projected fireworks. Madame Vladislava,
who suspected Catherine's ruse, knocked at the door, thus
allowing time for the curtains to be pulled, hiding the alcove
and the guests. Catherine, rubbing her eyes as if just
awakened from sleep, received Shouvaloff, discussed the
matter with him at length, and finally, when he had gone,
rang for an enormous supper to be brought, declaring that
she was dying of hunger — indeed, one wonders what the
servants must have thought of her tremendous appetite at
this time !

In February, 1758, Besthouzhewwas arrested, implicated,
it was supposed, with the Grand Duchess, in the buying over
of General Appraxine, who, after his victory over the Prus-
sians at Gross Jagersdorf , had suddenly and incomprehensibly
retired. Catherine knew herself to be innocent of this treason,
but there were other things she and Besthouzhew had
discussed which might be seized on by her enemies. The
health of the Empress was causing ever greater anxiety,
the future of the Crown was precarious, and the great
Chancellor had written several times to the Grand Duchess,

Catherine — Grand Duchess ! 85

proposing that, on the death of the Empress, she should be
given equal rights of sovereignty with Peter. With her
habitual prudence she had merely sent back an answer by
word of mouth, declaring the project to be too dangerous
and difficult. Besthouzhew, however, had persevered,
writing and rewriting the proposal, the drafts of which he
luckily had time to burn before his arrest.

Some incriminating letters from Poniatowsky were,
however, found; the Empress asked for his immediate recall;
and Catherine, fearing what further discoveries might be
made, burnt all her papers, and wrote a letter to the Empress,
in which, forestalling her probable disgrace, she begged to
be allowed to go home. She had failed, she said, in winning
the affection of the Grand Duke ; as she was never allowed
to see her children it made no difference whether she was in
the same country or not ; she was sure, too, that the Empress
would care for them and that they would not miss her.
She begged, therefore, to be given permission to go away,
as the state of her health had become impaired by her
mental suffering.

The letter sent off, Catherine waited in suspense for an
answer which failed to appear ; and meanwhile still another
blow was struck at her, for, by order of the Empress, Madame
Vladislava, who had been in her service for years, was
removed from Court. Believing everything to be lost, and
overcome with grief, Catherine gave way to a hopeless fit of
tears, till one of the ladies-in-waiting suggesting the idea
to her, she declared herself to be dying, and asked in a
gasping whisper to see a priest.

Her confessor was immediately brought, and, knowing
that every word would at once be repeated to the Empress,
she told him the whole story : how Peter was so enamoured
with Elisabeth Worontzoff that he had not even come to

86 Recollections of Imperial Russia

enquire for her when he heard that she was dangerously ill ;
how everybody suspected her of intriguing ; and how her
letter to the Empress had never been answered. So successful
was she, and so uneasy was Elisabeth at the account given
by the confessor of Catherine's state of mind, that the next
evening the long-desired interview was at last accorded.

Outside, on the wide stone quays the bitter wind blew
the snow in drifting mists down the frozen river ; within, in
the warm shadowy room, the interview that was to decide,
not only Catherine's fate, but the fate of a whole Empire
dragged slowly on. The flickering light of the candles fell
on the Empress, her radiant beauty a ruin, the hand of death
which she dreaded so intensely already touching her shoulder,
and on the woman whose youth was still a triumphant chal-
enge, whose eyes were so magnificent in their anger, whose
proud head was bent in pretended humility, whilst her
ridiculous husband, reeking of drink and tobacco, balanced
himself on rickety legs, trying to throw aspersions on her,
trying to argue with her, blundering, losing his temper,
beaten at every turn by her quick wit, her unfailing ready
answers.

The daughter of Peter the Great looked at the mean,
miserable specimen of humanity who was Heir to the Throne
of Russia, and sighed with a sudden, overwhelming weariness.
It was true that he was her sister's son, and therefore the
grandson of the Emperor, but there was nothing to make it
seem possible ; and she sighed again and looked across at
the girl who was his wife, finding in her some of the un-
conquered spirit of that dead, magnificent father of hers.
If she sent Catherine back to Germany in disgrace, Peter
would most certainly marry the squinting, spitting, pock-
marked Elisabeth Worontzoff.

The Empress stirred restlessly in her chair. In the big

Catherine — Grand Duchess ! 87

golden mirror on the maxble-topped table it seemed to her
that her father's strange, wild eyes appealed to her, and,
rising suddenly, she drew near to Catherine and gave her
her hand in dismissal, whispering to her at the same time that
she still had much to say to her, but that she could not speak
openly at present on account of those that were present. A
few hours later she sent the Vice-Chancellor, Worontzoff,
to her with a message begging her to renounce her idea of
leaving Russia ; and shortly before the Court left for the
country, Catherine received permission to go and visit her
children — the Empress coming into the room while she was
there.

The memoirs of Catherine end abruptly in the middle of
her description of this second interview, and if there were
any further notes written by her, they were all burnt by
Paul when, on her death, he went through her papers. It
is certain, however, that the victory of the young Grand
Duchess was complete, and her position with the Empress
assured beyond any discrediting rumours.

But in spite of her triumph, the following year was not
to be a very happy one. Poniatowsky, evading and post-
poning the moment of departure for as long as possible,
had at last to leave. In April her little daughter Anne died,
and a few months later she received the news of her mother's
death in Paris. But Catherine had courage and resilience,
and, luckily for her, she was not faithful for very long.
Although the memory of Poniatowsky's gallantry, his quick
poetic turn of a phrase, and his eyes that seemed able to
express so many things, were never quite forgotten, yet her
curiosity and interest were soon aroused by a man who was
as great a contrast as it is possible to imagine.

Brave as a lion, stupid as an owl, absolutely uneducated,
and yet possessing that unexplainable gift of fascination and

88 Recollections of Imperial Russia

attraction, Gregory Orloff was a giant in stature, with
honey-coloured hair, laughing, audacious eyes, and a beauti-
ful profile. He and his four brothers were supposed to be
descended from that soldier of the Strelitsii Guard who was
named by his comrades Orel (the Eagle), and who, according
to the legend, on his way to execution, during the wholesale
extermination of the Strelitsii, disdainfully pushed aside the
bleeding head of the man who had preceded him on the
scaffold, an action seen by Peter the Great, who, attracted
by the man's magnificent figure and calm, unwavering
courage, pardoned and released him on the spot.

The absolute mastery Gregory Orloff quickly won over
Catherine seems hard to explain, but she was wise enough to
know that in the future she would need men who were fear-
less, and who would without question risk death for her sake,
and, by binding Gregory to her side, she won the support of
his brothers, who were perhaps the only men in Russia at
that moment who answered to her purpose.

At the same time she succeeded in gaining the support
of Panin, who had been made governor of her son, and whose
cold, careful, calculating brain was necessary to her, with the
Orloff brothers — all ardour and impetuous fire and flame.
Scandal has since affirmed that to win Panin 's adherence,
Princess Dashkow, who, though she was the sister of Elisa-
beth Worontzoff, was entirely devoted to Catherine's cause,
sacrificed her antipathy to him and became his mistress ;
but in the midst of the web of intrigue and conspiracy that
surrounded the Winter Palace it is difficult to know the truth,
and Princess Dashkow was apt to always exaggerate her own
part in the coup d'etat which placed Catherine on the
Throne.

And as the days passed on the Court saw ever more
clearly that the Empress could not live much longer, and

Catherine — Grand Duchess ! 89

the question of succession became ever more vital — was dis-
cussed in whispers in the corridors of the Palace, in gilded,
diplomatic drawing-rooms, in shadowed doorways, at the
corners of the streets. Peter, with his furtive pock-marked
face and his Holstein soldiers, was hated and despised by
everybody. It was certain that, once Emperor, he would
divorce Catherine, marry Elisabeth Worontzoff, make peace
with Prussia, govern — how would the little drunken disso-
lute man govern Russia ? Hands were flung up in despair,
and heads shaken in grave and melancholy foreboding.
There remained the alternatives of giving Catherine equal
rights with him, or of granting his crown to the little eight-
year-old Paul, and making his mother Regent during his
minority.

Panin favoured this latter plan, but the Orloffs had other
ideas, and Catherine watched and waited, the dream of the
little girl who had come to Russia eighteen years ago with
the one determined intention to be Empress, still unswerving
and steadfast in her mind.

90 Recollections of Imperial Russia

CHAPTER VI

CATHERINE — EMPRESS !

On the 5th of January (o.s.) of the year 1762, the Empress
Elisabeth died at Petersburg. Morbidly afraid of death and
unable even to face its possibility, she could not make up
her mind to change her will, or the line of succession ; and
so, inevitably, Peter of Holstein, that most unworthy
grandson of the Great Reformer, became, in his turn,
Emperor of all the Russias.

As had been expected, his first act was to suspend all
activities of the armies in Germany, already in April signing
a Treaty of Peace with Frederick of Prussia, while his be-
haviour to Catherine became every day more abominable.
He insulted her publicly, called her a fool in front of the
assembled Court, had her lodged in the furthest end of the
Winter Palace, threatened her with imprisonment and
banishment, and kept Elisabeth Worontzoff always by his
side.

Smiling, beautiful, apparently resigned, Catherine con-
tinued to attend all ceremonies, even though she was now
expecting her confinement, a condition that she must at all
costs hide from the Emperor. So, when her son was finally
born, Chkourin, her faithful and devoted servant, set fire
to his house in a suburb of the capital, Peter and all his suite,
as was expected, setting off in haste to watch the con-
flagration. It was Chkourin, too, who took the baby, bring-
ing it up as his nephew under the name of Alexis Bobrinsky.

Catherine — Empress ! 91

On the 24th of June the Emperor went to Oranienbaum,
taking Elisabeth Worontzoff and several other ladies with
him, and a few days later Catherine received orders to go
at once to Peterhof to await her husband's arrival, And so
slowly the golden days passed by, the 9th of July approached,
with the story of the Revolution that has been told so often
in somewhat varying details, though the outstanding facts
still remain the same.

Terrified by the arrest of Passik, who was one of their
party, the conspirators saw that they must either strike
at once, or run the risk of all being discovered. Nothing
had been prepared or got ready, but, in the pale, grey dusk of
the Northern summer's night, Alexis Orloff set out to drive
to Peterhof. Entering Catherine's room at four in the
morning, he found her still fast asleep, and, stamping up to
her bed in his heavy military boots, a huge, uncouth figure
in the faint luminous light, he announced brusquely :
"It is time for you to get up. Everything is prepared to
proclaim you Empress."

Sitting up, her glorious hair falling round her shoulders,
she gazed at him a moment with startled, wide-open eyes.
Now that the moment she had been waiting for for so long
had come, did she shrink back afraid ? Or did her heart beat
in proud and glad anticipation ? The risk she was taking
was immense, and failure would mean certain imprisonment,
probably torture and death. Outside in the park the birds
were waking, calling to each other, the gold of the rising sun
lit up the soft blue-grey waters of the Gulf of Finland, the
laughing murmur of the fountains came in through the wide
open windows. But to all Catherine's hurried questions
Alexis only answered with his usual curt brevity, " Passik
is arrested. We must go at once." He would give her no
further explanation, and, dressing hurriedly with fingers

92 Recollections of Imperial Russia

that shook a little, she at last got into the coach he had
brought with him, accompanied only by one of her women
and the faithful Chkourin.

The sun had risen completely when, leaving the shadows of
the park, they came out on the dusty road between the
green fields all sweet with thyme. And here that character-
istic of the Russian temperament that never reckons or
thinks ahead very nearly cost Catherine the throne and
her life as well ; for Alexis, in his desperate hurry, had never
thought of ordering a fresh relay of horses for the return
journey to Petersburg, and, exhausted by the furious speed
at which they had been driven the thirty-seven versts
(twenty-five miles), and having had hardly any rest, the
poor, panting animals began to flag, and at last could go
no further. Furious, and fuming with impatience, Alexis
tried in vain to beat them on ; Catherine wrung her hands
in despair, a lark soared up into the morning sky, and the
future of an Empire hung trembling in the balance.

It was a peasant's cart driving slowly along the road, laden
probably with vegetables or flour, that saved the situation.
The fresh horses were requisitioned and hurriedly harnessed,
and the peasant was left staring after the coach that hurtled
away in a cloud of dust.

Five versts out of Petersburg Gregory Orloff, who had
begun to get anxious at this long delay, met them in another
coach, and with him they drove to the Ismaeloffsky Barracks,
where crowds of half-dressed soldiers hurried out to acclaim
Catherine. They had been told that Peter threatened her
with death and that it was their duty to save her. She
smiled on them very sweetly and gave them her hand to
kiss. And, like big children, carried away by their own
enthusiasm, they called her " Little Mother " and swore to
die for her.

Catherine — Empress ! 93

From the Ismaeloffsky they went in triumph to the
Simeonoff Barracks, and of all the Guard Regiments only
the Preobojinski, where Elisabeth Worontzoff's brother
commanded a company, offered any resistance, a resistance
even then only momentary and almost immediately over-
come. Next came a solemn service in the Kazan Cathedral,
and from there Catherine was conducted amidst a cheering
multitude to the Winter Palace, where representatives of
the Senate and the Synod, soldiers, courtiers and members of
the Government came to acclaim her and swear fealty.

So, in the early sweetness of that summer morning, was
the Princess Sophie of Anhalt Zerbst proclaimed sole
Empress of Russia ; the coup d'etat had been carried on a
wave of enthusiasm, by the irresponsible ardour of youth,
the fire and valour and tumult of a great romance, and the
vision of a little girl, looking out across the snowbound
wastes of an unknown country, had been realised.

Later that day Peter, entirely ignorant of what was
happening in the capital, decided to visit Catherine at
Peterhof, and accordingly set out from Oranienbaum
accompanied as usual by Elisabeth Worontzoff and several
other ladies. Arriving at the Palace he found it empty
was told that Catherine had gone, and while, fuming with
impatient rage, he was still demanding to know her where-
abouts, a labourer arrived, footsore and covered with dust,
and gave the Emperor a letter from a follower in Petersburg
which told him of the events of the morning.

The little, sallow, pock-marked man let the crumpled
letter fall from his trembling hands, terror mingling with
his futile passion. Catherine ! All too well he knew what
cause she had to hate him. He knew her energy, her pride,
the unyielding hardness of which she was capable. When
old Field Marshal Munich, whom Peter had called back from

94 Recollections of Imperial Russia

his exile in Siberia, finally hurried out to Oranienbaum the
deposed Emperor received him with tears of rage and helpless
panic running down his cheeks. What was he to do ?
Catherine had escaped ! The Guards had all gone over to
her ! She had usurped the Crown ! His crown ! When
he caught her he would make her pay for this ! She should
never have another chance ! But she was so clever, clever
as a devil. There was no knowing what she would do next.

The grim old warrior must have looked even grimmer
than usual as he listened to the disjointed raving of the
man who called himself a grandson of Peter the Great, and
tried in vain to instil a little energy and calmness into him.
When, at last, the deposed Emperor decided to listen to the
old soldier's advice and entrench himself in the Fortress of
Kronstadt, it was too late, and an envoy from Catherine
had got there ahead of them. So when, late that night,
Peter's yacht approached the Island, and, challenged by
sentries, answered that the Emperor was on board and
wished to land, the quick retort was flung back across the
water : " There is no Emperor. Put off, or we fire."

Terrified, Peter had hidden himself in the hold of the
ship, surrounded by the weeping women he had brought
with him. In vain Munich, hiding his contempt, urged him
to make for Reval, and from there gain Pomerania and place
himself at the head of his Holstein troops. The Emperor
who was so little an Emperor could only tearfully insist
on a speedy return to his beloved Palace at Oranienbaum,
and in the dawning light of another day the yacht set back
to the harbour from which she had come.

Arrived there, news was brought them that Catherine,
at the head of all the Guards, was moving on Peterhof, and
again Munich urged Peter to be firm, implored him to lead
out his soldiers, to die if need be with a sword in his hand.

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Catherine — Empress ! 95

But Peter's abject terror was now beyond all control, and
in frenzied haste he sent one message after another to
Catherine, imploring her mercy, her leniency ; promising
everything and anything, abdicating at last in full. As
Frederick of Prussia said of him with caustic sarcasm :
" // s'est laisse detroner comtne un enfant que Von envoie se
coucher."

In the uniform of the Simeonoff Regiment, Catherine
rode at the head of her troops up that same dusty road along
which she had driven in frantic haste such a short time ago;
and, cheering and singing, the soldiers marched behind her,
while, his golden head uncovered, Gregory Orloff rode
proudly by her side. He had risked all for her sake, he had
raised her from a position of dependance and constant
danger to one of supreme and brilliant power, and they were
young and they loved each other — so the world that summer 's
morning must have seemed very beautiful. And, without
encountering any resistance from the Holstein soldiers,
they arrived at last in triumph ; Peter was sent under the
guard of Alexis Orloff and Tieploff to the castle of Ropscha,
and Elisabeth Worontzoff, her short moment of power over,
was despatched to Moscow.

The history of Russia abounds in mysteries that are
wrapped in deepest secrecy, and the death of Catherine's
miserable weakling of a husband is but another of those
riddles that have never been solved. Alexis Orloff, Tieploff
or Swanovitz — it seems certain that one of these three
murdered the deposed Emperor. But which one really
performed the deed ? And under whose orders was he
acting ? Princess Dashkow in her memoirs asserts that on
Catherine's death, Paul, going through her papers, found a
letter from Alexis Orloff, accusing himself with abject
remorse, of having killed Peter in a moment of drunken

96 Recollections of Imperial Russia

fury. And yet, according to another account, it was Alexis
who, galloping at topspeed from Ropscha, burst into Cather-
ine's room at the Winter Palace to tell her that her husband
was dead. One story relates that Swanovitz, at the order
of Tieploff, strangled Peter, while still another account
affirms that the deposed Emperor was given a glass of
poisoned Burgundy to drink.

Certainly, by most people, his death was imputed to
Catherine's agency, but Frederick of Prussia later on
exonerated her categorically from any knowledge of the
crime. " She learned of the fact with a despair that was
not feigned," he asserts. " And she foresaw the judgment
everybody holds against her till to-day."

So the body of the man whom nobody had loved, with
the exception perhaps of Elisabeth Worontzoff and his pet
monkey, was laid to rest ; his wife wept a few tears that
were real or feigned, wore mourning, and for a short time
abstained from public functions. But in September already
the bells of the Kremlin rang out in triumphant jubilation
for the Coronation of the Empress, and the Emperor who had
been deposed and murdered was seemingly forgotten.

It is a curious fact that nearly all the pictures of Catherine
represent her as an elderly woman with a double chin, a high
white forehead, rolled-back powdered hair, compelling,
arresting eyes, and a certain somewhat malicious, subtle
smile. One forgets, looking at these portraits, that the
great Empress was ever young, and one inevitably thinks of
her always as a rather stout old lady, with a commanding
presence. But there is in the Weapon Room of the Treasury
at Moscow a picture of her bj' Erikson which portrays her
in military uniform, her masses of brown hair tied loosely
back with a wide black ribbon, her slim figure in a soldier's
dress sitting on her horse with proud and graceful ease,

Catherine — Empress ! 97

lr -

her eyes, alight and vivid with a radiant joy of life, laughing
out at one from the canvas, disdainful perhaps a little,
holding in their depths secrets the world has never been able
to read aright.

The Semiramis of the North ! Catherine the Great —
or Catherine le Grand as Voltaire called her ! The woman
who swept her husband out of her path and annexed the
throne that by rights belonged to her son. The woman whose
passions were a byword in Europe, who was never faithful,
who, when she was sixty, had lovers of twenty. The Empress
who annexed Poland, who conquered the Crimea, who sent
out her armies against the Turks, the Persians and the
Swedes ! It is a little difficult to find her in this picture,
and yet this was the Catherine who rode out from Peters-
burg at the head of her troops, the Catherine who was
crowned in the Kremlin, the Catherine who loved Gregory
Orloff, and even at one time thought of marrying him.

It had often been whispered at Court that the Empress
Elisabeth had secretly married her first favourite, Alexis
Razumovsky ; but Gregory's unpopularity, caused by his
arrogance and pride, the attempt to murder him, and the
outbreak of disorders in the Guards Regiments caused the
half formulated project to be hurriedly given up. And yet,
in everything but name, he was practically Emperor of
Russia, for his power and authority were supreme and his
wealth almost fabulous. He had been made a Prince and
Member of the Council, there was nothing he could not have
achieved, had it not been for his incredible ignorance and in-
dolence, which made him refuse to exert himself, save, when
for the sake of an adventure, he shook himself up, and woke
to sudden, imperious and startling energy. For nearly ten
years his influence over the Empress was dominant, his
position unassailable. Curt and rough and unfaithful

98 Recollections of Imperial Russia

though he often was, she yet forgave him over and over
again ; his huge figure, his golden hair, his beautiful face,
still held their sway over her, the violence of his passions,
his very indolence perhaps, making him only doubly dear
to her.

But in those ten years Catherine was finding the Crown
she had dreamt of somewhat cumbersome to wear, and her
quickly won triumph not so easy to maintain. Orloff was
unpopular and hated by the people ; now and then voices
were raised demanding Paul as Emperor ; there were dis-
orders, insurrections, conspiracies of all kinds, and in 1764
yet another grim tragedy was added to the many tragedies
that make up the history of Russia.

On the accession of Elisabeth, the little Tsar Ivan had
been separated from his family and imprisoned in the
Fortress of Schlusselberg on the Ladoga Lake, where he was
kept in closest solitude. It was rumoured that once,
in despair at Peter's total inadequacy, Elisabeth had Ivan
brought up to Petersburg in order to try and make him heir
to the throne. But, whether he was really half witted or
the legend of his being so was cunningly maintained in
order to alienate all public sympathy from him, it is difficult
to say ; anyhow, without naming him her successor, Elisa-
beth sent him back to Schlusselburg, where he was kept
locked inside an iron cage in a cell, with two guards always
near under strict orders to kill him at the slightest sound of a
disturbance. If he was in truth an idiot, these excessive
precautions seem unnecessary ; but the fact that he had
once been Emperor was probaby enough to make him a con-
stant danger to the party in power, and a figure of romance to
the paople, who were always ready to weave a legend round
an imaginary character.

Be that as it may, with the ostensible cause of placing

Catherine —Empress ! 99

Ivan on the throne, a young lieutenant named Mirovitch
won over the garrison of the Fortress to the side of the
Emperor whose whole life had been one long, dark shadow
of imprisonment, leading them on to the door of the
cell, and bursting it open only to find that the two guards
on duty were all too ready to obey their instructions, and,
with swords thrust through the bars of the cage, had already
murdered the unfortunate Ivan. Mirovitch was promptly
arrested, tried and executed, no words having passed his
lips which gave any clue to the facts of the conspiracy. And
by the express order of Catherine no further enquiries were
made, though the rumour was circulated that it was she
herself who had instigated the plot, so as to make the death
of Ivan appear an accident.

Scarcely a year later the more serious revolt of the Cossack,
Emilian Pougatcheff, broke out and swept over Russia.
Calling himself Peter III. on the pretence that the deposed
Emperor had escaped from prison before his murder,
Pougatcheff won all the disorderly malcontents of the
Empire to his cause — outlaws, peasants and deserting soldiers
flocking in huge numbers to his banner. It was not only a
conspiracy against Catherine, it was a Revolution against
the State, a rising of the old Russia, Eastern, barbaric,
uncivilised, that, cowed under the reforming rule of Western
laws, slept, but never died. Finally, however, after a pro-
longed struggle, the Cossack leader was defeated, captured,
brought to Moscow and executed, his followers dispersing
and flying before the avenging justice, his cause lost, trampled
on, and soon forgotten.

And meanwhile Catherine was growing older. The girl
in the soldier's dress, riding at the head of her troops, was
gone ; in her place was the Empress who worked sometimes
fifteen hours a day in the governing and reforming of the

ioo Recollections of Imperial Russia

Empire of Peter the Great, whose picture she had painted
on her snuff-box, to remind her that she must carry on his
unfinished work. And Orloff was still her favourite, though
at last his indolence and lack of intelligence were beginning
to tire her, that ardent, imperious spirit of hers needing a
greater depth, chafing a little, wearying even of the man's
superb beauty that seemed only an empty husk.

But whenini.771 the Plague broke outin Moscow, nearly
devastating the whole city, and Gregory, shaking himself
from his lethargy, went off and, by almost superhuman
courage and energy, enforced quarantine and put down the
disorders and massacres, he was again for a short, transient
moment the hero who had won a throne. And when, the
epidemic quelled, he returned to Petersburg Catherine
welcomed him with outstretched arms and tear -wet eyes,
erecting a triumphal arch in his honour at Tsarskoe, ap-
parently falling once more under the sway of his influence,
that had seemed for a moment to be on the wane.

But Gregory soon made the fatal mistake of thinking
himself indispensable and too securely established to be
forgotten. So, a few months after his return from Moscow,
he left Petersburg again to act as ambassador in the negotia-
tions with the Turks, who had just been defeated by Rou-
mantsioff. And scarcely had he gone when Catherine,
malicious laughter in her eyes, replaced him by Vassil-
chikoff, a young officer in the Guards, who had attracted
her attention, and who now took up his residence in the
superb apartments of the favourite adjoining the Winter
Palace.

Warned of what had happened, Gregory hurried back
across the vast immensity of Russia, only to find that the
way to the capital was barred, and that, on pretence of
quarantine, he was kept practically a prisoner in his estates at

Catherine —Empress ! 101

Gatchina. An exchange of letters that in turn threatened and
implored, commanded and entreated, followed between the
cast-off favourite and the Empress. Till finally one evening,
disobeying all injunctions, Gregory made his appearance at
Court, walking, unannounced, into one of the rooms of the
Winter Palace in the midst of a reception.

One can imagine the little murmur of consternation that
ran round the circle of courtiers. Had he come with
Catherine's permission ? Surely not ! Had he come then
to create a scene ? What was going to happen ? Every-
body knew the big man's passionate temper, the coarseness
and brutality of which he was capable, and, in nervous
silence, men and women made way for him, till at last he
stood opposite the Empress, who was already seated at a
card table.

They looked at each other a moment in silence, the woman
in the rich Court dress whose figure had become corpulent
and heavy, but whose beautiful eyes were still magnetic,
imperious and dazzling ; the man, enormous and superb,
in spite of the prodigal life that was writing its tell-tale lines
on his handsome face. A moment's silence — and who
knows the thoughts that were in both their minds ! Memor-
ies of the past, of their first meeting, of the first time he had
held her in his arms, an unhappy and neglected wife, a
woman whose life had been in danger, whom he had helped
to save by his high-handed courage and daring. Then the
tension snapped. With a little laugh Gregory sat down
facing the Empress and, carelessly, as if he had but just
interrupted his game, took up the cards, while the buzz of
subdued conversation his coming had so abruptly hushed
into silence once more filled the big gold-painted room.

Vassilchikoff was, however, only a passing light like
Karsakoff, Mamonoff or Zavadovski, who, capturing

102 Recollections of Imperial Russia

Catherine's wandering fancy, either by their beauty, their
strength or their wit, scandalised the Courts of Europe and
cost such vast expense to the Treasury of Russia. He was
to be supplanted and succeeded very quickly by the man
who, though officially only favourite of the Empress for a
comparatively short time, was by the overwhelming strength
of his influence and his personality practically to govern
Russia for seventeen years.

That summer morning when Catherine rode from Peters-
burg to Peterhof to win a Crown, there had been among the
soldiers who followed her an unknown and insignificant
lieutenant called Potemkin. The legend that it was he who
gave her the badge of the Regiment or the plume that had
been forgotten, and, looking up into her radiant face, laid
his wild, untamed heart at her feet, has been doubted by many
historians ; but it is certain that he was there among the
rabble of soldiers who, cheering and singing, followed her
along the dusty road, and it seems probable too that it was
then that she inspired him with the strange uncouth devo-
tion which he never quite forgot. Fourteen years later, one
of his eyes having been knocked out in a quarrel with
Alexis Orloff, hideous, enormously tall, with a wriggling
walk, knees that knocked together and extravagant gestures,
he came into her life again, and by the sheer force of an
extraordinary individuality, won the possession of almost
complete power, not only over Catherine, but over the
Empire.

He was made a Member of the Council and Minister of
War, and controlled even the Foreign Policy ; his voice was
listened to in everything, and for two years Catherine seemed
completely subjugated by him. Like Orloff, he aspired to
win her hand in marriage, but his ruse of acted repentance
failed to trick a woman who was too consummate an actress

Catherine — Empress ! 103

herself not to see through the pretence of others, and shortly
after Zavadovski took his place as favourite.

But Potemkin was not the man easily to give up every-
thing he had won. He was still Member of the Council,
still Minister of War, still the man who could master the
will of the Empress even when he was no longer her lover.
She could replace him in her affections with a younger and
handsomer man, but she could not replace the giant who was
so unlike anybody else, the Cyclops with his one eye, who
alone it seemed thoroughly understood her, whose ready wit
amused her, whose very queerness subjugated her.

And, woman all through as well as Empress, she was
now in need of devotion, bitterly hurt and wounded in her
pride ; for Gregory Orloff, whose one great, supreme passion
she had believed herself to be, had had the temerity to fall
in love with his cousin, Mademoiselle Zinoveieff. It is
true that he had been faithless over and over again, but it
had always been just a passing whim, never a real love ;
and though she herself had cast him off, and replaced him, sh e
felt herself almost insulted to think that the man she had
believed her slave, should be wanting to place the devotion
that had been hers at the feet of a mere girl, one of the
youngest and prettiest of her maids of honour. At first
bitterly opposing and forbidding the marriage, she ended
at last by consenting, and, veering round completely, over-
whelmed the newly married pair with gifts of priceless
value.

The union was an ideally happy one. Gregory had
turned into a model husband, his young wife worshipped the
ground he walked on. But their ecstasy was, alas, to be all
too brief. The man whose wealth was almost fabulous,
whose strength had always been unbeaten, whose power had
been incredible, could do nothing to save the girl he loved

104 Recollections of Imperial Russia

from the encroaches of her fatal disease. Flying from the
climate of Petersburg, travelling in desperate search of new
doctors and new cures, the Princess Orloff faded from day
to day, and died at last in Lausanne, leaving Gregory a
broken and desperate man. He returned to Russia almost
at once, but gradually his reason gave way completely, and
he would sit raving and muttering, his big hands plucking
at his hair, whispering to himself the names of his wife, of
Catherine, of Peter, whose accusing ghost seemed to follow
him in the darkness and despair of his torment.

Six months latei Catherine wrote to Grimm announcing
the death of the man whose strong hand had helped her up
the steps of a throne. In her letter she declared that she
suffered terribly, but it seemed as if her unconquerable
gaiety soon overcame her sorrow, and she had too, to console
her, a lover who some writers declare was the greatest passion
of her life.

Indeed for a little over four years Lanskoi received from
her a worshipping love that would have been almost gro-
tesque had it not been somewhat pathetic, for Catherine
was then fifty-five and Lanskoi almost twenty-six. He was
also in no way remarkable for anything but his good looks
and ardent, passionate nature ; gentle and submissive,
adaptable, fond of study and ready to be taught, he had
caressing ways, and a delicate indolence that hid a fire few
suspected. When in 1784 he died from a malignant fever
and affection of the throat, Catherine, who had nursed him
devotedly, gave way to poignant and heart-broken grief,
shutting herself up at Tsarskoe and refusing to see anyone.

The Palace she had made so beautiful was empty and
gloomy all during those summer months. The pavilion in
the park, with the skilfully constructed table, that could be
raised or lowered through the floor so as to make the presence

Catherine — Empress ! 105

of servants unnecessary, was silent and unused, dust and
cobwebs gathering on the walls. The Chinese Gardens echoed
to no sounds of laughter and gaiety, no music was heard
in the ballroom, no dancing feet glided over the polished
floor ; only alone in her room a woman, whose beauty was
just a memory, sat and mourned. So far away now the
child who had played on the square at Stettin, and been
known to the stolid citizens as Figchen. This woman,
ravaged by her passions, weeping for a love that she knew
was irreplaceable, drawing her curtains against the light of
day, refusing to see her son or his wife, letting the affairs
of State he idle, bore no resemblance either to the girl with
the transparent complexion, the big starry eyes, and
one intense, unchildlike desire to be Empress of Russia.

The ardent, Imperial temperament that denied itself
nothing, that superabundant vitality and joy of life, that
inextinguishable gaiety and flow of spirits — who can, with
all that, attempt to explain, accuse or utterly condemn
her ? "To tempt or be tempted," she says in her Memoirs,
" are things very nearly allied. No sooner is feeling excited
than we have gone already greatly further than we are
aware of, and I have yet to learn how it is possible to prevent
the arousing of interest and curiosity. Flight perhaps is
the only remedy, but there are circumstances at a Court
in which flight becomes impossible. And if you do not fly
there is nothing, it seems to me, so difficult to escape from
as that which is essentially agreeable."

Certainly it does not seem as if she ever tried to escape
from anything that might be agreeable. All the gifts life
had to offer she grasped at with both hands, gathered every
flower that grew along her path, opened every door. Remem-
bering her vanity, her boundless ambition, her occasional,
callous cruelty, her utter immorality, one might be tempted

106 Recollections of Imperial Russia

to call her dissolute and corrupt, entirely unworthy of any
sympathy. But against all this one must place the mag-
nificent greatness of her work, her marvellous system of
government, her boundless energy, her unfailing kindness
to her servants and all around her, her love of children
and of animals.

The pictures one has of her playing with her grandsons at
Tsarskoe, carrying out the Forfeits in the games at the
Hermitage by sitting on the floor ; hastily putting out the
fire she was lighting early one morning, and addressing
humble apologies to the little sweep she had caught cleaning
the chimney ; or feeding the birds outside her window at the
Winter Palace every day at the same hour, all of them hardly
accord with the terrible picture of a heartless tyrant, a
Cleopatra, or a Semiramis.

But the Catherine who wept in her darkened room at
Tsarskoe was no longer the autocrat or the Empress, but
just a woman who mourned with bitter tears the lost love
of a fast vanishing youth, and it was not till Potemkin
returned from the Crimea in the autumn that she was able
to shake off her enveloping melancholy and take up her abode
once more in the capital. Even then the manner of her
return showed how far from balanced and normal she was,
for, leaving Tsarskoe at a moment's notice, she came to
Petersburg late one evening, found both the Winter Palace
and the Hermitage locked up with no one ready to receive
her, forced an entry, went quietly to bed, and waking at
midnight, ordered the salvo of guns that usually welcomed
her arrival to be fired immediately, thereby startling peace-
ful citizens from their sleep.

Soon, however, her usual optimism and merriment con-
quered her melancholy, and Yermoloff and Mamonoff,
skilfully introduced by Potemkin, each in turn took the place

Catherine — Empress ! 107

of the man she had mourned with such heart-broken abandon-
ment and regret.

Potemkin had now conquered the Crimea — or Tauride
Peninsula — and in January, 1787, Catherine and her Court
set out on that famous journey whose boundless expense
passes all imagination. For the distance between Petersburg
and Kiev there were — besides the immense carriage of the
Empress, which, drawn by thirty horses, contained a card
room and library as well as a sleeping compartment —
fourteen other big carriages and a hundred and twenty-four
sledges. Wooden palaces with spacious bedrooms, and
covered galleries, where huge banquets were laid out, had
been put up all along the route, and the plates of gold or
silver, the china and linen, having been used once, were left
behind for the use of the servants.

At Kiev the Empress and her suite embarked on eighty
raft -like ships with silken hangings and cabins furnished
with incredible luxury, while all along the shores of the
Dnieper Potemkin, that master of stage-craft, had peopled
the desolate country with picturesque villages, flocks of
grazing cattle, singing peasants and flower-wreathed girls.

At Kaniof , Poniatowsky, spending a fortune for the sake
of three quarters of an hour with his former mistress, came
to meet Catherine, and was received on board her ship.
It was nearly thirty years since they had parted, and one
wonders whether he found in the stout, Imperial lady any
resemblance to the girl who, dressed as a man, had stolen
out of a sleeping palace to come and meet him ! And did
she see, in the broken, despairing man with the sad eyes,
still anything of the lover of those early days who had so
quickly consoled her for Soltikoff's many infidelities ?

She had given him her love and proved faithless to him all
too soon. She had given him a crown and was taking away

io8 Recollections of Imperial Russia

his kingdom. And yet, when they met on that fairy-tale
ship perhaps the ambitions and sadness and shadows of the
passing years fell away, and they were no longer Empress
and King, but just a man and woman who had loved each
other and who had many memories, both glad and sad, to
talk over during those few short moments before they parted.

At Kerson Catherine was met by the Emperor Joseph
II. of Austria, and the rest of the journey was continued by
land, with always Potemkin, the incomparable stage
manager, to provide one stupendous surprise after another —
a palace built for one night's magnificent entertainment,
fire-works on a scale never seen before, magic gardens
growing in the desert, a village springing up in a few hours.

Very soon was the brilliant star of this strangest of all
favourites to go down. Squinting with his one eye, his great
knees knocking together, his face sallow and twisted and
ugly, one wonders what magic it was that held Catherine
all the time under the spell of his influence, her imperious
will overshadowed and subjected by the mastery of his
weird personality. A curious mixture he was all through,
of tempestuous rages and boisterous good humour, of
sudden, reckless bravery and arrant cowardice. Appearing
now dressed in cloth of gold, studded with diamonds, or
else receiving Ambassadors wrapped in a loose, not over-
clean dressing-gown, his bare feet thrust into carpet
slippers.

And it was not only Catherine who fell under his charm,
for his gallantries were proverbial at a Court where morals
were anything but unimpeachable. In the Crimea he lived
like a sultan surrounded by a harem ; and while the Generals
attacked the Turkish positions, the Commander-in-Chief
presided over gorgeous banquets, with beautiful women to
keep him company. The lovely Princess Dolgorouki, his

Catherine — Empress ! 109

niece, the Countess Branicki, the famous Countess Potocki,
another niece, married to a Prince Galitzin, Praskovia Zak-
reivska, married to another Potemkin ; they all at one time
or another had the great man at their feet, were overwhelmed
with costly presents, fSted, worshipped in the lavish, ex-
travagant way that only he knew how to carry out.

Soon after his victory in the second Turkish war he
returned to Petersburg as a national hero, drawn there too
by the news that the favourite Mamonoff was about to be
replaced by Platon Zouboff, the last lover Catherine was to
have, and one who was a serious menace to Potemkin.
The marvellous f ete he gave her in the Tauride Palace was
his final farewell to her, and it seems almost as if something
must have warned her that she was losing him for ever ;
for, when at the end, he escorted her to the door, and bent
his great shaggy head to kiss her hand, there were tears dim-
ming her eyes and her emotion was so great that she could
hardly speak. Shortly after he left once more for Moldavia
and, on his way from Jassy to Nikolaieff, died on October 5th ,
1791, by the roadside, having steadily refused to listen to the
doctor's advice and remain at Jassy to cure himself.

Catherine's grief at her former favourite's death was real
and unfeigned, for she knew that in him she lost a true
friend, a mind which, great, extravagant, grotesque and
imperious, had understood her ; a heart which, savage, un-
tamed and faithless, had yet loved her. She was sixty now.
Theie was no vestige left of the radiant beauty that had made
so many men her slaves, yet her urgent ceaseless need for
adoration made her keep Platon Zouboff in those gorgeous
apartments of the Palace especially put aside for the
Favourites, and made her blind to the young man's fatuous,
foolish insolence, to his overweening ambition and vanity.
Had she indeed lost so much wisdom and sense of proportion

no Recollections of Imperial Russia

that she had forgotten her years, or could not see the mockery
of Zouboff 's flattery and adulation ?

It seems hard to believe, and yet " the child," as she
called him, wormed his way more and more into her favour.
Slim and dark and young, uneducated and ignorant, and yet
winning incredible power and influence ; ministers, courtiers,
foreign diplomats, sued for his favour, while he amassed
ever more riches and honours, there seeming no limit to his
grasping, ambitious vanity.

The glory of Catherine had fallen indeed. Europe tittered
mockingly to see an old woman still play at love and allow
herself to be fooled by a pretty, conceited boy ; whilst Russia
muttered in secret discontent. But the will of the Empress
was a law which nobody dared gainsay, and, to win her smile,
courtiers flattered her with praise of her favourite.

There had, it was said, always been a lucky star shining
above her head to bring success to every project that she
had formed ; but suddenly it seemed as if that star had
fallen, as if success was to be no more the dazzling, easy
victory she had grown used to. For years the war with
Sweden had harassed Russia, the enemy at one time getting
so near to the capital that their guns could be heard in the
Winter Palace ; but Gustav III. had been assassinated in
the middle of a masked ball and his son reigned in his stead,
under the regency of his uncle, the Duke of Suderman.

To marry the young king to her eldest granddaughter,
Alexandra Pavlowna, had been the Empress's most cherished
dream, as she hoped in that way to bind the two great
Northern countries together, and to put an end to the con-
stant petty warfare over Finland and the Baltic Provinces.
So nearly did her project succeed that the young King Gustav
IV. was brought to Petersburg by his uncle and was on
the point of becoming betrothed to the Grand Duchess

Catherine — Empress ! in

Alexandra when, at the last moment, the question of religion
intervened, the negotiations to tide over the difficulty
failed, and the public insult of that failure was a blow from
which the old Empress never fully recovered, her gaiety and
good humour eclipsed undei fits of sullen brooding, or gusts
of violent rage against the boy who had dared so obstinately
to hold out against her.

At last, however, she seemed to regain some of her old
joyousness, and the evening of November 4th was passed
at the Hermitage as merrily as of old, with Leon Narishkin,
the inevitable Court buffoon, bringing tears of laughter to
everybody's eyes. The next morning Catherine rose at her
usual hour of five, and attended to some of her corres-
pondence, gay, active, clear-minded and determined as
ever. Presently, excusing herself to the last secretary
with whom she had been discussing her affairs, she rose to
retire to her garde-robe, a stately figure still, leaning only
very slightly on the long stick she always carried.

The secretary withdrew into the ante-room, yawned
perhaps once or twice, and sat down to wait. No sound came
to disturb the warm, lighted silence, while outside the grey
darkness of a winter's morning lay over the snow-bound town.
In the distance the great Palace hummed with its teeming
life and activity. Doors opened and shut, voices whispered
and called to each other. The arms of a sentry rang in a
quick salute, the sword of some passing officer clattered on
the floor, a maid, carrying a cup of coffee on a tray, dropped
a curtsey to a lady-in-waiting who, passing down one of the
long corridors, filled it with the rustle of her wide silk skirts.
In the apartments of the Demoiselles d'Honneur there was
' the sound of subdued laughter ; a folded note had been pushed
under the door for somebody, and was being read aloud to a

circle of half -dressed girls. A moujjik carrying a basket of

H

ii2 Recollections of Imperial Russia

heavy logs of wood, toiled up one of the many staircases.
Somewhere in the basements a dog barked shrilly ; in the
huge kitchen a big grey cat purred in front of the blazing
fire.

After more than half an hour had passed the secretary,
getting alarmed at the Empress's long absence, called Zotoff,
her valet de chambre, who in turn summoned her women, and
finally, after calling in vain at her door and receiving no
answer, Catherine was found, stretched rigid and motionless,
on the floor of one of the inner rooms. What a commotion
then in the vast building ! Messengers flying in all directions,
doctors summoned ; Platon Zouboff, dishevelled and
trembling, called in haste ; women crying, men looking at
each other with pale, dismayed faces. From the first it was
clear that there was no hope of any possible recovery, and it
meant more, so infinitely more, than just the death of a
woman and a mistress they all loved ; it meant the end of a
great reign, the beginning of a new one, and a master
everybody feared.

Laid on a mattress in the big bedroom with its silken
hangings, its gold mirrors, its gilt chairs and soft cushions,
Catherine lived on for thirty-seven hours in that speechless,
rigid agony, while Paul, summoned in haste from Gatchina,
went through her papers. Did he discover among them the
document that disinherited him ? And did he burn it hastily
with trembling hands ? Impossible to say. Catherine
never recovered her speech, and the only paper that was
made public was the order of succession, signed by her in
1767, which made Paul Emperor.

So, at the age of sixty-eight, in the year 1796, died
Catherine of Russia, the great Empress, the astute states- '
woman, the dreaded tyrant, the philosopher, the writer, and
the woman : sending out orders to her Generals, interview-

Catherine — Empress ! 113

ing foreign representatives, presiding over the Council,
corresponding with Voltaire, Grimm and Diderot ; buying
priceless collections of pictures, supervising the building of
Palaces, the planting of gardens, the founding of universities
and schools ; laughing gaily at misfortune, loving with the
abandonment of a generous, vital nature, giving and taking
with the same whole-hearted liberality; dreaming great
dreams of dazzling splendour and unbounded power.

The mighty work Peter the Great had begun Catherine the
Great carried on, making barbaric Eastern Russia into a
civilised power, creating a Court whose brilliance rivalled
that of Versailles, enforcing Western ideas, Western educa-
tion, art and literature into everything. It was Catherine
who introduced vaccination into Russia, sending for the
English doctor, Dimsdale, and being herself the first to
undergo the treatment. Adding to Peter's gallery of pictures
at the Hermitage, she bought the collections of Count Bruhl
and Sir Robert Walpole, the latter being worth £36,000,
while at the same time she added sculptures, priceless vases,
china, tapestries and antique terra cotta to the collection.

It was Catherine, too, who founded the Smolny Institute
for the education of the daughters of the aristocracy and
higher bourgeoisie. Continued on practically the same lines
she had laid down, the big white building, with its blue-domed
Church, was later on taken by the Bolsheviks for the Soviet
headquarters, and in the wide, spacious corridors, the white-
ceilinged rooms, where young girls had confided whispered
secrets to each other, and laughed, and sometimes perhaps
cried over a fancied sorrow, bearded men in dirty shirts
dreamt savage dreams of blood and revenge and hate.

But it is at Tsarskoe most of all that one gets the memories
of Catherine the woman, as well as the Empress. The great
white Palace with its bright green roof looks out on one side

ii4 Recollections of Imperial Russia

into a wide courtyard entered by three high iron gates;
on the other it rises above the gardens and the lake, with the
yellow marble column erected in the honour of Alexis Orloff
on the occasion of his victory over the Turks at Tschesme.
A little to the right and above the lake is the Chinese garden,
with its wandering canals and swan pond, its carved bridge
of imitation coral, with the quaint stone figures holding open
parasols, and further on the theatre built by Cameron.
On the other side of the lake, in the green shadow of the
Park, is the white Heritage, the Concert Hall and the
Grotto, and, opening from the Palace and overhanging the
lake, Cameron's gallery, where Catherine walked on rainy
days followed by her English greyhounds, named the family
of Sir Tom Anderson.

Peterhof held too many bitter, haunting memories of the
past, so it was at Tsarskoe that Catherine spent all her
summers, decorating and furnishing the Palacethat had been
built originally by Elisabeth. The Amber Room with its
primrose yellow panels ; the Wedgwood Room with its delicate
plaques of blue and white ; the ballroom with its long mirrors ;
the black and gold Chinese Room; the Lapis Lazuli Room, deep
blue and gold ; the bedroom with its columns of silver, its
cunningly arranged mirrors and painted ceiling ; the dressing-
room all agate and gold — everywhere the spirit of Catherine
is present, the tapping of her cane on the polished parquet
floors, the rustle of her purple silk dress, the sound of her
gay infectious laughter, the yapping of the dogs that always
followed her.

An old lady with wonderful eyes and the proud majestic
bearing that, in her youth, had wrung a sharp rebuke from
the Empress Elisabeth, and impatient abuse from a feeble-
minded husband — so she passes one in the shady walks of
the Park, in the dim shadows of the Palace rooms ; and one

i

Catherine — Empress ! 115

forgets, listening to the echo of her long dead laughter, the
woman who so carelessly swept aside her husband, dis-
membered Poland, conquered the Crimea and spent mil-
lions on her lovers. One forgets the advice given to Madame
le Brun who had in vain craved the honour of painting her
portrait and endeavoured to do it from memory : " Take for
your canvas the Empire of Russia, the darkness of ignorance
for your background, the remains of Poland for the drapery,
human blood for your colouring, and for shadows six months
of the reign of her son."

Other ghosts there are besides Catherine who haunt the
Palace and gardens of Tsarskoe. Gregory Orloff, with his
honey-coloured hair and perfect face. His brother Alexis,
with his scarred cheek. Potemkin, the great, ugly, uncouth
giant. The Countess Bruce and Mademoiselle Protassoff,
mentioned by Byron in " Don Juan," the Countess Branicki
and Princess Galitzin, nieces of Potemkin, Madame Ribas,
daughter of the mysterious Betzky, who by some was sup-
posed to be Catherine's natural father. The children of
Paul who, with joyous voices, acclaimed the old Empress
as the most adorable grandmother. The faithful Piere-
koushina, her inseparable and devoted maid. Lanskoi, a
delicate langour veiling the voluptuous fire of his nature.
Korsakoff, laughingly named King of Epirus. The heavy,
obese figure of Panin. Souvoroff, who later was to lead the
Russian soldiers against the French.

Statesmen, philosophers, soldiers and courtiers, they come
and go in the big rooms, in the shady avenues, in the narrow,
twisting walk of the Chinese gardens. Here the flutter of a
silken skirt, the rush of a pack of dogs, figures in brilliant
colours, seen for a moment and gone — an empty Palace —
despoiled of its treasures, the ghosts of dead splendour that
dare no longer show their face.

n6 Recollections of Imperial Russia

It was at Tsarskoe, in the Alexander, or New Palace, built
by Catherine in 1796, that the Emperor Nicholas lived for
the greater part of the year. It was here that we came for
our first audience with the Empress on our arrival in Russia
in December, 1910, though the only memories I seem to have
retained of that day are the picture of a park, f airy-like under
newly fallen snow ; mounted Cossacks riding slowly, in an
unending circle, round the outer walls ; the tall thin figure of
old Count Benckendorff, superb in a glittering uniform with
countless orders shimmering on his breast ; a big room full of
flowers, and a woman with a stern, tragic face, so different
from the golden-haired Princess Alix of my childhood's
recollections.

It was to Tsarskoe that the Emperor was brought in 1917
after he had signed the abdication, and it was here that he
was kept for five months a prisoner, before being sent on to
that grimmer exile of Siberia, with its unutterably tragic
ending.

But there are, too, other gayer memories of Tsarskoe —
memories of dances and picnics, and of a golden summer spent
in a quaint old wooden house we rented for three months.
It stood on the road leading up from the station, and at the
back it had an open verandah and a green garden, where
birds sang all day long and the scent of flowering lime-trees
sweetened the air. The great excitement of the day was
when the six o'clock train from Petersburg arrived, and the
Isvostchiks (little one-horse cabs), filled with returning
husbands, fathers and brothers, raced each other up the
road at a hand gallop. For the rest there was not really
much to do — long lazy mornings spent in the park, evening
drives through the woods of Pavlosk, dinners and occasional
dances at the Palace of the Grand Duchess Vladimir, or at one
of the many villas in the surroundings. Now and then

Catherine — Empress ! 117

perhaps an excursion in a motor to Krassnoe, Strelna or
Peterhof.

On the occasion of her nameday, the Grand Duchess
Vladimir gave a monster picnic at a spot about twenty miles
from Tsarskoe whose name I have now forgotten. I remember
only that we drove out there in an endless line of motors,
had an enormous feast laid out on the grass with servants in
court liveries to wait onus, a gay-coloured awning stretched
over our head, and a band to play to us. Afterwards, on a
specially constructed wooden platform, we danced, while the
inhabitants of a nearby village, coming down through the
woods, watched us with wide-opened, wondering eyes.

So the memories of Tsarskoe are sad with the unutterable
sadness of broken hopes and gay with laughter and music —
light and darkness ! — tragedy and gladness ! Always in
Russia, that land of mysteries, so near together.

n8 Recollections of Imperial Russia

CHAPTER VII

PAUL

Close to Tsarskoe lies the Park of Pavlosk, with its green
slopes, its temples and pavilions, its tiny meandering river,
its big yellow Palace, the model dairy farm, the pinewoods
with their sandy tracks, the meadows where wild flowers
scent the air and bees hum lazily in the heat of the summer
afternoons.

In those old days the park of Pavlosk was always full.
The Grand Duke Constantine and his family lived in the
Palace, but the rest of the grounds were open to the public.
Carriages came and went on the wide gravel roads. Nurses
with bright coloured ribbon streamers pushed perambulators
in the shadow of the great trees ; young girls with gaudy
silk handkerchiefs tied loosely round their hair walked arm
in arm on the grass ; boys on bicycles whizzed at break-neck
pace down the hills ; old ladies sat and gossiped over their
sewing on the benches ; old gentlemen dozed or read the
newspapers ; children played with their boats on the
miniature lake ; here and there a guardian of the park kept
a watchful eye on the shifting crowd.

Memories of happy days seem to linger regretfully
at Pavlosk. Crowding together in the Family Grove, where
every tree commemorates the birth of a child ; whispering
and laughing in the Temple of Friendship ; in the small
Garden House with painted walls which Marie Feodorowna

w

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55

O

o

O

Paul 119

decorated with her own hands ; and, finger on lip, pause in
the Pavilion des Roses, where, in the big dancing-room with
its parquet floors, garlands of imitation roses hang from the
chandeliers, drooping a little wearily as if they found the
hours of waiting over long. Roses there are everywhere ;
painted on the walls, embroidered on the tapestried chairs,
carved in stucco over the doors, looking in at the windows,
growing in wild confusion in the little garden, covering the
paths with the fading sweetness of their windblown petals.
The scent of living roses steals in through the open windows
and mingles with the scent of those who have long been dead
in the silent rooms.

Dead roses and dead laughter, the ghost -like echo of
a far-away violin, the whisper of satin skirts, the tapping of
little high -heeled shoes. Ghost-like reflections that seem
to pass in the mirrored reflection of the polished floor.
Paul, with his sombre, sullen face, the eyes, beautiful in
themselves, but watchful always in an evil suspicion. The
Grand Duchess Marie Feodorowna, glowing with radiant
youth and health, happy still in her love for her husband and
her children. Young Count Panin, whose name one day
was to figure on the list of those who plotted against Paul.
Mademoiselle Nelidoff, small and frail, fanatical almost in
her romantic, spiritual ardour. The shadows shift and
waver, the petals of dead roses fall with a little sigh.

By many historians Paul has been described as the most
unhappy of all Russians, and some have accused him of
having no single, redeeming feature to give one even the
faintest sympathy with him in his misery, while others have
made him out misunderstood, and totally misjudged. Per-
haps that September day when his wondering eyes first saw
the light was grey and dull as September days can be in
Northern Russia. Outside in the summer gardens the yellow

120 Recollections of Imperial Russia

leaves were falling from the shivering trees and the water in
the FontankaCanal wasthe colourof mudbeneaththe leaden
sky. And the room where he was born was one of the
dreariest and most cheerless inthe Summer Palace, furnished
poorly, with doors and windows that rattled in the wind
with walls stained by the damp and brocaded hangings
that were torn and dingy.

Directly after his birth the Empress Elisabeth took him
away from his mother into her own apartments, and there he
was wrapped in yards of flannel, and put in a wonderful
cradle draped in the skins of black fox, and he was covered
first with a satin eiderdown lined with cotton-wool, and over
that with a rose velvet coverlet lined again with black fox
furs. Poor little Royal baby, later to be one of the most tragic
figures in his tragic country, lying there half suffocated by
heat, surrounded by a lot of old women who overwhelmed
him with useless and foolish attentions.

The grey, dismal days of the autumn passed, and only
once during the next six months was Catherine allowed to
see her son. " I found him very beautiful," she says with a
certain pathetic wistfulness ; and then gradually she seems
to have lost all interest in him. Taken from her so soon, it
must have seemed to her that he hardly belonged to her.
She had of his birth only the memory of her anguish, and of
the neglect that followed it, when she was left for three hours
while the nurse accompanied the Empress with the baby, and
Mademoiselle Vladislava, left alone with Catherine, dared not
arrange her pillow or give her a drink of water without per-
mission. During the next summer, too, Poniatowski came
to Russia, and in the first golden glamour of that romance,
the secret meetings, the danger of discovery, the constant
intrigues, Catherine almost forgot the baby son growing
up in that Court with its strange mixture of refine-

Paul 121

ment and coarseness, of dazzling luxury and hopeless
sordidness.

The Empress herself, who at first had half suffocated the
child with her caresses, soon began to tire of the drag on her
time, and left him to the care of others, who instilled into
his mind a terror of her that caused him to shrink away when-
ever she approached him. Fear, hatred, jealousy, suspicion :
on these was the future Emperor brought up. Now nearly
smothered with attentions and affection, now scolded, tired
of, pushed roughly away. At one moment held up by the
Empress as a threat against her nephew and his wife that,
passing over them, she would make the baby her direct heir.
At another neglected and abandoned while Elisabeth brooded
over the thought of releasing Ivan, the unhappy son of
Anna Leopoldovna, from his prison and restoring to him the
crown of which she had robbed him.

Kept in the inner apartments of the Palace, the little
Prince was hardly ever allowed to go out ; never had any
regular hours of meals ; was surrounded by a crowd of nurses,
maids and children who all fought and quarrelled; was
neglected very often, hungry, tired, shivering with cold or
suffocated with heat. And delicate the child always was,
sensitive, with a difficult humour, nerves that betrayed him
at every moment, an imagination that was from the first
uncontrolled and unbalanced.

On the death of Elisabeth the atmosphere at Court
became even more disturbed and convulsed. It was well-
known that Peter wished to divorce his wife and disinherit
his son; it was whispered that, in an interview with Serge
Soltikoff, he had tried to induce the latter to acknowledge
the child's illegitimacy, and Soltikoff having refused to give
him any satisfaction, had exiled him to his estates in the
country ; it was even rumoured that the Emperor had been

122 Recollections of Imperial Russia

to see the imprisoned Ivan at Schlusselburg with the inten-
tion of putting him in the place of his son.

The intrigues, the conspiracies, the rumours, all reached
their head at last in the coup d'etat of the 28th June, 1762,
which deprived Peter of the throne and made Catherine
sole ruler of Russia. Paul was eight years old at the time,
but the report that Peter's death at Ropscha was not due to
natural causes reached his ears all too soon, producing its
inevitable impression on his imaginative mind, while the
fatal suspicion that his mother had been the cause of that
death began to grow, contaminating his nature like a
poisonous germ of evil. That beautiful, arrogant, vivacious
mother with her quick humour, her dominating personality
— the delicate sensitive child shrank away from her, falling
ever deeper into the silent brooding that was to lead his
mind to such a sombre, sinister trend.

And for Catherine the child was always in a way an
adversary to be feared. She had, by sheer courage and
resolution, wrested to herself the Crown ; but among the
voices that acclaimed her there were many that still called
for Paul, considering him the rightful heir to the throne,
111 as he was, she dared not leave him behind when she went
to Moscow for her coronation ; feverish and ailing, he had to
go with her on that long journey across the plains. Though
confined to his bed, and unable to take part in any of the
ceremonies, he must, in his room in the Kremlin, have heard
the bells of Moscow ringing out their chime of welcome to
the new Empress, the shouts of the people who cheered her ;
and perhaps, too, the voices that called insistently on his
name.

The years dragged slowly on ; the little grotesque figure,
with the small, frail face, the snub nose, the wide mouth,
grew into manhood, watched all the time suspiciously, held

Paul 123

almost a prisoner, surrounded by endless intrigues ; treated
by his mother with indifference and harshness, with now
and then, when she wished to impress somebody, bursts of
passionate tenderness. With a hidden longing for love and
sympathy, alternating between outbursts of hysterical rage
and long fits of brooding and sulky resentment, he came at
last to the age when it was necessary that a bride should be
sought for him, and the Land Grafin of Hesse with her three
daughters was accordingly invited to Russia.

It was summer when she arrived, and Paul, having
chosen Wilhelmina as his bride, the Court adjourned to
Peterhof where, during the warm months of sunshine, the
young German princess struggled with the difficulties of the
Russian language, and was instructed in the teachings of
the orthodox faith by Platon, Archbishop of Tver. Though
she had no pretensions to good looks, she had the charm of
youth, a joyous ness that took pleasure in everything, a
passionate desire for perpetual movement and amusement.
To Paul she was almost a revelation, that secret craving of
his made him stretch out his hands to her in a mute, im-
perfect appeal, for as an ardent and passionate lover he was
perhaps hardly a success.

At last in September, Wilhelmina having been accepted
into the Orthodox Church, and baptized under the name of
Nathalie Alexeievna, the marriage was celebrated in the
Kazan Cathedral in Petersburg, and was followed by an
enormous banquet and ball at the Winter Palace. The
Mark Grafin of Hesse gives a picture of the magnificent
splendour of the ceremonies, of the gorgeous costumes and
uniforms, the blaze of priceless jewels ; and she describes
in the middle of this the small, insignificant figure of the
bridegroom opening the ball with his bride in her dress of
silver brocade, so weighed down with diamonds and precious

124 Recollections of Imperial Russia

stones that she could hardly move. She tells us, too, how
the future Emperor and tyrant, wrapped in a gorgeous silver
dressing-gown, had supper with her while Catherine led
Nathalie to her apartments, and she adds somewhat naively,
" It was not so ridiculous as you might suppose."

The incessant chatter and laughter of his young wife, her
constant gaiety, the bustle of her charades, her dancing,
and her insatiate need of amusement, must have allowed
Paul little time for his sullen brooding, must have lightened
a little the darkness of his surroundings. All too soon,
however, the shadows gathered round his path. Panin,
who was the one person he loved, was removed from his
service by Catherine and replaced by Michael Soltikoff, an
act which caused a violent quarrel between her and her son,
Paul having, however, to bow to her superior power, but
storing up in his mind a vindictive rage at the humiliation
of his forced surrender.

His married happiness, too, was marred by the suspicion
cast on it by his mother that his friend Andre Razumovsky
was his wife's lover; and finally it was wrecked in utter
tragedy when in April, 1773, the Grand Duchess Nathalie
died in childbirth. Overwhelmed by grief Paul came near
to losing his reason, while the Court whispered and tittered
and every kind of rumour was circulated. Quite confidently
it was affirmed that when the child was born dead, and the
doctors gave their opinion that there was no possible chance
of the Grand Duchess ever having another, the Empress
decided that she should, quietly and painlessly, be allowed
to die. It was declared that there had been gross and
culpable negligence in the way she had been treated. While
the most popular belief was that the Grand Duchess had
been born with a malformation, and that her mother was
entirely to blame for never having divulged the truth.

Paul 125

So the unfortunate girl was laid to rest in St. Alexander
Nevsky, and she who had loved life and movement was
quiet at last, and soon forgotten by all save her husband —
and perhaps Andre Razumovsky.

In his Memoirs Count Feodor Golovkin asserts that after
Nathalie's death, in order to cure Paul of his grief, he was
informed of the true state of things, that — though before he
had always refused to believe his wife unfaithful — he was
now allowed no room for doubt, and consequently refused to
see or speak to his friend again. Whether this is true or not ,
it is certain that he was not allowed much time for mourn-
ing, for, only two months later, he was sent to the Court of
Frederick II. at Berlin to meet the Princess Sophie Dorethee
of Wurtenberg Montbeliard. She was engaged at the time
to Prince Louis of Darmstadt, Nathalie's brother, but the
scheming brains of Catherine, Frederick II., and Prince
Henry of Prussia broke off the projected marriage with
callous indifference. What did human heart's matter ?
Or young affections, when it was a question of politics ?

Very quickly the matter was settled ; in September
already Sophie Dorethee had abjured Protestantism ; had
received the name of Marie Feodorowna and was married
to Paul.

Tall, stately, glowing with youth and health," Taille de
nymphe, un teint de lys et de rose," according to Catherine's
words, she had none of the unfortunate Nathalie's restless
craving for perpetual amusement. Gentle and submissive,
she was yet gay and sunny tempered, loved country life
and simple occupations, and had been blessed, too, with a
great gift for painting and embroidery. In 1777 Catherine
gave Paul the estate of Pavlosk nearTsarskoe, and, tearing
her husband from his sombre reflections, the young Grand
Duchess made him take an interest in the plans for the

126 Recollections of Imperial Russia

Palace, the laying out of the extensive grounds, the building
of little Temples. It was here that they formed their circle :
a small and intimate court of their own, and Paul could
throw off the burden of his thoughts, forget the constant
pin-pricks which wounded and offended his pride, the
neglect and indifference with which he was treated.

In December, 1777, their first child Alexander was born,
and, delighted with her grandchild, Catherine kept him in
her own apartments, lavishing on him all the love she had
never given her own children. She was scarcely less de-
lighted when the second little boy, Constantine, was born
in 1779 ; and when in 1781 Paul and Marie Feodorowna
started on their European tour, the Empress kept the two
children with her, regardless of their mother's grief at having
to leave them.

As Comte and Comtesse du Nord, Paul and his wife
passed through Poland and Vienna, where they were received
with great honour and many festivities by Joseph II. Then
going on to Italy they stayed at Venice, Rome and Naples,
returning by Florence and Milan till finally they came to
France, to Paris and the Court of Versailles, then already
tottering on the brink of revolution. But in those brilliant
May days, banquets, concerts, balls and excursions follow-
ing each other in endless succession,there seemed no premoni-
tion of coming disaster, and Paul and his wife remained a
month — finally and regretfully continuing their journey to
Belgium and Holland ; then to Montbelliard, Marie Feo-
dorowna's home, and so on to Vienna and back to Petersburg
in November. The grey, hopeless November of Russia;
the displeasure of Catherine, her stern reprimands to her
son for not having been conciliatory enough in his attitude
at Vienna and Paris ; her scandalised disapproval of her
daughter-in-law's extravagance ; her insistence on the boxes

Paul 127

of French clothes and head-dresses being sent back
unopened.

Retiring to Pavlosk, where the big Palace was almost
completed, the young couple set to work to beautify their
domain with the treasures they had brought back from Italy
and France ; priceless furniture, pictures, sculptures, Sevres
china, tapestry and costly books. Marie Feodorowna
embroidered, painted, collected dried flowers, started her
model dairy, tried to amuse and distract her husband, while,
with passing time, one little girl after another was added to
the increasing family — Alexandra, Helen, Marie, Catherine,
Olga, Anna and yet one more son, Nicholas. The Palace at
Gatchina had now also been given to Paul, and he began to
spend most of his time there, further away from his mother's
watchful eye, drilling his soldiers, fostering the autocratic
pride that was, so fatally, to turn him into a tyrant

Swiftly, with all their various incidents, the years passed
by. There were the constant attacks of Sweden on Russia ;
there were the wars with the Turks, the annexation of the
Crimea; Catherine's triumphal journey — and all the time
Paul treated with contemptuous indifference, in spite of his
entreaties allowed only once to go to the Swedish Front, and
there not allowed to take any active part ; sent back to
Petersburg almost in disgrace, his rancour and resentment
piling itself up, embittering his already sullen, morose
nature.

He allowed himself, too, to be swept away by the new taste

for mysticism that had crept across Europe to Russia, and

persuaded himself that his passion for Catherine Nelidoff

was purely spiritual; that it was her soul, her mind, her

artistic temperament that inspired him. The Court could

see in their intimacy nothing but the obvious intrigue that

was only to be expected from a son of Catherine. Marie

I

128 Recollections of Imperial Russia

Feodorowna, virtuous to a point of austerity, wounded to
the quick in her pride of wife and mother, withdrew into
herself, and the charm of affectionate intimacy that had
been a characteristic of the Court of Pavlosk was broken.

It was from this time that Paul seemed to model himself
more and more on Peter III. Was he, perhaps, after all the
son of the unhappy monarch murdered at Ropscha ? Or
did he merely seek to intensify some of his peculiarities ?
He fostered the same exaggerated admiration of Frederick
II. of Prussia. He grew obsessed with the same pro-German
ideas, the same passion for drills and parades, organising
all his surroundings with military precision. His abnormal
religious and mystical fanaticism increased. His treatment
of his wife and children became daily more tyrannical, his
moods were more sombre, his brooding thoughts ever more
sinister.

In 1793 Alexander, his eldest son, married the Princess
Elisabeth of Baden, a girl of fifteen, who, with all her beauty,
was doomed to a life of misunderstood unhappiness and
solitude ; while the bride of the Grand Duke Constantine,
Julie of Saxe Coburg, was still more miserable with her
violent, intractable husband, the marriage finally being
annulled in 1820. And yet the love story of Alexandra,
Paul's eldest daughter, was perhaps the most tragic of all.

It was in August, 1796, that GustavelV., the handsome,
grave young King of Sweden, arrived in Petersburg, and
almost at once it seemed that Alexandra gave him the
ardour and romantic worship of her girl's heart. So long
had she been brought up on his name and on the idea that he
was one day to be her husband, that she was all too ready to
see in him the realisation of her dreams. It seemed, too, as
if the young king responded to her love ; he had asked her
hand in marriage, everything was going smoothly, and

Paul 129

September 2nd was chosen as the day of the public betrothal.

At the appointed hour the Court assembled in the
Throne Room of the Winter Palace and waited for the
arrival of the king. But the minutes passed by and added
themselves to hours, the bride in her splendid dress flushed
and paled alternately ; the priests who were to bless the
couple looked grave, the courtiers whispered and shrugged
their shoulders ; the old Empress was getting visibly nervous,
Zouboff and Markoff came and went looking ever more per-
turbed. And still there was no sign of the King. Had there
been an accident ?

Was there some hitch ? People gazed curiously at the
poor little bride, standing there in her finery, striving in
vain to keep up a dignified composure, the tears brimming
in her eyes but still not allowed to fall.

At last, after waiting from six in the evening till ten,
Markoff came back once more, and, with obvious consterna-
tion, whispered something in the Empress's ear, whereupon
she rose abruptly and left the room without uttering a
word. The courtiers were all summarily dismissed, and,
white as a ghost, Alexandra retired to take off the dress
she had put on with such a beating heart.

Only later was the curiosity of the Court satisfied and
the true state of things published. At the last moment
the King of Sweden had categorically refused to sign a
document giving Alexandra the right to have her private
Chapel and an Orthodox Priest to attend her. He had
promised not to interfere with his wife's religion, but he could
not and would not publicly support her in this way. Not an
inch would he budge from this decision, neither threats nor
persuasions could move him, and finally the engagement was
definitely broken off. Gustave travelled back to Sweden :
the young girl gazed sadly at the fragments of a rainbow-

130 Recollections of Imperial Russia

coloured dream that lay shattered at her feet ; and, with the
shadow of an unforgettable sorrow in her lovely eyes, tried
to take up her life once more, only, married a little later to
the Archduke Joseph of Austria, to die at the age of eighteen
in giving birth to a child.

The disgrace of the broken engagement, their mutual
humiliation and indignation might have brought Catherine
and her son closer together ; but Paul isolated himself ever
more completely at Gatchina, fostering that tyrannical
despotic temper of his ; flying continually into violent rages
which he made no effort to control ; suspecting everybody,
even his wife whom he hardly let out of his sight, forcing
her to accompany him in all weathers on his mimic parades
and reviews, setting spies to watch her, threatening her
continually that, if she fancied herself another Catherine,
she would not find him a second Peter of Holstein.

But the day for which he had been waiting — the day
towards which all his life had seemed to be tending — dawned
at last, for on November 5th, 1796, the Great Catherine was
struck down by an apoplectic stroke, never recovering her
power of speech to utter the sentence Paul had dreaded : the
sentence that would disinherit him and make his son,
Alexander, Emperor.

What thoughts must have rilled his mind during those
long hours of waiting in the darkened room, listening to his
mother's laboured breathing, watching her convulsed face ;
while PlatonZouboff cowered, half dressed, in a corner ; the
young Grand Duchesses sobbed and prayed in an adjoining
room, and the courtiers crept about on tiptoe and dared not
look at him. He had never had the love of this woman who
now lay in her death agony — the man who was said to be his
father had been deposed by her, probably murdered by her
orders. She had treated him as a child always, allowing

Paul 131

him no independence, no liberty, no freedom. And now
she was dying, his word would be all powerful, he could
make men tremble at his frown ; there was nothing he could
not do, his commands, however impossible, must be obeyed.

The dragging hours went all too slowly for him till the
last breath passed the tortured lips of the Great Empress,
making him Sovereign of Russia. The regiments, hastily
called up from Gatchina, were drawn up on the Square
before the Winter Palace, their strange uniforms drawing the
curious gaze of the crowd ; the courtiers of Catherine pros-
trated themselves before their new master, the citizens of
Petersburg acknowledged him as Emperor.

One of his first acts was to exhume the body of Peter III.,
buried in the cemetery of Alexander Nevsky, have it trans-
ported to the Winter Palace, and, in a coffin surmounted by
an Imperial crown, placed next to the Catafalque where
Catherine had been laid instate. Loathing each other in
life, they were buried together, and Alexis Orloff, old and
feeble but still full of dignity, was forced to walk behind the
coffin of the Emperor whom, thirty-four years earlier, he was
supposed to have murdered. And whether it was an act of
devotion to the memory of his supposed father, or an act of
vengeance and hatred to his mother, only Paul's half crazy
brain could tell.

Filled with soldiers, the Winter Palace now resembled
a beleaguered garrison, while every morning the Emperor
drilled his new regiments and prided himself on being out
in all weathers without an overcoat. Not only did he insist
on a discipline that was rigorously severe, but he changed the
old uniforms, brought in German ones ; ordered the soldiers,
who had always worn their hair cut round their necks in the
old Russian manner, to be powdered and wear the little
false pigtail behind.

132 Recollections of Imperial Russia

And steadily his unpopularity increased in the Army and
desertion, whichhitherto hadbeenrare, became increasingly
frequent. Every day new orders, one more ridiculous than
the last, were issued, paralysing Petersburg and causing
consternation through all the country. The old barbaric
custom, forbidden by Peter, which insisted on those who met
the Sovereign in the street descending from their carriages
and prostrating themselves, was brought into force again,
with the result that the streets of the capital were nearly
deserted, as nobody wanted to go out and incur this necessity
unless they were forced to do so.

The splendid painted sledges and coaches were all for-
bidden, even the old Russian harness had to be changed. A
British merchant who was unaware of the new order that
round hats were not allowed was arrested and beaten by
soldiers who tore his hat from his head. Prince George
Galitzin was imprisoned on one occasion because, when he
kissed the Emperor's hand, he had not had sufficient
reverence in his manner. A horse that had stumbled was
starved to death by the order of the Autocrat of Russia.

Everywhere, in every class and every grade, his tyranny
made itself felt; and one wonders whether it was just sheer
love of power, or whether he tried to heap on himself the
splendour and dignities of a Potentate, in order to make
people forget his insignificant height, his snub nose, his
high cheek-bones and bald head. That he was aware of his
own ugliness is shown by the fact that he refused to have
his head engraved on the coins of his realm, and insisted on
having the cypher instead ; while no man could join the new
Pavlovsky Guard Regiment unless he had a snub nose — a
rule that was carried out up till the Revolution.

For his coronation at Moscow in 1797, Paul's almost
childish love of ceremonies and functions was allowed fulJ

Paul 133

scope, and he could be the centre figure of all the mag-
nificent pageantry. The festivities lasted over a week, the
Emperor seeming never to tire of them, while the exhausted
Courtiers nearly succumbed to fatigue, very often having
no time to return to their houses between the various enter-
tainments, and having to dress as best they could in passages
or ante-rooms.

So, in the magnificent Uspensky Cathedral, which had
seen the coronation of the first Tsar, the Holy Crown of
Russia was placed on the forehead of the man who, had he
not surrounded himself with a shadow of terror, would have
perhaps been only supremely ridiculous ; and the old walls of
the Kremlin watched him strut in pompous dignity beneath
their shadow and pass on to meet his tragic, inevitable
destiny.

In Petersburg, meanwhile, the new St. Michael's Palace
was being built with vast expense and haste on the site of
the old Summer Palace. Some said that Paul's hatred for
his mother was so intense that he would not live in rooms
which held her memory. Others whispered that his dread
of assassination was so great that he must have a palace as
impregnable as a fortress, surrounded by a moat, approached
only by a drawbridge. While at the same time a story was
circulated that one of the guards of the Summer Gardens
had insisted on being admitted to the Emperor and related
how St. Michael had appeared to him three times during the
night and had ordered him to tell the Emperor that he was
soon to have another son, that he was to christen him Michael,
and was to build a church and a palace and call them by the
same name.

In January, 1798, Marie Feodorowna effectively gave
birth to a son, who was in due course christened Michael,
and the pink walls of the great palace rose at the end of the

134 Recollections of Imperial Russia

Summer Gardens and the Champ de Mars. The little Grand
Duke came into the world at midnight, but, by order of the
Emperor, his birth had to be immediately announced to
all the heads of diplomatic missions in Petersburg. Count
Feodor Golovkin accordingly was forced to drive round
the town in a state glass coach and insist on being admitted
to every Embassy and Legation. Sleepy porters knocked up
thus in the middle of the night refused to open the big doors,
half -dressed servants had to be sent for, messages were
brought that Their Excellencies were asleep and that it
was impossible to wake them. But Golovkin, under the
orders of the Tyrant, had to go against all common sense, and
peevish Ambassadors had to be torn out of warm beds, and,
wrapped in gorgeous dressing-gowns, had to listen to the
formal announcement of the birth of another son to the
Empress of Russia.

It was a rule of terror, a fever of tyranny, which made
Paul hated and detested by all his people. Even his wife
had several times been placed under arrest, his children
trembled before him, his Ministers plotted against him, his
Courtiers, prostrating themselves before him, cursed him
in their hearts. The beautiful, arrogant Madame Lap-
houkine had taken the place of Mademoiselle Nellidoff,
who had retired to the Smolny Institute, the Empress herself
going often to see her old-time rival, weeping with her over
the growing madness of the man they both loved in spite of
all his faults.

And meanwhile the plot against him grew into being,
supporters coming from all sides to work for his downfall.
Count Pahlen, Governor-General of Petersburg and Paul's
most trusted friend, was the head of the conspiracy, and the
names of Platon Zouboff and Nikita Petrovitch Panin were
also on the list. The latter was the nephew of Paul's

Paul 135

former governor, and sharing his education had been his
friend, and, later, his Vice-Chancellor, until, in one of his
sudden fits of fury, Paul exiled him to his estates.

Alexander, Paul's eldest son, had also been approached,
but had refused categorically to have anything to do with
the conspiracy. It was explained to him that no harm would
come to the Emperor, and that he would only be made
Regent in his name. It was put before him that by this act
alone could Russia be saved from the power of a madman ;
that Paul's increasing despotism, his crazy out bursts of anger,
would intime ruinthe country; that the lives of his mother,
himself, his brothers and sisters were not safe for a moment.

At last, reluctantly, Alexander gave his name, but unde-
cided and nervous, he kept on hesitating and putting off the
final decision, till at last Pahlen insisted thatthe thing must be
done without any further delay, as the dreaded Arakcheieff
was being recalled from his temporary banishment to Siberia,
and at the same time Paul was threatening to make war on
some neighbouring states.

So at last the night of the nth of March darkened over
Petersburg, and a cold, starry sky stretched abovethe great,
pink-walled Palace whose shadow lay black on the silver
whiteness of the snow. At eleven the conspirators met together
in the house of General Talitsin and, after drinking to the
success of their enterprise, set out through the frost-bound
silence. The loyal Semeyenoff Regiment, which had been on
guard inthe morning, had now bee nre placed by the Preobo-
jenski, who were in the plot, so without any difficulty the
drawbridges were let down, the great gates were swung
silently open. The Emperor had already retired to bed;
the whole vast building lay shadowed in sleep. Only one
soldier tried to stop the band of conspirators, but was
instantly struck down and pushed aside.

136 Recollections of Imperial Russia

Woken up by the commotion of their approach, Paul
started out of bed and looked round desperately for a
way of escape. But the door that led to his wife's rooms had
been barricaded by his special orders, urged by his terror of
her plotting against him, and there was no other way out
save by that door before which already the conspirators were
standing. Hiding himself behind a screen the Emperor
cowered in the shadows, listening to the voices of the men
who now had forced themselves into his room, who, thinking
he had escaped, were cursing each other in their frantic
search for him. At last, by an abrupt movement, one of
them knocked downthe screen, and the miserable half -naked
figure of the despot and the tyrant who, in revenge for his
own darkened youth, had made his country tremble before
him, stood before the men who had come to avenge that
country's wrongs.

It is difficult to know exactly what followed, as in all
the narratives the descriptions differ in some slight degree.
Some say it was Benningsen who struck the Emperor down
with a heavy gold snuff-box, others declare that when they
said to him, " Majesty, you are arrested ! " he tried madly to
escape, that, caught back, he struggled, was knocked down in
the general commotion, and that either Zouboff or Skelleret
strangled him with a scarf. They had perhaps not meant to
kill him ; they were all a little drunk with wine and excite-
ment, hardly conscious of what they were doing ; but when
they saw the huddled figure at their feet, the livid swollen
face, a sudden hush fell on them — the horror of their accom-
plished act struck them into silence. Almost reverently
they lifted up the poor, beaten body and laid it back on the
bed, while an officer was despatched to Alexander to tell
him what had happened and proclaim him Emperor.

With all the pomp his soul had loved, Paul, after hardly

Paul 137

more than four years reign, was buried in the Cathedral of
the Fortress ; but his memory was not so easily laid aside, and
his influence seemed to remain behind like some malevolent
spectre of evil. The shadow of his father's murder, of his
own part in the conspiracy, haunted and warped the spirit
of his son; while the terror of his despotic tyranny lived on in
his creature Arakcheieff, who gained complete mastery over
Alexander, and ruled Russia with iron, unsparing pitiless-
ness. Nicholas, who succeeded his brother, was an even
greater autocrat — the revolt of Pestel was suppressed with
cruel severity.

" God is too high and the Czar too far," the people said
wistfully ; but for the first time in Russian history the word
" Nihilist " was heard. Though Alexander II. freed the
serfs, and tried to bring in more liberal ideas, it was he who
fell a victim to an assassin's bomb in 1881.

Always, beneath the surface of laws and civilisation,
the elements of disorder, the old Eastern spirit seethed and
smouldered. The heritage of wild, half -savage tribes of
the steppes, the never forgotten influence of Tartar invasions,
of wars and strife and an Oriental fatalism and disregard
for life. Peter the Great, Catherine the Great, Paul — those
three figures seem to stand out in the history of modern
Russia ; the Russia not of Kiev or of Moscow, but of Peters-
burg with its Western influence, its glamour of Court and
Society, literature and music ; and yet they could not,
either by their greatness or their tyranny, give Russia a
new soul : all they could do was to make new laws, build
their palaces and schools, and leave behind them memories
that seemed still vividly alive.

The memories of Peter : the pink and white Palace on the
Gulf of Finland ; the grim, brown Fortress ; the little house
by the Neva, built by the Tsar's own hands in 1703, with its

138 Recollections of Imperial Russia

simple rooms, its chapel and wonder-working image ; and not
far off the wooden Cathedral of the Trinity — here always the
spirit of the Great Reformer seemed to linger, here were the
golden ikons before which he came to pray, and here was
the place where the murdered body of Alexis was laid and
Peter looked down at his son with that frozen, granite face
of his. Very well I remember my sorrow one summer
morning in 1913 when, from the windows of the Embassy
just across the river, I watched the fire that destroyed the
Cathedral of the Trinity with its blue-painted domes, its
great gilt doors, and jewelled images.

And the memories of Catherine : the Hermitage with its
pictures that rivalled all other collections in the world — the
great rooms with their countless treasures of jade and
porphyry and malachite and agate. The Palace at Tsarskoe ;
the Marble Palace facing the Embassy, built originally for
Gregory Orloff, and where later Stanislas Poniatowsky came
to die. The Embassy itself built for the Soltikoffs. The
Tauride Palace of the great Potemkin which became the
Duma ; the Smolny Institute which became the Soviet.

And then the memories of Paul : Pavlosk, where his
happiest days were spent ; Gatchina, already impregnated
with the gloom of his growing fanaticism ; the Michael
Palace, sombre and impressive with its great arch, its
octagonal court, the vastness of its marble staircase. In
1882 it was fitted up as an Engineering Academy, and in
November, 1917, when the boys of the cadet school made their
vain and desperate effort to oust the Bolsheviks, some of
them entrenched themselves here, determined to fight till the
last. Across the Champ de Mars, cannons were trained on
the mad Emperor's Palace, but, seeing that resistance was
hopeless, the cadets surrendered; and the rose-red walls
still stood intact, with the golden spire of the Palace church

Paul 139

flashing in the sunshine, the last day I walked in the Summer
Gardens and looked up at the windows, where so often I
had seemed to see the small, ugly face of the man who had
tyrannised Russia looking out at the new world.

The yellow trams that shriek and scream down the
Sadovaia, the motors that hoot and whistle and jolt across
the wooden bridge over the Fontanka, the troops of laughing
children with their nurses in the Summer Gardens, the hunch-
backed newspaper seller who sits at the gates, long lines of
carts with stumbling horses, officers in long grey overcoats,
women in costly furs, an old peasant with a shawl over her
head. The shifting scenes pass, swept away by the war and
the Revolution ; but again on that last day when I looked
up at the empty Palace I seemed to see the ghost-like face at
the windows — and nowthebusy street was almost deserted,
there were no motors, only an occasional battered tram,
no officers in grey overcoats, no women in enveloping furs,
no laughing children in the deserted Summer Gardens where
the statues shivered in the frozen silence.

Change — evolution — unending tragedy. The scarlet flag
of Liberty and Communism flying from the Fortress where
the bodies of dead Emperors lie. Here in the Cathedral the
marble coffin of Paul was always lit up with a halo of golden
light from hundreds of flickering candles ; and I remember
being told that if one had a wish one had but to go and pray
at the grave of Paul to have it fulfilled, as he had died an
evil death, and, to give his spirit rest, it had been granted
this special privilege. I think that once, for something I
thought I wanted very much, I also went and put a little,
flickering, yellow candle before that coffin with its golden
eagles, but my wish was never fulfilled, and the silence of the
big church with its sleeping Emperors seemed to mock me
for my credulity.

140 Recollections of Imperial Russia

Small, insignificant, ugly, in no ways great, among
those other ghosts of dead men and women who wore the
Crown of Russia, and each one, in his or her way, influenced
her destiny, Paul's figure stands out with sinister prominence,
even as in the shadows of the cathedral his coffin, lit up by
the flickering candles, stood out from the other coffins, not
for the good he did his country, but for the evil, and for the
grim ghastliness of his ending.

Kiev — the Mother of Russian Cities 141

CHAPTER VIII

KIEV — THE MOTHER OF RUSSIAN CITIES

Of Kiev, personally I can unfortunately remember very
little, as we stayed there just one day on our way back from
the Crimea in 1916, and all that has remained in my mind is
a confused jumble which refuses to be sorted out and put
into proper order.

I remember driving for miles up and down the steep hills,
through busy crowded streets, visiting countless churches,
both ancient and modern. I have a dim recollection left
in my mind of the large terrace in front of the Palace with
its view over the wide, yellow Dnieper, and the limitless
mystery of the great plains. I have a vague picture, too, of
the hotel bedroom with an enormous wooden bed, hideous
carpets, heavy plush curtains, and a family of mice who did
not seem in the least to resent my presence.

Amidst all the disjointed, desultory fragments one or
two things stand out with vivid clearness. The ruins of
the Golden Gate ; the church built by Rastrelli in 1774
on the high hill where it was said that St. Andrew planted a
cross, and, turning to the disciples, who had accompanied
him on his long journey to Russia, said, stretching out his
arm : " Here will one day be a city of great splendour, with
many churches built to the glory of God." The faces of
the pilgrims inthe Lavra, or Monastery of the Caves, founded
by the monk Hilarion in the eleventh century ; old peasants

142 Recollections of Imperial Russia

come from some far-away village where civilisation was still
unknown ; womenin strange, bright -coloured dresses ; monks
with the mystic, dreaming faces of painted ikons ; children
with big, wondering eyes !

Resting on the steps, standing in silent groups, kneeling
before some jewelled image, one looked at them as one might
have looked at the age-old stones themselves ; they were
the old Russia — the Russia of still untold secrets, the Russia
Western progress could not change. They had come
hundreds of miles across the endless steppes, believing that
their long pilgrimage would help them, cure them of some
secret disease, bring their men safely back from the distant
righting line, give them a good harvest, riches, prosperity,
happiness ! They knew nothing of the woes of Belgium,
France, and England ; very little of the cause of the war;
but they thought St. Olga, or St. Vladimir, might help them ;
that here in the Uspensky Cathedral, built in 1089, destroyed
by the Tartars, rebuilt in the fifteenth century, destroyed once
more by fire, and again rebuilt, their prayers might be
answered. Further on, too, were the Catacombs of St.
Anthony, who succeeded the monk Hilarion, and here
seventy-three saints were laidto rest, among others John the
Longsuffering, who had himself buried in the ground up to the
neck and lived thus for thirty years. Surely so holy a man
would help the suffering children of Russia !

The great Cathedral of St. Sophia, with its fifteen glitter-
ing domes, was full of them, too. The golden glimmer of
old mosaics seemed to fill all the church with a dim radiance ;
the faded frescoes ; the kneeling figures inthe bright, (barbaric
colours ; the blue, drifting clouds of incense — one caught
one's breath because it was all so far away from the world
of reality, of bustling streets and clattering motors, the
noise and clamour and rush of modern life. Here were

The Winter Palace, Petersburg.

Archway Facing the Winter Palace, Petersburg.

p. 142.

Kiev — The Mother of Russian Cities 143

peace and faith and belief in miracles, the hush of old
memories, the still unexplained mystery of the Indestructible
Wall with the figure of the Virgin which no Tartar fire could
burn. And it was again the old Russia of legend and
history and romance, of cruel brutality, of colour, and
mysticism.

The ghosts of long-dead princes, whose names still lived
in the peoples' hearts, seemed to kneel amongst the living ;
and outside the iron doors the world of the twentieth century
was no more. The white walls of Kiev still stood untouched
with their golden turrets and domes ; the Palace of the
Princes could still be reached by the winding turret staircase
from the south arcade ; the old warriors of Vladimir moved
in the shifting shadows ; the daughters of Yaroslav smiled
through the haze of dust and incense. Then the thunder of
approaching millions, the shrill cry of Tartars, the roof of
the great church, crowded with refugees and defenders,
crashing down amidst smoke and flame, the cries of anguish,
the pitiless laughter of Batu's soldiers !

Grandeur and pomp, desolation and war. The shimmer
of jewels, the angry clash of arms ! The memory of Mongol
supremacy, of Asiatic tyranny indelibly impressed on the
people — never to be forgotten or obliterated. The problem
of Russiamaking hard-thinking, level-headed statesmen raise
their shoulders in despair. The peril of Russia — the agony
— the confusion ! Who can understand it ? Find a solu-
tion— a salvation ? And yet over and over again was Kiev
rebuilt from ashes, and those who have read of Russia's
bondage under Tartar rule do not try to judge or explain
her by European standards.

Nearly a thousand years before Peter began to build

the new capital on the marshes, long even before the walls

of the Kremlin at Moscow began to rise above the clustering

K

144 Recollections of Imperial Russia

village, was Kiev called " The Mother of Russian Towns,"
founded even before that, so the legends says, by Ky and his
two brothers in 430. In 862, Gastomyl, President of Novgorod,
sent a message to the Varangians and asked their chieftain,
Rurik of the family of Rus, who was, according to various
historians, Varangian, Scandinavian, or Slavonic, to come
and rule the broad rich lands where no order was. So
Rurik came to Novgorod, and from there two of his warriors,
Askold and Dir, sailed down the Dnieper on their way to
Tsarigrad — as Constantinople was called in those days —
meaning to enrol themselves in the guard of the Emperor
of Bysanze, but, passing by the fair city of Kiev on the hill,
they straightway abandoned their journey, overcame the
citizens, and made themselves masters of the town.

In 879, Rurik died at Novgorod, leaving a little son, Igor,
for whom Oleg, his kinsman, became Regent, and to Oleg's
ears was brought the fame of the city of Kiev, and, sailing
down the Dnieper in his turn, he lured Askold and Dir by
a crafty ruse aboard his ship. " You are not princes," he
told them, standing above them immense and tall in his
Viking helmet. " But I am of royal blood, and I have with
me Igor, the son of Rurik." So Askold and Dir were killed
without mercy, and the gates of Kiev were opened to the
first Prince of the House of Rurik, and in the shifting shadows
of that barbaric land, where wandering tribe fought against
wandering tribe, dawned the first dim light of a great Empire.

It was in 907, the old chronicles say, that Oleg, with two
thousand boats and eighty thousand men, sailed down the
Dnieper and across the Black Sea to the golden city of
Tsarigrad. In vainthe Greeks tried to close the entry to the
Straits with an iron chain, for Oleg had wheels attached to
the bottom of his ships, and so sailed across dry land to the
walls of the capital of Byzantium. With fire and sword

Kiev — the Mother of Russian Cities 145

the wild hosts of the barbarians spread terror in the heart
of the Emperor and his people, and finally the first Russian
treaty known to history was made ; Oleg nailed his shield
to the gate of Tsarigrad and returned to Kiev, laden with
riches and treasures.

For thirty years Oleg reigned, subduing the wandering
tribes of Slavs and Finns and Lithuanians, governing with a
firm hand and great wisdom, and making Kiev the mother of
all Russian cities. According to an old legend, a wizard
warned him that his favourite horse would one day cause his
death, whereupon Oleg dismounted, ordered that the horse
be well cared for, but be no more brought out for him to
ride. A few years later they came and told him that the
horse was dead, and, in idle curiosity, Oleg went one day
to the field where the bones lay already bleaching in the
sun. " Look ! " said the great warrior. " How these wizards
lie ! This was to be my death ! " and laughing carelessly,
he set his foot upon the dead horse's head. But after all,
the legend says, the wizards did not lie, for from the horse's
skull a serpent darted out and bit Oleg in the leg, and from
that wound he died.

Igor, the son of Rurik, married to Olga, who by some
was said to be the daughter of Gastomyl, succeeded him, and
reigned for thirty years ; but, in 945, was treacherously
killed by the Drevlians. Sviatoslav, his son, was still too
young to reign, so Olga became Regent in his name ; and she,
who had been famous for her beauty, became now known for
her inexorable spirit of revenge against the enemies who had
slain her husband. So, when the Drevlians sent envoys
to explain their unconsidered act, and to beg for her hand in
marriage for their Prince, she apparently consented to all
their proposals and said she would receive them publicly
in front of all her people.

146 Recollections of Imperial Russia

Unsuspecting, the envoys allowed themselves to be
carried in their boats on the shoulders of Olga's men up to
the gates of Kiev, but, arrivedthere, theirbearers threwthem
into a deep pit that had been dug for the purpose, and buried
them alive. Keeping silent over the fate of the first envoys,
Olga sent for a guard of honour to conduct her to the city of
the Drevlians, and, when they arrived, had them conducted
to a bath-house, locked in and burnt. Then, pretending
that she wished to pray on Igor's grave before she became
the wife of another husband, she induced the still unsuspect-
ing Drevlians to lead her there to a funeral feast, and
erecting a tumulus over the slaughtered body of Igor, she
made the Drevlians drink to his honour, till presently, when
they were overcome with wine, her followers fell on them
and murdered every one.

And still her thirst for vengeance was not satisfied ;
the people who had killed the man she loved had not yet
suffered enough. Openly, with an armedhost, she attacked
theDrevlian stronghold, and, unable to overcome its defences,
resorted once more to strategem, and sent a message to the
starving populace saying she would raise the siege, if they
paid her tribute of a leash of pigeons and three sparrows from
each homestead. Overjoyed by this clemency the people
set to work to catch the birds and sent them to Olga ; but
when evening came, she had rags steeped in oil fastened to
their wings and, setting them alight, sent the poor terrified
birds fluttering back to their nests in the thatch, till
presently the city of the Drevlians was ablaze behind its
impregnable walls, and the inhabitants who tried to escape
were massacred by the army who waited outside the gates.
So, the legends say, did Olga avenge the death of her hus-
band, and, satisfied at last, returned to Kiev, to rule with
great wisdom in her son's name.

Kiev — the Mother of Russian Cities 147

Famous she had been for her beauty, and her pitiless
hate, but her name was to be handed down to history as
Olga the Wise, or Olga the Sainted, and famous she was to
be for her piety and devotion. It was said that Askold and
Dir had both been made Christians, but Oleg and Igor
worshipped Perun, the God of Thunder, and when Olga,
journeying to Constantinople, was received into the Greek
Church under the name of Helen, she could not induce her
son Sviatoslav to become Christian. Battle and conquest
were the only things that counted in his mind, and his
picture still lives in Russian history, broad and strong, with
a golden beard, one long lock of hair on his shaven head,
blue eyes that were very fierce and bright, and a ring with
two pearls and a blood-red ruby in his ear. Khazares,
Viatiches, Kazoques, Bulgarians and Greeks paid tribute
to this mighty Prince, who sent them always this proud
message : " I am marching against you ! " — who never ate
cooked meat ; who, wrapped in his cloak, slept on the
ground, the saddle of his horse for a pillow, and the wide
night sky as a royal tent above him.

Soon after the death of his mother, Sviatoslav set out
to the shores of the Danube to make war on the Bulgarians
and Greeks, and, returning in triumph, sailed across the sea
and tried to make his way up the Dnieper, but was attacked
and killed by the Petchenigians, a warlike, nomad tribe
of the Steppes who had just made their appearance, and
who for many years were to threaten the peace and pros-
perity of Russian towns.

Sviatoslav left three sons, each born of a different
mother, and among them he had divided his lands, giving
Kiev to Yaropolk, the country of the Drevlians to Oleg,
and Novgorod to Vladimir — the greatest and strongest of
the three. Very soon after the death of their father,

148 Recollections of Imperial Russia

dissension arose among the brothers : Oleg was killed in a
battle against Yaropolk, Vladimir fled back to Novgorod,
and for a time Yaropolk ruled with undisputed power.

But the warlike Vladimir did not rest for long, and
beginning a new campaign against his brother, he sent to
Rovgolod, Prince of Polotsk, and asked for his support and
the hand of his daughter Rognyeda in marriage. But the
Princess, dark-haired and golden-eyed, sent back her answer
proudly : "I am betrothed to Yaropolk, Prince of Kiev,
and never will I marry the son of a slave . " It was true that
Vladimir was the son of Malusha, one of Olga's serving
maids, but when this reply was brought to him, he swore
vengeance for the insult, and, attacking the castle of
Rovgolod, he killed him and his two sons, and carried off
Rognyeda as his unwilling bride. Then he made war on
Yaropolk, laying siege to Kiev and Rodnya, till Yaropolk,
betrayed by his adviser Blud, sought an interview to crave
for peace, and was foully murdered even as he was about to
enter his brother's tent.

Nestor, in his chronicle, does not say whether Rognyeda
wept at the death of her former lover. Did she come softly
to where the mangled body of her husband's brother lay,
and gently nurse the dead head against her breast ? Or,
shut in her narrow room, did she lie overwhelmed by tears,
the masses of her dark hair covering her shoulders ? Goris-
lava, the people called her, pitying her many sorrows,
for " Gore " in old Slavonic means " woe." Rognyeda of
the golden eyes, mother of Yaroslav the Great, and wife of
Vladimir !

Once, tortured beyond endurance by her bitter memories
and by her husband's neglect, she stole into his room, mean-
ing to kill him as he lay asleep. But, waking, he caught her
with a dagger in her hand, and, in order to punish her for

Kiev — the Mother of Russian Cities 149

her treachery, he ordered her to deck herself in her wedding-
gown and all her jewels, and, lying on a couch, to wait for him
to come and kill her. And Rognyeda did all he told her ;
but when her husband came into her room, his bared sword
in his hand, Isiaslav, one of his sons, met him. " Dost
thou want to live alone ? " fearlessly the child faced his
formidable father. " Take then this sword and kill me. I
do not wish to be witness of my mother's death." And, for
the sake of the boy, Vladimir pardoned Rognyeda, and gave
to her a city which he named Isiaslavl.

Unbridled in his passions, great and terrible in his love
for women was Vladimir, Prince of Kiev, and yet he was a
wise ruler, a mighty warrior, and one who aggrandised and
enriched his kingdom. Soon after his accession he saw that
the people's faith needed strengthening and that a new
religion was necessary to hold his dominions together.
Accordingly he determined to find the belief that was best
suited for his country, and he received many foreign envoys,
and, not satisfied with this, sent people of his own to the
different lands to make still more enquiries.

The Mohammedans had told him that he might have
seventy wives, but that he must not eat pork or drink any
wine. The idea of being allowed so many wives was one
that appealed to Vladimir, but wine, he said, was a neces-
sary delight to the Russian people, and when his envoys
returned from the lands of the Mohammedans and told
him how they performed many foul deeds and prayed to God
with their heads covered, the grand Prince set aside their
faith.

The German Catholics had told him how they worshipped
God and fasted, and confessed their sins, and his envoys
reported to him how there was no beauty in their churches,
but only sadness and gloom and much austerity, and to

150 Recollections of Imperial Russia

Vladimir repentance and austerity were not at all con-
genial, so he decided not to adopt the Catholic belief. The
Jews also sent their envoys to him, and told him how, for
the sake of their religion, they had been cast out of their
country, and forced to wander over the world, and Vladimir
answered them sternly : "If God loved you and your laws,
He would not allow you to be exiled. We Russians do not
wish to share the same fate, therefore we will have none of
your religion."

But to the teachings of the Greek priests Vladimir
listened with silent attention, and when his envoys returned
from Constantinople and told him of the splendour of the
Greek churches and the beauty of the ceremonial, Vladimir
pondered deeply. And having laid siege to the ancient Greek
city of Chersonesus in the Crimea, which was delivered into
his hands, he sent word to Basil and Constantine, joint
Emperors of Bysanze, that he wished to marry their sister
Anna, and be received into the Greek Church. Reluctantly,
and with a heavy heart, the Princess Anna sailed away from
her beautiful city to marry Vladimir, the Little Red Sun
as his people called him, mighty in his own country as the
Emperor Charlemagne. And at Chersonesus — afterwards
called Cherson — where the great brown cliffs dip down into
the sea that is blue as blue flowers and precious stones,
was Vladimir baptised in the Christian faith, and, taking
his new wife with him, sailed up the Dnieper, back to Kiev.

And there by his orders the statues of the gods were
hacked to pieces, and the great wooden figure of Perun, the
God of Thunder, with his silver head and golden beard,
was dragged through the streets of the city and flung into
the river. And by their hundreds, every day the citizens of
Kiev were baptised in the waters of the Dnieper, not gladly,
but because it was the will of the Grand Prince — and the

Kiev — the Mother of Russian Cities 151

will of the Grand Prince was law. He had said the old gods
were deaf and useless, and dumbly the people believed him ;
and as Kiev was the mother of Russian cities, so the other
cities followed where she led, and gradually and easily the
Christian faith was spread throughout all the land.

Greatly did Vladimir enrich the city of Kiev, and to his
Court came warriors from far and near, so that round him
grew up nearly all the legends of early Russia. Ian the
Tanner was there, who overcame the giant Petchnigain in
single -handed combat, and Rovgold, and Dobrinia, and Elia
Murametz, the peasant hero, and many others. But at
last, in 1015, the Little Red Sun of Russia died, and, having
been often unfaithful to the golden-eyed Rognyeda, he left
many sons, who fought among themselves so that his king-
dom was given up to murder and bloodshed.

Yaroslav,one of Rognyeda's sons, was Prince of Novgorod,
and had refused to pay tribute to his father who was on his
way to punish him for his disobedience when death overtook
him. For as long as they could, his followers kept the fact
that the Grand Prince had died a secret, for Sviatopolk
the Accursed was in Kiev and they feared him greatly
Sviatopolk was the son of the beautiful Greek nun who had
been slave to Yaropolk when Vladimir wrested his kingdom
from him and made his slave his mistress. Therefore was
Sviatopolk the Accursed called the son of two fathers, for
none knew whose child he was.

All too soon the report of Vladimir's death reached his
ears, and, seizing the power, he treacherously murdered his
brothers Boris and Gleb and Sviatoslav and made himself
master of Kiev. But Yaroslav of Novgorod, being warned
by his sister Predslava that his father was dead, marched
against the city, and overcame Sviatopolk and his army of
Petchnigains, who, seeking to retreat across the barely-frozen

152 Recollections of Imperial Russia

Dnieper, were caught and drowned by the breaking ice
that could not bear their weight. The Petchnigains having
failed him, Sviatopolk called to his aid Bolislas of Poland,
but again Yaroslav defeated him, and Sviatopolk the Ac-
cursed fled across the plains, ever pursued by phantom
enemies who would not let him rest, so that at last in misery
he died.

And now was Yaroslav the Lame, surnamed the Law-
giver, sometimes called the Great, Prince of Kiev, and during
his reign of thirty-eight years the mother of all Russian
cities reached the zenith of her triumphant, evanescent
glory. It was he who surrounded her with the white walls,
with golden gates and turrets and domes that flashed in
the sunshine. It was he who built the Cathedral of St.
Sophia to commemorate a great victory over the Petchni-
gains, and it was he who framed the first laws of the country
— the ' Russkaia Pravda,' known as the Russian Right.
He founded cities and schools, and concluded treaties with
the sovereigns of Europe. He paid students to translate the
the old Greek writings into the Slavonic language, and he
enriched his churches and palaces with many treasures.

His wife was the Princess Ingigord of Sweden, and by
her he had many children. Elisabeth, his eldest daughter,
was loved by Harold Hadrada,the King of Norway, who for
her sake scorned the advances of Zoe, the beautiful Empress
of Bysanze, fought against the infidels in Sicily, and visited
the Tomb of Our Saviour in Jerusalem. Finally, after many
years of waiting, Elisabeth consented to marry him, and
accompanied him when he fought against Harold, King of
England, and was killed at Stamford Bridge.

A second daughter married Andrew, King of Hungary ;
a third, the Princess Anna, went to France as the bride of
King Henry II. It was she who carried with her in memory

Kiev — the Mother of Russian Cities 15 3

of her native land the " Evangelie " which was treasured
after her death in the Cathedral of Rheims, the priests not
knowing in what language it was written till, many hundred
years later, Peter the Great came to France, and was shown
the ancient missal as a curiosity, and opening it exclaimed,
" It is written in my old Slavonic." So long had the book
lain with none to understand the sonorous words that,
touched by the hands of Peter of Russia, the old worn pages
must surely have sighed for the memory of that fair princess
whose fingers had turned them so often.

Yaroslav, too, left many sons, amongst whom he divided
his kingdom, bidding them keep peace and obey Isiaslav,
whom he made Prince of Kiev. Vain injunction, alas, for
no sooner was the Grand Prince dead, and laid to rest in the
blue and white marble coffin in the Cathedral of St. Sophia,
than dissensions and quarrels broke out amongst the brothers,
and for the next fifty or sixty years the principality of Kiev
was the centre of bloodshed, murder and plunder. Brother
fought against brother, cousin against cousin,nephew against
uncle, and Vseslav of Polotsk, grandson of Yaroslav's elder
brother, harassed his cousins with fire and sword. So swift
was he in his movements, so suddenly did he appear, so
miraculous were his escapes, that he was known as the Wizard,
and was believed to change himself into a grey wolf flying
across the steppes.

And at the same time the Polovtzi, that barbarous race
of Turco origin, made their first appearance in Russia,
burning and destroying cities and churches, sparing neither
woman nor child, coming even as far as the walls of Kiev.

In 1 113, Vladimir Monomachus, son of Vsevolod who had
married a daughter of Constantine Monomachus, Emperor of
Bysanze, was chosen prince by the people's wish, and for a
short space it seemed as if the glory of Kiev would once

154 Recollections of Imperial Russia

more be renewed. Vladimir was famous for his successful
wars against the Polovtzii, as well as for his wisdom and
just government, his great strength and courage. But in
spite of the prudent and discerning testament he left to
his sons, chaos and disorder unutterable broke out amongst
them after his death while they fought each other for
the supremacy, and Poles, Lithuanians, Hungarians and
Polovtzii harassed the country.

The expedition of Igor, Prince of Seversk, against the
latter, handed down through the centuries, forms one of
the most famous legends of those times, embodying all
the poetry and picturesque language that is still to be
found in the uneducated peasants and soldiers.

Sviatoslav, then Prince of Kiev, had fought a great
army of the Polovtzii near the Orel and the Dnieper, but
Igor said to his warriors : " The Princes have beaten the
Polovtzii on their own land, but you and I will go where they
dare not go, across the Don, into the wild steppes and crush
them utterly. . . . Yearning filled the soul of the Prince, and
his consuming wish to see the broad blue Don made him forget
many evil tokens." So, with his young son and his brother,
Vsevolod, the Rushing Bull, in his great golden helmet,
Igor set out across the plain. And Vsevolod told his brother
of the strength and valour of the fighting men he had with
him. " They saw the light of day to the sound of blowing
trumpets, and during their early youth they were nourished
with meat given them at the end of spears. They know the
distant roads and the great precipices. Their bows are
bent and their quivers are full, their swords sharpened.
They sweep into the fields like grey wolves famished for
carnage, they burn to crown their Prince's forehead with a
wreath of laurels. ..."

And Igor set foot in his golden stirrup and rode out to

Kiev — the Mother of Russian Cities 155

meet the enemy. Terrible storms arose, driving across the
steppes ; flocks of birds of prey hovered over the hosts of
warriors, wild beasts howled in their hidden lairs, the foxes
barked at the shining blue shields ; the spirit of Evil shrieked
out its warning from the sea coast to the Volga, to Khorsun
and the " Idol of Tmoutorakan." And in a fierce battle
were the Polovtzii overcome, great treasures of gold and
silk and fur fell into the hands of the Russians, while Igor
kept for himself a crimson banner on a silver lance.

But soon from the South came pouring new hordes of
Baibarians and surrounded the Russian army. A cloud
of arrows rained on Igor's warriors, in vain Vsevolod, the
Rushing Bull, attacked the oncoming hordes, his golden
helmet glittering in the storm light, his blows falling heavily
on the Polovtzii warriors. For two days and nights the
battle continued, but, " with the red dawn of the third
morning the Russian banners fell before the enemy, and,
having no more blood to shed, the Russian Generals died
for their country." Igor in truth went across the Blue Don,
but he went as a captive in chains and not as a conqueror.

Bitterly in Poutiole wept the wife of Igor when she heard
of his fate ; looking out across the plains from the walls of
the city she stretched out her arms to the far horizon and wept.
' Oh, cruel wind, why did you lend your wings to the arrows
of the enemy let loose on the warriors of my love ? Oh,
majestic Dnieper, you have carried on your breast the ships
of Sviatoslav to the camp of Kobiak ; give back to me the
loved one of his country and of my heart, and no more in
the early mornings will I pray the sea to take him my
tears."

For the space of many months was Igor kept a prisoner
in the camp of the Polovtzii ; but Laavar, one of his guards,
grew to love him, and one night — when the Polovtzii, having

156 Recollections of Imperial Russia

drunk their rum, grew merry — Igor, making the sign of the
Cross, crept out of his tent and down to the river, where
Laavar waited for him with two swift horses. So Igor rode
back across the steppes and, embarking on the Donetz,
reached his native land and returned thanks for his deliver-
ance in the Cathedral of Kiev.

But the splendour of the mother of Russian cities had
vanished. Prince succeeded Prince, murder and carnage
swept down the narrow streets, the spirits of betrayal and
assassination haunted the Palaces ; the voices of those who
prayed in the churches were broken by sobs. The glory and
prosperity of the days of Oleg, of Vladimir and Yaroslav
were no more ; and, formidable and sinister, the name of a
people hitherto unknown in history sprang into sudden and
dire significance. Driving the Polovtzii and other Nomad
tribes before them, the terrible Tartar hordes swept across
the plains, overwhelming and invincible in their numbers,
burning, slaying, plundering as they came.

In 1224 the Russian Princes, collecting a great army, tried
to check the advance of the Asiatic barbarians and were
defeated by the river Kalka, near the town of Maruipol.
But instead of continuing their pursuit of the flying armies
further than the shores of the Dnieper, the Tartars turned
back once more to the East, and Russia might have believed
herself spared had not signs and presages of evil continued to
warn the people of dire calamity. The plague burst out in
various places. A terrible fire nearly destroyed Novgorod.
The earth trembled and shook; the sun was darkened.
There were famines and drought and plagues of locusts.

Then, in 1237, the Mongol hosts again advanced. Riazan,
Moscow, Vladimir went down before them, burnt and ruined ;
and in 1240 Batu, the great Tartar chief, looking out from
the smoking ruins of Chernigorf, saw the distant white walls

Kiev— the Mother of Russian Cities 157

of Kiev, his wild, savage heart full of the lust of ruin and
destruction. Waiting till the Dnieper was frozen, he moved
across the solid ice with his hosts of horsemen and waggons,
and camels, and the snow-covered country was black with
the swarming figures of the Asiatic warriors.

Shock upon shock their battering rams thundered on the
golden gates, the stones hurled by their engines crashed on
the walls ; driven back again and again they seemed to spring
up once more in unbelievable numbers, till at last the gates
crumbled, and they held the ramparts. But still, desper-
ately, heroically, the people of Kiev fought on, men, women
and children piling up a new wall, only to be swept away and
annihilated. Then, seeking refuge on the roofs of churches,
they flung stones and missiles at the black horde sweeping
up the narrow streets, butchering and killing as they came,
till the roof of St. Sophia, crowded thus to overflowing,
fell in, burying its defenders in its downfall.

Devastating everything they came across ; burning,
plundering, murdering men, women and children ; the Tartars
left the Mother of Russian cities a heap of smoking ruins,
with just the tottering wall of St. Sophia, with the image of
the Virgin, that neither fire nor shock of arms had been able
to destroy, standing up amidst the waste.

The birds of prey gathered in a dark cloud over the
masses of the dead, and silence fell softly over the blood-
stained trampled snow. The creaking of the wheels of
Tartar carts, the fierce war cry of the little, yellow-faced
soldiers ; the neighing of horses, the thunder of battle, all
hushed now in the frozen stillness ; the desolation of a city
of crumbling ruins, still smouldering in faint blue smoke,
and that one wall left standing with the pitying Mother of
God looking down on her fallen churches.

And now for many years were the Princes of Russia

158 Recollections of Imperial Russia

tributary vassals of the great Tartar Khan, and darkness
and sorrow lay over the wide lands and ruined cities. A
darkness that has left its mark indelibly impressed on the
country, a sorrow that has never been forgotten, a certain
Oriental sombreness and fatalism nothing can obliterate.
A shadow of dread, of resistless submission, and the fierce-
ness of a pitiless cruelty. Only one name shines out like a
star in the history of those days, the name of Alexander,
Prince of Novgorod ; blue-eyed and fair, a giant in stature,
a great man and a hero, named by the church St. Alexander
Nevsky, of whom Batu said, " I have never seen a Prince like
him."

In 1240, when the Mongols were first attacking Kiev,
Alexander, than barely twenty-one, fought and overcame
the Swedes who were sailing up the Neva. In 1241 he freed
Pskoff from the German Knights in the famous battle that
has been named the Ice Slaughter. And seven times he
fought and crushed the Lithuanian bands sent out against
him. When his father, Yaroslav, Prince of Kiev, died in
Mongolia, where he had gone to pay homage to the Tartar
Khan, Batu sent a message to Alexander commanding him
to come and take his father's place ; and, having asked
spiritual advice of Cyril, Bishop of Rostoff, Alexander went
to Sarai, and from there was sent on to the Grand Khan in
his distant Eastern fastness.

So, with his brother Andrei, along that weary way across
the endless plains, rode young Alexander, with his head
bent, thinking of his father and the fate that perhaps awaited
him at the Tartar horde. But, admiring his calm, quiet
fearlessness, his high bearing and great stature, the Khan
treated him with honour, did not require him to give up his
religion, and made him Lord of Kiev and later on of Vladimir.

The Tartar yoke weighed ever more heavily on Russia.

Kiev — the Mother of Russian Cities 159

The exorbitant taxes, the registering of each man's head, of
every horn and hoof of his cattle ; the interest demanded for
all arrears of payment, were all slowly ruining the people,
and if they were unable to pay they were tortured, im-
prisoned, sold into slavery. Looking out over his suffering
country, Alexander's eyes darkened with overwhelming
sadness, his young face grew thin and hard and stern with
the dumb anguish that tore his heart. His journeys to the
Tartar horde had shown him the terrible odds there were
against Russia ; his clear, far-seeing judgment knew that to
attempt to resist or fight the Tartars would only mean
endless carnage, the destruction of cities, the burning of
churches, the massacre of women and children, war and
desolation unspeakable.

Again and again in Novgorod and Pskoff the people
tried to revolt ; his brother, even his own son, refused to
listen to his advice of patience and endurance, only to be
punished cruelly for their folly. Again and again in order
to placate the Tartars he journeyed to Sarai where Batu,
who had loved the beautiful young prince, was dead, and
had been succeeded by Berkai, stern and inflexible and hard
to convince. Times without number, too, he went the long,
weary journey to the capital of the great Khan in Asia,
till at last, worn out by his constant anxieties and endless
wanderings, his strength gave way, and falling ill on his way
home from Sarai in 1263, he took the monk's habit at
Sarrodets and died.

A breathless messenger brought the news to Cyril,

Metropolitan of Vladimir, when he was officiating in the

Cathedral, and, turning to the crowd in the shadowed church,

the old man raised his tremblng hands amidst the clouds of

blue incense. " Alas, my children ! " he cried, " the sun

of the Russian land has set."

L

160 Recollections of Imperial Russia

Amidst the tears and mourning of a sorrowing people,
the body of the Prince was brought to Vladimir and laid to
rest ; and many years later, when Peter the Great wished to
establish his new capital, and could not persuade his sub-
jects to live in a city where there were no saints, he had the
body brought to Petersburg and laid in the great new
Church of Alexander Nevsky, on the spot where the young
Prince, brave and sunny-eyed and unafraid, had conquered
and overcome the Swedish hosts.

Canonised by the Russian Church, the name of Alex-
ander has lived through the centuries. Had it not been for
his wise advice, his foreseeing prudence, the Russians,
vainly revolting against the Tartar oppression, might have
been utterly annihilated. Mongol Princes would have ruled
at Kiev, and Moscow and Novgorod ; the language, the
religion, the whole race of the Russian people, might in
time have disappeared ; and, masters of all that vast rich
land, who knows to what heights the savage Tartar hordes
might have risen, who can tell how far their power might
have extended ?

A few desultory attempts had been made to rebuild
Kiev but, with her crumbling walls, her ruined palaces and
churches ; she was little more than an outpost, till Olgerd,
son of Godimir, Prince of Lithuania, seized on all the country
round. Called by some the " Greatest Statesman of the
Middle Ages," he increased his power till his name was
feared by the German knights, by the Princes of Novgorod
and Moscow cowering behind their walls, by the wild Tartar
bands sweeping across the plain. His son Jaquello embraced
the Catholic religion in order to marry the beautiful Jad-
wiga, Queen of Poland, building up thus the Polish-Lithu-
anian kingdom which for many years was to be Russia's
most bitter enemy.

Kiev — the Mother of Russian Cities 161

Meanwhile, the power of the Tartars was beginning to
weaken. Revolutions, dissensions and civil wars had broken
out in the horde — enfeebling the armies, and dispersing the
forces in various directions — so that Ivan III., Prince of
Moscow, gained a great victory over them, lifting thus the
yoke of Tartar supremacy from Russia.

Peace, however, was not to come easily to Kiev. There
was the constant controversy of religion. Orthodox and
Catholic Priests preaching their varying doctrines ; there
was the enmity of the Princes of Moscow ; there were the
attacks of Crim Tartars, who in 1483 burnt her once more to
the ground ; there were the incursions of German knights
into her territory, and the fierce raids of Cossack bands.
Swept by wars and insurrections, by peasant revolts, by
brutal massacres, the country lay tormented and suffering.

Now and then such names as Bogdan Chmielnicki or
Mazeppa blaze out for a few moments amidst the welter of
killing, the tramp of bloodthirsty crowds on the country
roads, the thundering hoofs of Polish or Cossack horsemen.
Then at last the Treaties were signed that gave the Ukraine
definitely back to Russia. Elisabeth and Catherine came to
Kiev with all their Court ; prosperity and commerce flourished
once more, the bells of the churches rang out to the silence
of the fields where peasants ploughed the rich black earth.

In 1911 a tragedy and a crime brought the name of the
old capital of Russia once more into prominence, when
Stolypin, the Great Prime Minister of the Emperor Nicholas
II., was assassinated in the Opera House. I well remember
the horror that fell on Petersburg when the news was first
made public ; the feeling one had of sudden emptiness, of a
ship that, rudderless, seemed to be drifting with the tide.
Already some ten years earlier an attempt had been made to
kill the Prime Minister at his country house out on the

1 62 Recollections of Imperial Russia

Islands, and passing it, I had seen the balcony shattered by
the assassin's bomb. It was here that his daughter was so
cruelly injured, and from here that she was carried to the
Winter Palace, while the agony of mind which wracked her
father, for whose sake she was suffering, was more intense
even than the torture she endured.

Ever since then Monsieur Stolypin had been guarded
with the most intense precautions, spending his summers on
the Island of Yelagin in the big white Palace which had
been built by Alexander I. for his mother. When one drove
out on the Islands, one found all the roads leading to Yelagin
blocked with barbed wire and patrolled with police, while
little boats with other armed policemen circled round the
grounds on the water.

An immensely tall man with a square, black beard, and
eyes that for all their keenness were those of a dreamer,
Monsieur Stolypin was a true patriot ; he believed in firm-
ness, and put the welfare of his country before everything ;
even before the danger that pursued him so relentlessly,
and which he knew would one day strike him down. He
was buried near the Cathedral of the Assumption, in that old
capital of Russia where so much of her history had been
written ; those who knew the truth of his work mourned
him with aching hearts, while those who blindly had seen
in him only a tyrant, jubilated, not knowing that by killing
him they had piled up one more stone of their country's
ruin.

And ever since the Revolution Kiev has been once more
the centre of turmoil and unrest. There was already during
the Government of Kerensky an idea of giving Autonomy
to the Ukraine ; then came the Bolshevik rising, the streets
of Kiev running red with blood. The rise of the Mazeppa
party, Petloura with his followers fighting in turn both the

Kiev — the Mother of Russian Cities 163

White Armies and the Bolsheviks; finally driven out by them,
having to seek refuge in Poland.

Ukraine — the land of grain, of rich black soil and flowering
cherry-trees, the land of the old Rurik Princes, fought for
by Russians and Poles and Lithuanians ; the country of
romance, and legends, and storms — Ukraine,that name whose
true meaning is border, or frontier, or beyond ! And Kiev,
that old Mother of Russian Cities on the hills above the
yellow Dnieper, with her palaces and churches, and the
Virgin on her Indestructible Wall looking down with piti-
ful, wistful eyes on the sorrows of her people.

164 Recollections of Imperial Russia

CHAPTER IX

MOSCOW — IVAN THE TERRIBLE

It happens just occasionally that one has a vision of some-
thing that brings a sudden mist of tears to one's eyes and
makes one's heart seem to catch in one's throat. Perhaps
it is a church, a beautiful view, a picture, a jewel, or merely a
bunch of flowers, and why it should affect one it is impossible
to explain. Very probably it isn't at all the most wonder-
ful thing one has seen, and yet, just for a second, time and
the world seem to stand still, and one is conscious only of
beauty ; beauty as a thing concrete, and real, and tangible.
So, I remember, with vivid clearness, my first view of the
Kremlin at Moscow.

It was, I think, in the winter of 1912 that we went there
for a short visit. We arrived very early in the morning, and
of the drive from the station I remember practically nothing.
It was still quite dark, our carriage bumped over ill-paved
streets ; one had dim glimpses of big houses with here and
there a lighted window, of flickering lamps at street corners ;
of passing people wrapped in huge fur coats, of moujiks
sweeping the newly fallen snow ; of queer little sledges and
cabs, narrower, higher, more tumble-down even than the ones
in Petersburg ; of electric trams with thickly frosted
windows ; of open wooden booths ; of the huge, looming
shadows of churches.

Then came the arrival at the hotel, the warm, brightly-

Moscow — Ivan the Terrible 165

lit hall, the smell that is so inseparable to Russian houses of
cabbage soup and sunflower oil. The bowing manager ;
moujiks in bright coloured shirts carrying up our boxes ;
a porter in a dark blue belted tunic and a queer little cap.
trimmed with peacock feathers ; the dim, subdued hum of
waking life, against the windows the greyness of the
slowly dawning winter's day. And, then, something that
grew out of the mists ! I had only carelessly — busy with
my unpacking — looked up at the unshuttered windows, but
I remember that after that one glance I stood still; every-
thing else forgotten, the modern, ugly hotel bedroom sinking
away, the walls just crumbling into dust, leaving me alone,
facing immensity. Very slowly it was growing light, a faint
pink flush was stealing across the greyness of the sky, a
blue mist still lay over the snow-covered street, veiling the
opposite houses, and beyond them, making them shrink
into insignificance, rose a great shadow. Was it a fairy-
tale castle seen in childish dreams, or a stupendous bit of
scenery from some Russian Ballet, or Wagner Opera ?

I had, of course, read about the Kremlin, pictured it to
myself rather hazily, not paid really much attention ; but
that first sight of the great red walls, with one of the nineteen
turrets, against the frosty, slowly brightening sky was one
that I have never forgotten, one that has remained with me
always, and that not all the crowding impressions of the
following days could equal or obliterate.

Moscow ! The Heart of Russia. Little Mother Moscow !
The walls of the Kremlin against which Tartars, Lithuanians,
Poles and French have thundered ! Destroyed over and
over again by fire, swept by plague and famine and pesti-
lence, and yet, even as Kiev, rising again and again from her
ruins, replacing that old Mother of Russian Cities in the
hearts of her children. Moscow of the many hundred

166 Recollections of Imperial Russia

churches, of the golden bells, of the countless, crowding
memories.

They say that in the twelfth century the hill above the
river Moskva was covered by a thick forest, occupied by the
small estate of the farmer Stephen Kutchko, with near by a
little wooden church called Spass na Boru or Church of
the Redeemer in the Wood. In the year 1147 Yuri Dol-
gorouki — George the Long Armed — one of the sons of
Vladimir Monomachus, Prince of Kiev, came to meet his
cousins Sviatoslav and Oleg of Novgorod by the Moskva
river, and built a fortified wall round the farm of Stephen
Kutchko whom he summarily turned out. Legend says that
Yuri had British blood in his veins, for his father is supposed
to have married Gyda, the daughter of Harold, King of
England ; and perhaps it was that strain of practical, British
commonsense which made Yuri see how useful the river
Moskva would be for traffic and commerce, and so made him
doggedly persist in enlarging the fortified village on the hill.

Then, in 1237, came Batu with his Tartars, destroying
everything in his path, marching on to Kiev, leaving only
smoking ruins behind him. And with the quiet, persevering
patience and resignation so characteristic of the Russian
people the little wooden town was built up again, prospering
and thriving even under the heavy Tartar rule. Ivan Kalita
built the first wooden Cathedral of the Assumption in 1326
for the Metropolitan Peter, persuading him to leave the city
of Vladimir and take up his quarters at Moscow. A little
later the wall of oak was destroyed by fire, and the Russians,
so essentially a nation of carpenters, built a wall of white
stone round the Kremlin, hoping thus to save it from the
attack of Tartar hordes ; but in 1382 Moscow was betrayed
into the hands of Tokthamish, the great general of Timur
the Lame, and Demitri Donskoi, the victor of KuJikovo,

r —

The Neva — Spring.

The Neva — Winter.

p. 166.

Moscow — Ivan the Terrible 167

returned from Kostroma to find his capital reduced to ashes.

Once again, in 1395, the newly built walls were threatened
by the Tartars, but this time the Image of the Virgin, said to
have been painted by St. Luke, was brought from Vladimir
to Moscow, and by a miracle, as it seemed, Timur and his
hosts turned back.

But at last under the reign of Ivan III., in 1485, the Tartar
supremacy was definitely overthrown, and the present
walls of the Kremlin were built, painted white in those days
with green-roofed turrets and towers, shining across the
plains, enclosing the old wooden Palaces, and those new
churches of stone, which Italian architects were teaching
the Russians to build. The Uspenski Sabor, or Cathedral
of the Assumption, the Archangel Cathedral, the Cathedral
of the Annunciation (with its nine golden domes), the Church
of the Redeemer in the Forest, rebuilt and glorified, with its
chapels dedicated to the Saints Yuri, Samon and Aviva, who
are the special Patrons of love affairs.

We were in Moscow only four or at the most five days that
year of 1912, days rilled with colour, splendour and unfor-
gettable radiance. It was the first afternoon, I think, that
we drove under the Iberian Gate, by the sacred Chapel of
the Iberian Virgin with its wonder-working Image, and up
into the Red Square that is nine hundred yards long and a
hundred and seventy-five yards broad, bounded on one side
by the walls of the Kremlin and on the other by the so-called
Trading Rows. All around one the white silence of the snow,
golden domes half frosted over, turrets and battlements,
towers and high gateways mingled in a strange mixture of
Russian, Byzantine, Gothic and Italian architectures.

One could describe every detail minutely and yet find it
impossible to explain the nameless charm of it all ; the space,
the colouring, the mystic radiance that is over everything.

1 68 Recollections of Imperial Russia

It has not quite the well-known Eastern magic, and yet it has
nothing of the West. The golden ruins of Rome, the stately
splendour of Versailles, the Louvre or Notre Dame, the
beauty of Westminster Abbey, the picturesque solemn
majesty of the Tower of London — it is unlike all of these.
Wonderful they are, all of them, some of them more ancient,
withmemories just as full of history andromance and tragedy
— and yet for none of them can I recapture the thrill I had
when I first stood on the Red Square and looked up at the
walls of the Kremlin ; at the golden domes, the turrets and
towers, and at the end of the Square the Cathedral of St.
Basil !

Of all the churches of Moscow, that city of beautiful
churches, this surely is the weirdest and most arresting.
A good many books dismiss it carelessly as merely curious
and odd ; Americans perhaps would say it was " cute " ;
some people even call it hideous ; the Fiench, during the
occupation of Moscow, had so little respect for it as a church
that they used it for stabling their horses. And yet, with
its garish blues and greens and yellow, with its gold crosses
ghttering in the sunshine, with its towers and spires and
domes all different shapes and forms, it is so arresting, so
individual, that even those who call it grotesque and odious
have to stop and look at it. If a building can express a
personality then surely the Church of St. Basil is a reproduc-
tion almost of the man for whom it was built ; terrible, mon-
strous, savage and brutal, and yet in a way almost great,
almost a genius.

The snow crunched and screamed under my feet as I
walked all round it, finding at every corner a new strange bit
of architecture, so fantastic that it seemed it must be a
misproportion, until one examined it closer and found it in
perfect harmony. Not one of the windows was like another,

Moscow — Ivan the Terrible 169

every tower and dome was shaped a different way, each one
cf the great bronze doors was separate and distinct. Beggars
crouched on the steps, people came and went on the Red
Square ; a sledge with two Cossack Officers with high fur caps
came down from the Kremlin, under the great arch of the
Spasski, or Redeemer Gate, with its miraculous Ikon, to
which those who were about to die on the Square addressed
their last prayers.

A group of peasants uncovered reverently as they passed
under the gateway, two or three Tartars in round black caps
stood by the Lobnoe Mest — or Place of the Skull — gazing
up at the walls of the Kremlin.

The golden bells of Ivan Veliki broke the still, cold purity
of the air, and the bells of St. Basil answered in a chorus of
silver voices ; and standing at one of the doorways of the
church I also looked up at the Kremlin walls, at the Tsarina's
Tower with its queer shaped roof, at the Tower of Constan-
tine and Helen, where the ancient torture chambers used
to be, and the small Tower with its narrow windows from
which it is said the terrible Tsar watched the executions on
the Red Square.

Inside St. Basil one had still less the feeling of being in a
church. The dark, narrow passages, the dim chapels with
their painted walls, their fantastic discordance, the spiral
staircases that led from one level to another ; here there was
nothing to inspire reverence, one had rather the feeling of
being watched all the time by something evil and sinister,
something intensely unhappy, a spirit groping in torment, a
soul tortured and torn by conflicting emotions. And dumbly
the walls seemed still to echo with the bitter weeping of a
man whose vision had been swallowed in darkness ; the man
who built the church, whose sightless eyes yearned in vain
to look on his accomplished dream, whose thin groping hands

170 Recollections of Imperial Russia

perhaps strayed over the walls, trying to impress on his mind
this work of his imagination he had never seen, while all the
time the tears from those seared eyes of his ran down his
trembling cheeks.

How had the vision of this church he was to build first
come to him. One wonders that and can find no answer to
one's question. Did it follow him persistently down the
narrow, uneven, dirty streets ? Or, sitting by the river,
looking over the plain, did he see strange, weird shaped
cupolas and domes rise out of the evening mists lying over
the Sparrow Hills ? Or, lying on some hard bed, above a
stove, did he dream of twisting passages, of shadowy chapels,
where from the roof the Saviour's face looked down in grave
and pitying tenderness ? And then, when he heard that the
Tsar had said that he wanted a church that was to be like no
other church to commemorate his victory over the Tartars at
Khazan, did a gleam of light come to his haunted, visionary
eyes, did his fingers move as if they traced the lines of some
fantastic building ?

A church that was to be like no other church ! The Tsar
I van, whom men have named the Terrible, had many churches
in the walls of the Kremlin and in not one of them could he
pray in peace. When he knelt in the huge vastness of the
Uspenski Cathedral he was oppressed by the majestic gran-
deur of the Byzantine-Norman style ; that made him feel
small and mean in the insignificance of his mortal humanity,
while always he seemed to hear in the silence the shriek of
his Uncle Yuri Glinski, murdered by the mob in the Chapel
of St. Demetrius. The Archangel Cathedral with those
coffins, where beneath a velvet pall the bodies of dead
Princes lay, where he also was to lie one day, filled him with
haunted terror and dread. In the beautiful Cathedral of
the Annunciation the air seemed heavy with prayers ; up

Moscow — Ivan the Terrible 171

among the shadows of the roof he fancied he could hear the
rustling of angels' wings, as he heard them the day he married
the sweet-faced Anastasia Romanovna Zakharin.

No, he wanted a church where he could be alone with his
prayers, with that tortured conscience of his, with that mad,
perverted, evil-infected mind. So presently he sent out word
to the Italian and other foreign architects who were in the
city, bidding them bring him plans, and one by one he sent
them away again with cruel, biting words, and bitter sar-
casm. Had he not said that he wanted something that had
never been seen before ? Why did they bring him drawings
that were Gothic or Lombard or Greek ? Was there not
one man in his dominions who had imagination ?

So at last the rumour of the Tsar's impatience and dis-
pleasure came to the ears of the man with the visionary
eyes, and for days and nights he hardly slept or took food,
till finally he had his plans complete and took them to the
Kremlin. And, perhaps, when he saw those plans, the Tsar
sat for a moment very still. A church that was to be like
no other church in all the world — this little man who cringed
and trembled and fawned had found the vision where all the
others had failed. And he, the Prince of Moscow, the Tsar
of Little Russia, of White Russia, the Lord of Khazan,
of Vladimir, of Sousdal and of Novgorod, was to own it.
For him alone would it be built, this church unrivalled,
fantastic, unique, without compare ! And when it was
finished one would see to it that this little cringing fellow
whose brain could conceive such a master -piece should never
work again. Just this one church he should do, and nothing
else ; those exalted words of his, " This have I done, but this
is nothing in comparison with what I can still do " should
never be fulfilled, and never should he raise another edifice !
And so when at last the work was finished, before even

172 Recollections of Imperial Russia

the last stone was laid, torturing, burning darkness descended
on the man with the dreaming, visionary eyes ; for, by the
order of the Tsar, he was seized and blinded, lest by any
chance he be lured to make another masterpiece for perhaps
another Tsar, that should in any way equal this church that
was like no other church in all the world.

The rosy light of the setting sun turns the snow almost
to the colour of blood ; behind the great Palace the sky is
blazing, a faint, mauve mist steals up from the river, the
great walls throw their purple shadows across the Square ;
the high bell tower of Ivan Veliki, the battlements and
turrets, the domes and cupolas stand out as if cut in dark
blue cardboard against the vivid sky ; the bells of all the
churches ring, and the citizens of Moscow cross themselves
devoutly. The candles gutter over the tombs of dead
Princes in the Archangel Cathedral. Michael of Tcherni-
goff, murdered by the Tartars, lies there, and Demitri
Donskoi, who overcame their army at Kulikova, and Vassili
the Darkened, whose eyes were put out, and Ivan the Great,
cold and calculating and successful, and that other Ivan,
surnamed the Terrible !

They say that when he was born rolling claps of thunder
were heard all over Russia, while lightning blazed across the
sky, heralding the birth of one who was to be eternally
feared and hated, whose name was to be handed down to
history as that of an inhuman monster, whose pitiless
cruelty had neither sense nor reason. His father Vassili,
had had no children by his first marriage, and had, in conse-
quence, sent his wife into a Convent, and married the beauti-
ful Helena Glinski, the daughter of a Lithuanian noble. In
1530 their first child Ivan was born, and three years later
Vassili died. Then began the storms of that unhappy child-
hood that were to turn the blue-eyed baby into the crazy

Moscow — Ivan the Terrible 173

brutal fanatic. A few years Helena reigned with her lover
Telepnic Obolensky, aiding her ; then, still young and beauti-
ful, she died, of poison many said, and so was Ivan left an
orphan with the fierce Princes of Schouiski and Bielski
fighting for the leading hand in the Government.

Finally the Shouiski remained alone and victorious, and,
under their harsh rule, the little boy was taught to be cruel,
was taken to see people crushed to death by heavy wagons ;
was forced to witness executions, was encouraged to ill-treat
animals, finding presently his chief pleasure in throwing
cats and dogs over the high ramparts of the Kremlin walls ;
was himself often left hungry and cold, insulted, beaten,
neglected, threatened with torture.

And yet slowly, all the time, he was growing up. It was
no longer the child with the shrinking eyes, but a boy, sud-
denly conscious of his own power, who turned with a swift,
fierce movement in the middle of the assembled Court and
bade his kennel men seize Andre Schouiski and throw him
to the hounds. So abruptly, in horror, the reign of the
Schouiskis was ended, and Ivan, though still under the
tutelage of his mother's family, the Glinskis, was free of
oppression, and in the reaction from that rule of terror, let
his unbridled, turbulent wildness sway him entirely.

When he was eighteen he was crowned as the first Tsar
of Russia, a title that had been used so far only unofficially
by Ivan III. and Vassili, but that was henceforth accepted
and recognised as the rightful rank of the Prince of Moscow ;
and at the same time he chose for his bride the beautiful
Anastasia Romanovna Zakharin, from whose family were
to come the future Emperors of Russia.

Gone now were the days when the great Princes of Kiev
were wedded to the daughters of foreign rulers. Ivan's
offers to various Sovereigns had been curtly refused, so that

174 Recollections of Imperial Russia

he had to have recourse to the custom of his fathers. Accord-
ingly word was sent round, and hundreds of young girls
of good family were brought to Moscow and lodged in a great
building especially set apart for them, with large rooms, each
containing twelve beds. Here at night the Tsar came with
but one courtier ; went slowly through the dimly lit chambers
and made his selection. So was Anastasia Romanovna
chosen, and for a short time the Tsar, passionately in love
with his young wife, gave himself up completely to
adoration.

Then a few months later, came the two great fires of
Moscow, following each other with but a short interval, the
second one surpassing in violence anything ever seen. Seven-
teen hundred people were said to have lost their lives in the
flames ; the Palace and all the wooden buildings in the
Kremlin were destroyed, the maddened populace, believing
that the Glinskis had started the fire, attacked the Kremlin,
murdered Yuri Glinski in the Uspensky Cathedral, and
clamoured to see Ivan, who had sought refuge in his Palace
on the Sparrow Hills.

It was at this time that the Monk Silvester gained his
great influence over the distracted monarch, aided by Ada-
chev, sage and wise counsellor, and by Anastasia, sweet-
faced, gentle and merciful ; so that between them, for a little
while, Ivan, curbing his wildness, became a great ruler,
governing with justice and astute policy,enriching his domin-
ions, bringing in foreign trade and commerce, introducing
the first printing press in Moscow. So, also, was the first
National Assembly convened in the Red Square, with the
young Tsar addressing the people ; then came the siege and
capture of Khazan, the birth of Ivan's first son, the annexa-
tion of Astrakhan.

But Russia, hoping for peace and prosperity, was to be

Moscow — Ivan the Terrible 175

disappointed. The Tsar fell ill, was believed to be dying,
and, overhearing his counsellors discussing the succession,
lost his faith in them, when he recovered grew to watch them
with ever increasing suspicion. The good of their influence
was to be still further undermined when, on a pilgrimage to
distant shrines, he had an interview with the exiled Bishop
of Kolumna. The evil counsel given by the wicked old man,
strengthened by the fulfilment of the prophecy that his son
would die, took seed in the great, half-crazy brain, growing
like a disease, corrupting and polluting all that had been
good.

The death of Anastasia in 1560 was the final blow ; the
removal of her gentle, restraining influence, the suspicion
that her death had not been due to natural causes, seemed
to break the last strand holding Ivan to reason. Adachev
and Silvester were banished ; urged on by the unscrupulous
Maluta Skoutarov, the mad passion of the Tsar seemed to
possess him like a raging spirit of evil ; his lust for blood, his
pitiless delight in human suffering, his brutal punishment of
small, imagined offences made the Russians, cowering under
the rule of terror, wonder whether they were governed by a
man or a devil. Men were impaled, beaten to death, cut
into small pieces, scalded in burning oil, tortured in ways
only a monster can have devised. A cloud of horror and
dark, unutterable despair lay over Moscow, while the people,
praying in their churches, shivered and lifted beseeching
hands to the tender-eyed Ikons, imploring protection, for
none knew on whom the Tsar's anger might not descend.

But who could, then or now, understand the workings of

that tormented, fury-driven mind, so perverted and trained

to cruelty ? Everywhere he looked there was blood. It

had been indelibly stamped on his childish impressionable

brain till everything seemed to swim in a red mist before his

M

176 Recollections of Imperial Russia

eyes. He could not get away from it, and there was no
Anastasia now to lay a cool hand on that throbbing, aching
forehead, to dispel by gentle words the crowding, jostling
figures of terror that pressed around his bed at night. His
attempt to marry one of the sisters of the King of Poland had
failed, and, smarting under the rebuff, he made a handsome
dark-haired Circassian girl his wife. But stormy and
passionate, her influence only dragged him further down,
and ever more darkly sinister the figure of the terrible Tsar
shadowed his country.

In the Kremlin Palace, rebuilt and redecorated after the
fire, he would sit brooding, his brilliant, shifting eyes full of
virulent, malignant thoughts. In the golden dusk of the
great churches, prostrating himself on the ground till a
bump grew on his forehead, he would pray to be forgiven,
accusing himself loudly of his sins and crimes, humbling
himself to the dust before his court and his people. Taking
up his residence at the Alexandrov Slaboda, a village about
eighty-six miles from Moscow, surrounded by the dreaded
Opritchnina, his personal bodyguard, he at one moment
played at religion in a priest's vestments, at another gave
himself up to incredible debauchery, or watched with gloat-
ing eyes the torture of some helpless victim.

The old Palace at Alexandrov has disappeared now,
built into the new monastery, only here and there an ancient
door of the Cathedral, dark, underground passages, the ruins
of a big outer building remain, with the haunting memories
of hideous mysteries, of unspeakable atrocities, shadows no
historian has yet penetrated.

Sombre, frightful, with matted hair, and wild blood-
shot eyes, the face of Ivan stares at one out of the shifting
mists ; his bursts of demonaical laughter seem to echo un-
ceasingly in those few rooms left of the old Palace in the

Moscow — Ivan the Terrible 177

Kremlin. In the churches one seems always to hear the
moan of his self -accusing prayers. On the Red Staircase the
rapping of his long, iron-pointed staff follows one. One
can see him here, thrusting the pike through the foot of
Shibanov who came with his message from Kourbski and the
Poles, and delivered it without a tremor, while Ivan listened
with gleaming eyes, leaning all the while heavily on that
staff.

Madness and terror ! Wholesale executions on the Red
Square. The massacre of thousands at the sack of Novgorod !
Moscow set alight by an invading army of Tartars ; Ivan
flying to Rostov, leaving his capital to be devoured by flames
which swept the town and spared only the Kremlin ; till
finally the Tartars, finding nothing left to plunder, withdrew.
The red light of blood and fire lighting up the reign of the
most inhuman and savage of all the Rurik Princes, as if
with him the race of that great warrior was to die in flaming
fury.

And meanwhile Maria, the Circassian, had died, by what
means history does not say ; his third wife, Martha Sobokin,
lived only a few days after the wedding ceremony ; and when
in 1572 the Tsar contemplated marrying Anna Koltovsky,
the Church began by forbidding the union. Three wives
were allowed by the Orthodox Religion but not more !
Ivan, restless fingers playing with his red beard, blue eyes
laughing with evil malice at the clergy's stern faces, made
answer that for the care of his motherless children, for the
welfare of his kingdom, for the prevention of sin, it was
necessary for him to have a wife and a companion ; and,
reluctantly, the Church had perforce to yield, no man being
brave enough to resist his wishes.

The reign of Anna Koltovsky was not to be long however.
Very soon was she despatched to a convent, while Anna

178 Recollections of Imperial Russia

Vassiltchikoff took her place, though whether Ivan legally
married her has been doubted. There were others too :
Vasilissa Meletiev and the beautiful Maria Dolgorouki,
shut into a carriage and driven thus at full speed into a river,
till finally came the Tsar's last marriage, to Maria Nagoi,
celebrated at the same time as that of his youngest son Theo-
dore to Irena, sister of the great Boyarin, Boris Goudonov.

In the scented stillness of the Terem the tears of women
fell unheeded, their soft hands implored mercy in vain ; the
dark sombre face, the fierce, restless, shifting eyes, the cruel
lips half hidden under the red beard : was there any hope
of compassion or understanding there ? Tall and broad-
shouldered, standing in the golden archway of the Terem
door, hands clasped over the long staff, piercing eyes going
from side to side, the Tsar would be announced, while the
woman whom he called wife or only mistress rose to receive
him with who knows what trembling limbs, what a shudder
of fear or repulsion in her soul !

To be a woman and belong to Ivan the Terrible, Tsar
of all the Russias, pitiless and supreme in power ; was it
worth the net of pearls that bound her hair, the golden
cap with its precious stones, the priceless sables that lined the
long, falling sleeves of her crimson underdress, the heavy
brocade sewn with jewels that fell over it, the shoes of finest
red leather, embroidered again with pearls, the necklaces of
rubies and emeralds, the rings and bracelets that glittered
on her arms and neck ? Shrinking away, the woman's eyes
would scan the face of the master of her fate. Could she
hold him still ? And for how long ? How soon would her
turn come to be dismissed into the dreary depth of a convent,
to be got rid of, killed perhaps in some secret, subtle way ?
Was it a question of months or weeks or days before the
inevitable end ?

Moscow— Ivan the Terrible 179

No wonder the Lady Mary Hastings, receiving the Am-
bassadors of the Tsar of Russia who came to beg for her hand
in marriage, flung herself at her father's feet imploring not
to be delivered into the hands of that monster. Ivan had
desired an English bride, but the Ambassadors returned to
Russia, their mission unfulfilled; and the autocrat of Moscow
gnawed his nails and railed against the pride and obstinacy
of the British race in a harsh, shrill voice.

And now, sending a shudder through all the length and
breadth of his great dominions, came that greatest crime of
all , the murder of his eldest son, Ivan. As usual in Russian
history, the true cause of the Tsarevitch's death is unknown ;
but the most generally believed story is that the Tsar
struck his son's wife for some minor offence so heavily that
she had a miscarriage, and that when his son violently
upbraided him, he turned in a blind fury, and dealt him a
tremendous blow over the head with his heavy, iron-
pointed staff. With a scream of agony the Tsarevitch fell
to the ground, and overcome with terror, with remorse,
with craven fear for his own soul, Ivan wept aloud, nursing the
shattered, blood-stained head against his breast, while the
frightened courtiers gathered pale-faced in the doorway, and
a whisper of horror seemed to make the walls of the Kremlin
shiver.

But the scourge of that terror was soon to be removed,
for the 18th of March, 1584, the date announced by the
astrologers as being the day on which Ivan would die, was
approaching. Broken in health, suffering and feeble, the
man who had ruled with violence and fear was carried every
day into his treasury, playing with the precious stones,
having all the works of art, sent to him from every corner
of the world, spread out before him. Sitting there, propped
in his chair, wrapped in a golden embroidered gown, grey

180 Recollections of Imperial Russia

hairs streaking the red beard, blue eyes blood-shot, fierce
still, but filmed with the coming darkness of death ; long,
yellow fingers shaking and trembling as they touched some
masterpiece of gold or ivory, let the red fire of rubies stain
them as with blood, lovingly watched the lights in a great
diamond, or shuddered because the turquoises seemed to
pale to green. Then at last, playing chess with Boris Gou-
donoff, the Tsar, putting out his hand to move one of the
marvellously carved pieces, gave a sudden, low quivering
moan and fell forward.

It was the 18th of March, and the great bells of the
Kremlin churches rang out their solemn call above the city,
where the first thaw was turning the snow to yellow slush ;
and men paused, and uncovered mutely, not daring even
now to express relief, lest that departing spirit turn and
rend them.

Where had it gone, the sombre, savage, cruel soul that
had inspired such terror and suffering ? Was it really only
the pitiful, used out body that lay beneath the black velvet
pall in the Uspensky Cathedral ? So vivid was the fear
that lingered still in his people's minds, so alive did the evil
still seem to be, that even until the present day, men passing
by that coffin, crossed themselves with a whispered prayer
that he who slept there might never rise again.

Madman and fanatic, genius, inhuman monster ! Vainly
historians try to probe and reason, violently accuse, or
feebly find excuses. Pursued by phantoms, striking his
forehead on the ground, praying for those souls he had
driven forth in anguish ; spending hours in the torture
chambers, coming out as a man rejuvenated, and then unable
to rest ; having always in his bedroom three old, blind men
who, each in turn, told their endless stories, trying thus to
lull the terror-haunted brain to sleep !

Moscow- — Ivan the Terrible 181

That fantasy of his, to place Simeon, the Tsarevitch of
Xhazan, who had become Christian and been driven out of
his dominions by the Tartars, on the throne of Russia ; for a
space of time letting him live in the Kremlin, going himself
even to offer mock homage and subjection, who can ex-
plain it ? His treatment of the Metropolitan Philip, that
holy man who heroically refused to bless him, who, after
years of imprisonment, is said to have been burnt alive at
Alexandrov, who can forgive it ? The attack on Novgorod,
on the excuse of a vague suspicion of treachery, the fright-
ful butchery of the inhabitants, the horror of those execu-
tions on the Red Square, the murder of his own son, the
unspeakable, unprintable debaucheries of Alexandrov, the
ghastliness of those secret torture chambers — can one find
any redeeming reason for it all, save by saying that his
terror-haunted childhood had affected his brain ?

And yet he was not mad in all things. He encouraged
foreign trade, he signed the first commercial treaty with
England, he fought and made a truce with the Poles, he
annexed Siberia, enriched and aggrandised his dominions,
adding many provinces. So much he did for Russia, but
always will the scales weigh heavy against him, and his
name hang like a shadow of terror over Moscow. Always
will a little shiver strike one when one stands by that coffin
with its fading velvet pall. Always will his ghost haunt the
Cathedral of St. Basil where legend says the mendicant monk
is buried who alone dared stand up against him. Ragged,
dirty, unkempt, feeble and poor as he was, he made the great
Tsar afraid of him, told him he was doomed to eternal
punishment, laughed at him openly, flicked the money given
him on the ground, saying it came from hell and would burn
his fingers ! And meekly it seems Ivan submitted to the
insults, buried the old man finally in the church, which,

1 82 Recollections of Imperial Russia

dedicated to the Intercession of the Virgin, is yet always
known under the name of St. Basil, in the memory of that
poor, beggared monk, who was the only man in Russia not
afraid of the Tsar Ivan, surnamed the Terrible.

The Legend of the False Dimitri 183

CHAPTER X

THE LEGEND OF THE FALSE DIMITRI

Ivan the Terrible was dead, and his younger son Theodore,
married to Irena, the sister of Boris Godounov, succeeded to
the throne. Weak, fat, with a lisping speech, vacantly
smiling eyes, and a passion for long church services and end-
less prostrations before the holy ikons, he was little more
than a figure-head, the government of the country being
almost entirely in the hands of his brother-in-law, who, having
first sent Ivan's last wife Maria Nagoi with her little son
Dimitri into exile at Ouglitch, next proceeded to get rid
of Bielski, Schouiski, Romanov and Mstislavski from the
Council, till finally he made himself Regent, Tsar in all but
name.

During our stay in Moscow in 191 2, we were taken to see
the opera of " Boris Godounov," with Chaliapin, that great
singer and still greater actor in the principal part. I had
seen the opera already several times in Petersburg ; but in
the great red and white theatre of Moscow, with every one
of the four thousand seats occupied, with the walls of the
Kremlin only a few yards away, with the silence of the snow
covering the city, and now and then the golden sound of
bells from one of the four hundred and fifty churches, one
seemed to be living again those days of long ago.

Chaliapin, with his marvellous representation of Boris
Godounov, has made the name of the great Boyarin famous

184 Recollections of Imperial Russia

all over the world, and one cannot help always seeing him
as he is in the opera, superb and majestic in the long robe of
gold brocade when he comes out of the church after his
coronation and addresses the people, or magnificent, wild-
eyed, haunted, pursued by phantoms, inciting his son to be a
great Tsar, while all the time his restless hands play with a
crimson silk handkerchief.

Descendant of a Tartar who took service under Ivan
Kalita and became a Christian, Boris, though short of stature,
was known to have a commanding presence, to possess a
marvellous gift of eloquence and a keen judgment. Unedu-
cated, and ignorant in many ways, he believed in the stars
and was intensely superstitious. Had not the astrologers
told him he would be Tsar of Russia ? Who would not
believe a prophecy like that ? In the half Oriental mind the
dream had grown, and one by one the obstacles in his
path were swept aside, step by step he worked himself up
to a position of unquestioned power.

Knowing all this one cannot help believing that the
murder at Ouglitch must have been done at his instigation,
and yet the official report drawn up by Vassili Schouiski
entirely exonerates the Regent from any part in the crime,
and Schouiski was in all things his most implacable enemy.
If he had found it possible he would surely have cast some
shadow of suspicion on the name of Godounov !

With red-golden hair and bright blue eyes, Dimitri the
son of Ivan was growing up, ignorant that his name was to
provide one of the greatest, as well as the most dramatic of
all the mysteries that fill the history of Russia. Carefully
guarded by his mother, Maria Nagoi, he lived at Ouglitch,
happily perhaps, with his unc'es, his governess, Vassihssa
Volokhov. and his nurse, Irena Toutchkova ; already it
seemed following in the steps of his terrible father — subject

The Legend of the False Dimitri 185

to fits of ungovernable rage, taking pleasure in seeing animals
killed or tortured. And the citizens of Ouglitch loved their
little prince ; the hand of the Terrible Tsar had not weighed
on them over heavily, the terror that surrounded his name
was in their eyes something of a halo. He was to be feared,
therefore he was to be humbly worshipped and obeyed, con-
sequently he must be great !

In such queer, distorted fashion, does the mind of the
Russian peasant work, and good-humouredly the violence
of the little boy was laughed at, his turbulent passion
commented on. See how brave he was, how determined,
how full of spirit, said the citizens of Ouglitch, and smilingly
took off their caps as they watched him pass.

So, anxiously shielded by his mother, who seems always
to have feared some harm befalling him, the little seven year
old Dimitri reached the fatal afternoon of the 15th of May,
1591, and out of all the welter of facts and suppositions, of
possibilities and actualities, three aspects of the tragedy
stand out more or less distinctly.

Perhaps the most widely spread account of all, as well as
the most generally believed is that, while his mother slept
during the heat of the afternoon, Dimitri, playing in the
courtyard of the palace, was approached by Joseph Volok-
hov, the son of his governess. Bending over him, Volokhov
asked the little prince to show him a collar of precious stones
he wore round his neck, and, as the child trustingly lifted his
head, struck fiercely at his throat with a knife he had carried
concealed. Hearing the child shriek, his nurse rushed out
of the palace, but Bitagoroski and Kortchalov, paid emis-
saries of Godounov, who had been hiding, pushed her away,
and swiftly finished the work Volokhov had begun.

Wakened by the commotion, Maria Nagoi in her turn
appeared, adding her screams to that of the nurse, the

186 Recollections of Imperial Russia

while she violently attacked the governess as being respon-
sible for the crime. To add to the confusion the bell of the
church tower of St. Saviour's, which overlooked the court-
yard of the Palace, suddenly began to peal the alarm, rung
by some unknown hand, and startled from their afternoon
sleep, the citizens of Ouglitch hurried up to the Palace, saw
the body of their little prince bathed in blood, and without
staying to find out the true facts, wreaked their vengeance
on the murderers.

Then was Prince Vassili Schouiski sent to Ouglitch to
make official enquiries into the matter, and finally drew up a
report that, having suffered for several days from recurrent
attacks of epilepsy, the Tsarevitch Dimitri, playing with
three companions, fell into sudden convulsions, during which
he seized a knife and fatally wounded himself in the throat.
The furious ringing of the alarm bell brought the citizens to
the Palace, they had mistaken the scene which had met their
eyes, and, jumping to conclusions, had murdered innocent
people. Accordingly for this crime of avenging a prince of
the Royal blood they were grievously punished. Two
hundred of them were condemned to death, hundreds more
were sent to Siberia, while with them into exile went the
great bell of St. Saviour's, which had rung the tocsin
uncalled for, and thereby caused such dire confusion.

At last, still more incredible, comes the third story,
namely, that it was not Dimitri at all who was laid in state
in the Cathedral of the Transfiguration ; that some other
little boy had been killed in his stead ; that, only slightly
wounded, he had been carried off by his Uncle Athanase
Nagoi and kept hidden in a secret place.

In support of this theory Jerome Horsey then at Yaro-
slavl, relates how Athanase came to him late one night,
begging for medicine for his sister Maria Nagoi, who, he

The Legend of the False Dimitri 187

said, bad been poisoned and was grievously ill. But Maria
Nagoi was then at Ouglitch, nor is there any mention of her
having been ill at the time. For whom then did Athanase
so urgently want medicine ? And why had he fled from
Ouglitch ? Why were the citizens of that town well nigh
exterminated ? For what offence was Maria Nagoi banished
to a far distant convent ! Vain conjectures and possibilities,
questions to which there is never any answer, a maze of
theories that all seem intangible, a mystery that baffles and
eludes from which ever point one examines it.

For the years passed on. The feeble-minded, vacantly
smiling Tsar Theodore slipped quietly out of the world, and
with him died the ruling line of the great house of Rurik.
The blood of Vladimir still flamed in the veins of the Dolgoru-
kis, the Lobanovs, the Gagarines and the Schouiskis, but the
direct succession of the hardy, prolific princes of Kiev had
died, for Theodore left no children.

Steadily refusing the crown, his wife, the Tsarina Irena,
retired into a convent, and, urged on by the patriarch Job,
the people clamoured for Boris. Emphatically at first he
refused, but a Sobor or public committee was elected and
chose him as Tsar, and at last a huge deputation, led by the
Patriarch and the Ikon of the Holy Virgin of Vladimir came
to find him at Novodievitchy, when reluctantly, with tears
running down his cheeks,he allowed himself to be persuaded
to accept the crown.

Was it all a magnificent piece of play-acting on the part
of this descendant of a Tartar chief ? Or at the last moment
did that empty throne, whose steps were slippery with blood,
cast a sudden terror on his superstitious mind ? And yet,
once crowned Tsar, Boris, for all his unpopularity was a great
ruler. He was clement and just, he encouraged foreign
trade, tried to bring western civilisation into the country

188 Recollections of Imperial Russia

that, having been so long under Tartar domination, had
become imbued with Oriental customs. He did all in
his power to ameliorate the lot of the peasants, sent young
Russians to be educated at foreign universities, tried to
induce English, French and German professors to come to
Russia, and arranged a marriage between his daughter
Xenia and a Danish prince.

Misfortune seemed, however, to dog the footsteps of the
upstart Tsar. The Danish prince, arriving in Moscow to
marry Xenia, died, of over-eating, it was said. A terrible
famine swept the country ; not all the money he so generously
disbursed could allay the frightful sufferings of the people.
The young nobles never returned from the foreign univer-
sities to spread their cultivated refinement through the
country. Signs and portends foretelling calamity and
disaster were seen all over Russia. The Tsarina Irena died
in her convent, prophesying years of sorrow.

And always, do what he would, in the eyes of the people,
imbued with legends and superstition, Boris was not the
rightful Tsar. They had chosen him and acclaimed him,
and yet in their hearts they could never do him homage ; he
could never be more than a pretender and a usurper. Often
looking out over the city of Moscow with its fantastic medley
of churches, palaces, and wretched hovels, the dark, Eastern
eyes of the man who had dared to seize the crown of the Rurik
princes must have been full of utter despair. Bitter, dis-
appointed, fighting vainly against unconquerable elements,
pursued by phantoms, so it is Chaliapin represents him, and
so it is one cannot help seeing him and feeling sympathy
with him.

Then in the winter of 1603 — 1604, the name that for so
many years was to cause strife and bloodshedthroughout the
lands of Russia began to be whispered, furtively at first, and

The Legend of the False Dimitri 189

then ever more loudly, more persistently, with greater
confidence. Dimitri, the son of Ivan the Terrible ! The
False Dimitri ! The Phantom Tsar ! Surely in no other
country but Russia, that land of unsolved secrets and eternal
mysteries, could such a story be possible ; a story that till
this day has never been fully understood or explained, that
all the chronicles, all the histories, seem only to make more
involved.

Who was the first false Dimitri ? Was he in truth the
Monk Grishka, or Gregory Otrepiev ? The theory seems to
be lacking in certainty and entire reliability, and yet it is
supported by a good many historians. Grishka Otrepiev,
born of humble parents, was originally a servant in the
house of the Romanovs, and being sent away in disgrace,
entered a monastery. Always unruly and unrefined, an
incorrigible vagabond, he wandered from place to place, and
at Kiev, on the excuse of a pretended illness, confessed to
a priest that he was Dimitri, the son of Ivan, showing as a
proof a jewelled cross. How he further obtained confidence
and support, how he was received by the King of Poland, how
the magic of his name spread like wild-fire through the
country, seems almost incredible when one examines his
antecedents.

To add to the confusion of it all comes the theory that
there were two monks who pretended to be Grishka Otrepiev,
and to one's further hopeless mystification, the historians
differ and contradict each other, some affirming that the
real Grishka changed places with a companion named
Leonide who subsequently called himself Otrepiev, others
stating that the false Dimitri was a totally different person
and never had anything to do with the renegade monk, till he
ordered him to come to his Court at Poutivle, and even
took him with him in his following to Moscow, from where he

190 Recollections of Imperial Russia

was presently exiled to Yaraslavl on account of his disorderly
behaviour.

But if the phantom Tsar was not Grishka Otrepiev who
was he ? The question, then as now, remained unanswered,
and Dimitri, assembling his army at Poutivle, and paying
his passionate court to Marina, the daughter of the Palatine of
Sandomir, continued to be a growing danger, an unsolvable
enigma.

Defeated by the troops of Boris, pressed and besieged on
all sides, he yet remained unconquerable, his popularity,
the mystery that surrounded him, the romance of his name
ever gaining ground, till it became an obsession with that
other upstart Tsar in the Kremlin, robbing him of sleep and
appetite, preying on his mind, following him from room to
room, till at last, on the 13th of April, 1605, having held
council all the morning, he was struck down after dinner with
a sudden haemorrhage and died within two hours.

Murder, suicide, or just a failing of the distraught, em-
bittered brain ? Who can say when so much remains for
ever unaccounted for. His fifteen year old son Theodore,
worshipped and adored by his dead father, trained with
rigid care for his brilliant future, was elected Tsar with his
mother to act as Regent, and it seemed almost for a time as if
the Godounov dynasty would in truth hold the throne of
Russia.

But who can trust a people's loyalty ? Already on the
22nd of May the submission of the army was brought to
Demitri at Poutivle, while in Moscow the populace rose in
his favour, storming the Kremlin, imprisoning Theodore with
his mother and sister, arresting the Patriarch Job and exiling
him to Staritsa.

But not without a shadow of crime was Dimitri, beginning
his triumphant march on Moscow to reach the throne, for

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The Legend of the False Dimitri 191

either by his orders or with his tacit consent, Theodore and
his mother were murdered in the grim old Godounov Palace,
the body of the boy who was to have been a great Tsar was
publicly exposed, while his sister, the lovely dark-eyed Xenia,
who in her despair had tried to poison herself, was saved by
Dimitri's orders, for he had heard of her beauty.

So the girl who was to have been the bride of a king's son
was held for the pleasure of the phantom Tsar, the man —
peasant or monk or prince — who worshipped the fragile grace
of Marina Mniszech, but who, with his ardour and almost
fierce vitality, seemed to have been given also some of his
supposed father's love for the beauty of women. And
Xenia was very lovely, so lovely indeed, that Marina, hearing
rumours, presently grew jealous, and to placate the feelings
of a little Polish Princess, Xenia was sent into the grim solitude
of a distant convent, where many years later she was again
to be taken prisoner by Cossacks.

Squat, broad shouldered, coarse featured, and yet
possessing a certain irresponsible charm, impetuous and
brave with the strength of a giant, Dimitri was meanwhile
startling his subjects and upsetting their ideas of the pious,
somewhat effete inefficiency of sovereigns, by riding untamed
horses, taking part in bear fights, and never resting in the
afternoon. The almost exalted enthusiasm that had
attended his welcome to the city, when, surrounded by
Russian Boyarins, Polish noblemen, priests in gorgeous vest-
ments, and Strelitsii in scarlet and gold, he had made his
triumphal entry, was beginning to waver.

To the common people he was still the long lost Tsare vitch

' Dimitri, but, encouraged by the Boyarins, the friction

between the Russian and Polish factions was growing. The

suspicion that Dimitri was nothing more than an impostor

was whispered abroad. It was rumoured that he had turned

N

192 Recollections of Imperial Russia

Catholic ; even his clemency in pardoning Vassili Schouiski,
condemned to death for refusing to acknowledge him as the
Tsarevitch, fed the growing discontent.

The arrival of Maria Nagoi, known now under the name
of Marfa, from the long exile of her convent, her public
recognition of the Phantom Tsar as her son, only adds to the
mystery. Did she really recognise in this broad-shouldered
man with the laughing, audacious eyes, the little golden-
haired boy of Ouglitch ? Or, still filled with her hatred of
the house of Godounov, did she smile quietly to herself, as
she acknowledged the impostor who had overthrown their
rule ?

For eleven months the phantom Tsar reigned in Moscow,
while all the time his enemies plotted to overthrow him, and
the list of his supposed crimes against the people grew from
day to day. He was an impostor and a renegade, a heretic
and a vagabond. He was accused of vast extravagance, of
profligate living, of conspiring with the Pope against the
Orthodox Church. With the arrival of Marina, accom-
panied by a huge retinue of Poles, with the brilliant cele-
brations that attended her wedding and coronation, the
dissatisfaction reached its height. Assidiously the report
was spread about that Dimitri and the Poles were planning
to kill all the Boyars, that the sham fortress, the masquerades
and mummeries only hid more sinister designs, while on the
other hand, to incite those who were loyal to the pretended
son of Ivan, it was whispered that the Poles were plotting to
assassinate the Tsar.

So, while the early dawn of the 17th of May, 1606, still
veiled the Kremlin in dusk, the tocsin was suddenly sounded
in the city, clamouring bells from all parts taking up the
call; the gathering crowd, urged on by the emissaries of
Vassili Schouiski, that thankless traitor, pardoned by a too

The Legend of the False Dimitri 193

clement master, swept on towards the Kremlin, where the
armed guard, faithful to Dimitri, had been withdrawn and
replaced by men in the pay of the conspirators. The Poles
were massacring the Russians ! So the cry was sounded,
and the great crowd, not knowing really what it sought,
caught the fatal infection of the lust for blood till it became
like a ravaging beast, intent to kill, hunting the Poles through
the still darkened streets, drawing ever nearer and nearer to
the great Kremlin walls.

Starting up from Marina's side Dimitri sent Basmanoff,
that most faithful friend, to enquire into the cause of the up-
roar. It is perhaps " a fire in the city " was the answer given
by one of the guards, but Dimitri, listening to those howling
voices, shook his head, while the terrified Marina wrung her
hands.

The crowd were in the palace now. Basmanoff, going
bravely out on the staircase to try and hold them back,
was struck down and trampled on, and when Dimitri, baring
his mighty arms, sent for his sword it could not be found,
and always that hideous clamour was drawing nearer. The
Strelitsii Guard were some way off, but they were faithful
to him ; if he could get to them, lead them to the attack he
might still save the Crown I The first pink light of the
spring day flushed in the sky as the grim chase began in the
palace, till hunted, trapped on all sides, Dimitri either
slipped or flung himself from one of the windows, falling
with a sickening crash on the stones of the courtyard.

Here some of the Strelitsii found him, and, bruised and
bleeding, he was carried into the guard room. Waking to
tortured consciousness his eyes rested on the bearded faces
of the Boyars who had assembled, beating down the
resistance of the Strelitsii with threats to murder their wives
and children did they dare defend the impostor, and feebly

194 Recollections of Imperial Russia

the Tsar signed to the hesitating men to let him be. Through
the swaying mists the threatening figures closed in, bullets
and sword thrusts, insults and blows rained down on the
man who, for a short time had been all powerful.

Ignominiously the poor, broken, shattered body was
dragged through the streets to the Convent of the Ascension
where it was shown to Maria Nagoi. " Is this your son ? '
she was asked, and shuddering, she turned away. " You
should have asked me sooner," was all she said. " Such as
it is I cannot say it is my son." Her evasive words were
taken as a denial, but again one wonders what was really in
her mind.

Then the body of the Phantom Tsar was stripped, and
put up on the Lobnoie Mest, with the body of the faithful
Basmanoff lying at its feet. The wounded face was covered
with a hideous, ribald mask, and for three days the curious
crowd came to gaze on this renegade monk, this daring
impostor who had had the effrontery to place on his head
the sacred crown of the Monomachs. And meanwhile in the
city the massacre of the Poles continued. Marina was
saved by hiding beneath the full skirts of one of her women ;
her father garrisoned in his palace, was spared by the
intervention of Schouiski, till at last after three days the
tempest died away, the body on the ' Lobnoie Mest ' was
taken down and flung into the waste land beyond the walls,
where outcasts and beggars were allowed to rot.

But not so easily could the False Dimitri be destroyed.
His figure was seen moving haltingly among the shadows,
while blue flames flickered all night long over the waste land.
The body was buried deeper, but still, over the grave, the
flames fluttered in the dusk, and still the citizens came with
their tales of the dread figure of the Phantom Tsar. So at
last the body was dug up again and burnt, and, so as to

The Legend of the False Dimitri 195

leave no trace at all, the ashes were discharged through a
cannon in the direction of Poland.

And yet Vassili Schouiski, elected Tsar, found his posi-
tion none too easy. The name Dimitri Ivanovitch was on
all lips. The official proclamation that the impostor had
been none other than Grishka Otrepiev, the utter disappear-
ance of the latter from Yaroslavl, even the exhumation of
the body of the little Dimitri at Ouglitch, the state burial in
the Archangel Cathedral, the beatification of his name, could
not still the restless disquiet that stirred the country.

Marina and her father were banished to Yaroslavl, the
old Tsaritsa Maria Nagoi was sent back into her convent, and
still the Phantom Tsar could not be laid to rest. The rumour
even grew and spread that the body of the masked man
put up on the Lobnoie Mest had not been Dimitri at all.
Why had a mask covered the face, people asked meaningly ?
Was it not true that below it a beard had been seen, and had
not Dimitri been clean shaven ? And had not hairs covered
the chest, when Dimitri was known to be smooth as a girl ?
But if some other body had been placed on the Lobnoie Mest,
then where was the murdered Tsar ? And was he really
dead ?

So the people whispered among themselves, while on all
sides insurrections and rebellions broke out. False sons of
Ivan the Terrible and of Theodore gathered insurgents to
their banners. Bolotnikoff, pretending to have seen Dimitri
alive, marched triumphantly through the country to prepare
his way till he was besieged, conquered, and killed at Toula.
the second False Dimitri rose from the shadows of mystery,
Cossacks and Poles flocking to his stronghold at Toushin,
where Marina and her father, escaping from Yaroslavl, came
to join him, publicly recognising him as the Phantom Tsar,
though in reality there was little resemblance between the

196 Recollections of Imperial Russia

two men except that, like the first False Dimitri, there
seems to be no certainty about his real identity, rumour
crediting him alternately with being a Czheque, a Jew, or a
son of old Prince Kourbski.

Almost minutely small and slender, frail, dark-eyed and
pale, Marina was possessed with a consuming fire of ambition
which led her to brave all dangers, to defy all prudence and
commonsense, to endure all hardships. Even when, con-
fronted for the first time with the second False Dimitri she
shrank away with an involuntary shudder of distaste, she yet
overcame her horror and acknowledged him as the husband
whose passionate love she had seemingly returned.

In her mind was still perhaps the image of her triumphant
entry into Moscow in a painted carriage drawn by ten pie-
bald-horses, the shouts of the populace who acclaimed her,
the bells of the Kremlin ringing their welcome, the fire and
glitter of the jewels Dimitri gave her with such abundant
generosity. Did the hope of such another triumph make the
sacrifice worth while, and compensate her for enduring the
kisses of her second husband ?

And meanwhile Russia lay divided between two Courts,
one at Moscow and one at Toushin, and between two Tsars
neither of whom had sufficient courage or confidence in
their position to march out openly against the other. But
at last Schouiski called in Swedish troops to his aid,
and after his fruitless siege of the Troitsa Monastery, the
Brigand of Toushin, seeing his cause lost, fled to
where, Kalouga Marina presently joined him.

Then in 1610 came the abdication of Schouiski, the
election of a Polish prince as Tsar, and, shortly after, the death
of the second False Dimitri in a Tartar ambush. Widowed
for a second time, Marina still clung to her dream of empire,
her baby son was acknowledged by her followers as heir to

The Legend of the False Dimitri 197

the throne, while the love of Zaruchi, the great Cossack
Hetrnann, whose beauty, high courage and daring woke in
her cold, calculating little heart, the first real feeling it had
ever known, carried her on from adventure to adventure.
But at last in 1614, captured by their enemies, Zaruchi and
Marina were brought to Moscow, the heroic cossack rebel
was impaled, the little four-year-old Ivan was hung, a pitiful
martyr to his mother's ambition and the cause of an un-
known impostor, and Marina herself was strangled in the
darkness of her prison.

So ended the legend of the False Dimitri and still the oft
repeated question, " Who was the Phantom Tsar ? " remains
unanswered.

Was he in truth Grishka Otrepiev ? It hardly appears
likely. Grishka was common and plain, a vagabond and a
rascal ; could he for eleven months have governed Russia
with that high daring, that keen, progressive policy of Dimi-
tri's ? Was he a pupil of the Jesuits brought up by them in
the belief that he was heir to the throne of Moscow ? Was it
all a tortuous, intricate scheme of the followers of Loyola to
win Russia to the Catholic Faith ? The hypothesis has been
put forward by several historians but has been generally
discredited, as Dimitri seems to have shown none of the
religious fanaticism or scholarly education of a pupil of a
Jesuit College. Was he then a creature of the Poles put
forward by them to subject the ever-growing power of
Russia ? Or an illegitimate son of one of Ivan the Terrible 's
six or seven wives ? Or was he really Dimitri himself,
escaped from Ouglitch, kept hidden till he was of age to
proclaim himself ? Had some other little boy's body been
buried in his stead ?

It is a possibility, but against it there are the miracles
supposed to have been performed at the tomb of St. Dimitri,

198 Recollections of Imperial Russia

and to prove that the Phantom Tsar was the authentic little
boy of Ouglitch, makes those miracles impossible. Who then
was the False Dimitri ? The Tsarina Maria Nagoi, dying
in her convent might have told. The great bell of Ouglitch
exiled to Siberia perhaps guessed. The walls of the Kremlin
perhaps knew ; but all of them are dumb, and we can only,
dimly groping, build up theories, write romances, and
dream dreams.

Other Memories of Moscow 199

CHAPTER XI

OTHER MEMORIES OF MOSCOW

Many other pictures of the Kremlin come crowding in my
mind. Painted rooms with low arches, state staircases,
carved doors and gates of richly chased bronze, gilded rail-
ings, huge rooms with polished floors. The hall of St.
George ; the Private Chapel of Our Saviour on High where
the princes sought sanctuary. The Terem with its low
chambers and crudely coloured walls. The Hall of the
Feasts, part of the oldest palace built in 1473, with its throne
of carved wood, its brilliant rag carpet, its benches covered
with gay coloured embroideries. Here the Tsar held audience
or gave huge banquets while the women watched from the
" Tainik," or little window in the wall, covered with a
golden grating, and foreign ambassadors marvelled at the
gold and silver plate, the wealth of jewels and gorgeous
apparel.

I remember going round the Treasury where the glittering
armour of old time boyars shone in the shadows, where hel-
mets and daggers, shields and swords lay idle, their work of
fighting done ; stray sunbeams lighting here and there on
some finely carved handle, some richly adorned breast-
plate. Asiatic, Polish, Byzantine, Turkish, German — arms of
all the countries of the world were here, with the fading
colours of Polish and Hungarian banners, the heavy rich-
ness of Imperial Coronation Standards. Then in another

200 Recollections of Imperial Russia

room the fire of jewels flaming in the old crown of Vladimir
Monomachus, while beside it lay the 17th century crown of
Siberia, the curiously shaped crown of Kazhan, the heavy
crown of Peter the Great, the Maltese crown made especially
for Paul.

Here, too, was the ivory throne brought to Russia by the
last of the Byzantine princesses, Sophie Paleologue, married
to Ivan III., surnamed the great, the throne of Boris Go-
dounov sent to him by the Shah of Persia and studded with
two thousand precious stones, the quaint double throne of
Peter the Great and his brother Ivan, and the throne of the
Tsar Alexis studded with eight hundred and seventy-
six diamonds, as well as over a thousand other jewels. On
the ground floor were the gorgeous carriages carved and
gilded, lined with velvet and furs, the closed in sleighs fitted
up as rooms, with tables and divans, the costly jewelled
harness and priceless services of china. Going on to the
Synodal Treasury where the crowns of the Patriarch, the gor-
geous vestments and vessels of gold and silver were kept,
one came away at last with a feeling almost of intoxication,
one's eyes tired by the glitter and shimmer of jewels, the
sheen of rich brocades.

Gratefully one turned to the golden twilight of the
churches, where from the shadows, the faces of gentle
Madonnas smiled at one, where the great, burnished gates of
the Iconastas, which in the Russian Church replaces the Rood
Screen, shut off the Sanctuary from the rest of the building,
where little guttering candles flickered unceasingly before
some Holy Image, and in the dusk, kneeling figures sunk in
an ecstasy of prayer, remained impervious and unconscious
of one's passing. The Cathedrals of the Kremlin ! What
is there about them that is so hard to forget ? The Uspensky
Sobor with its golden painted columns and dim old frescoes,

Other Memories of Moscow 201

its Ikon of the Virgin of Vladimir .painted by St. Luke,
brought originally from Jerusalem to Constantinople, then
taken to Kiev and Vladimir, and finally, in 1395, brought to
Moscow.

Here the Tsars and Emperors were crowned ; here nine
Patriarchs lie buried; here Alexis, that wretched son of Peter
the Great abjured his right to the throne, and here, on the
outbreak of wars, the rulers of Russia came to pray for
victory. The Cathedral of the Archangel, where forty-
seven Tsars rest in their plain coffins under their velvet
palls ! The body of the little boy murdered at Ouglitch is
buried here, and Michael Vsevolod, Prince of Chernigoff,
who, refusing to worship the Tartar gods, fell, a martyr to
his religion, and Ivan the Terrible, and that young warrior
Michael Skopin Shouiski, adored by the people of Moscow
for his courage and daring. The great Cathedral of the
Assumption with its floors of coloured jasper, its doors
covered with panels of finely worked bronze carvings, its
square columns, and painted walls.

Here the Tsars were wedded and christened, and here,
too, is the picture of the Virgin which Dimitri Donskoi
fastened to his black banner when he fought against the
Tartars at Kulikova. There is, too, the little church of St.
Saviour's in the Forest, built on the site of that first wooden
chapel that stood alone on the Kremlin hill, when all the
country round was forest and meadows. And then the
bell tower of Ivan Veliki, rising to its height of three hundred
and twenty feet, topped by its golden dome. Here hang the
thirty-three bells which send their triumphant music to the
skies, while, mute and silent on the square below, the great
" Tsar Bell," which weighs two hundred tons and was des-
troyed by fire, stands on the pedestal erected by Montferrand.

Nearly opposite Ivan Veliki on the Imperial Square,

202 Recollections of Imperial Russia

rise the rose pink walls of the Chudoff Monastery founded in
1358 as the seat of the Metropolitan of Moscow. Here
Grishka Otrepiev, said to be the False Dimitri lived, here
Vassili Schouiski came after abdicating the crown, and here
the Patriarch Hermogenes was starved to death by the
Poles.

They say that when Ladislas, son of Sigismund of
Poland was chosen Tsar, and old Schouiski, last descendant
of the Ruriks to hold the throne, sadly acknowledged his
failure to save his country, ghostly voices were heard chant-
ing a Requiem in the Archangel Cathedral — the voices of
those Rurik princes who mourned the ending of their race.
Troublous times indeed for Russia. A Polish garrison in
the Kremlin ; Hermogenes from his prison inciting the
people to rise against the heretics and invaders, Moscow swept
by a devastating fire, bands of Cossacks and marauders
scouring the country, famine spreading a claw-like hand over
the towns and villages. Then from the people, cowed,
starving, leaderless and distraught, stepped the burly figure
of Kazma Minin, the meat and fish vendor. A man, bluff
and common, probably very often drunk, ignorant and
uneducated, and yet, in his simple directness of purpose,
something of a national hero. Alone, he knew he had not
sufficient weight to be a leader for the people, so, with his
plain blunt honesty he went to Prince Pozharsky, then
nursing his wounds at his estate near Moscow.

" You and I to save our country and the Orthodox Faith."
Minin's words were few, but Pozharsky, grasping the big
hand this plebeian held out to him, saw in him the man who
put his country before everything, and, rough and ready
soldier as he was, agreed to head the insurrection.

Gladly the people flocked to their call ; the heroic Her-
mogenes, slowly agonising in his prison, was urged by the

Other Memories of Moscow 203

Poles to order the armies to disband, but steadily refusing
to do so, died at last, a prayer for Russia's safety on his
lips, and perhaps in his heart a vision of her ultimate release.

And now, shut up in the Kremlin, surrounded by a
ruined city, an unfriendly populace and invading armies,
began the terrible siege of the Polish garrison. Through the
golden days of August, the soft grey days of September,
waiting always in vain for the help Sigismund was to send
them ; lacking ammunition, lacking water, lacking food,
eating the bodies of cats and mice, boiling down treasured
Greek missals to a kind of gruel, they still held on with a
grim endurance behind those impregnable walls. Famine
stalked there stark and naked ; cannibalism, frightful and
terrifying, grinned with chattering teeth from the shadows.
Death and disease and despair held carnival.

Then, in October, the outlying Kitai Gorod surrendered
to Pozharsky and Minin, and a few days later the Poles
marched out of the Kremlin, leaving the devastated churches,
the ruined palaces, the ghastly relics of their heroic resist-
ance behind them. The banner of the Russian double-
headed eagle floated again above the liberated citadel, the
hand of St. George had once more been stretched out to save
his holy town of Moscow, and in the Red Square the people
knelt with tears streaming down their faces, when the Ikon
of the Virgin of Vladimir was carried out unharmed.

But Sigismund of Poland with his son, too late indeed to
save the starving garrison of the Kremlin, was still advanc-
ing on Russian land, and there was no crowned, elected
Tsar to confront him with his sacred rites. For a time the
people wavered between the Romanovs, beloved ever since
the memory of Anastasia, the first wife of Ivan the Terrible,
one of the Galitzins, or the Schouiskis or Pozharski himself.
Feodore Romanov, nephew of Anastasia, had been disgraced

204 Recollections of Imperial Russia

by Boris Godounov, torn away from his wife and children
and banished to a monastery, where he took the name of
Philaret. His son Michael was only sixteen years of age
at the time of the surrender of the Polish garrison, and
when the choice of the people fell on him, his mother for a
long time hesitated to let him take the heavy responsibility
of the crown of Russia.

But at last on May 2, 1615, he made his triumphal entry
into Moscow, and with his coronation on July II, began the
long dynasty of the Romanov sovereigns. The troublous
times were ended, the citizens of Moscow could once more
rebuild their ruined city, carpenters and masons worked by
day and night, while the young Tsar, aided in the difficult
task of governing by his father, who had been elected
Patriarch, slowly overcame the rebellious Cossack armies,
and the Poles who still fought for the supremacy of the
Russian lands.

On the Varvarka, not far from the Red Square, stands the
old house of the Romanovs, which has been restored to
nearly the same state in which it was when Theodore
Romanov first looked down into the crumpled pink face of
the baby who was to be the grandfather of Peter the Great,
and the first of a long line of Emperors. On the second floor,
above the kitchens and servants' quarters, was the big room
called the Chamber of the Cross, where the head of the house
in his stiff robes of brocade received the priests who came on
feast-days to bless the dwelling. Here, too, were given the
banquets where men ate hugely and drank heavily, discussed
the state of Russia, the wisdom or foolishness of the Tsar's
government, the beauty, wit, or stupidity of their wives.

On one side of this room was the private study of the
Boyar, and on the other a small oratory, with beyond, two
dark shut-in rooms used as a nursery. From there a wind-

Other Memories of Moscow 205

ing staircase led to the terem or womens' apartments, where
the long, aimless, empty days of the Boyar's wife passed in
unending boredom and neglect.

Unless she had seen her future husband at some state
church service, she very likely did not even know what his
face was like before she married him, while the thickly veiled
bride, who, her trembling hand in his, went through the long
church service by his side, remained a mystery to him, till
after dining, he stepped into the bridal chamber, led by eight
little boys with burning candles which they placed round the
room before retiring.

Colour and romance and brutal savagery, always side
by side. The clear melodious voices of the Kremlin bells,
the shrieks of some wretched prisoner receiving twenty
strokes of the knout on the Red Square ; miserable hovels,
hardly fit for animals, the glittering domes of the great
cathedrals, the barbaric splendour of some Boyar's palace,
the gorgeousness of the reception rooms, the stark discomfort
of the living apartments; everywhere magnificence and
misery jostling each other.

The impressive majesty of the Kremlin walls, the blue
mist that rises from the river and drifts across the low waste
land where the mangled body of the False Dimitri was
thrown. Starving beggars crowding on the steps of the
churches. Boyars in gleaming brocades, velvets and sables,
jostling the gorgeous Strelitsii Guard, the Tsar in a golden
dress, embroidered with pearls and precious stones, a queer
shaped fur bonnet with long, thin golden chains on his
head, riding down from the Kremlin to go hare-hunting.
From the churches the sound of singing voices, from taverns
and palaces the sound of drunken merry making, from
some secret cell the heart-broken sobbing of a woman,
the groans of tortured prisoners.

206 Recollections of Imperial Russia

I remember going through fantastically magnificent
rooms in old, dim palaces in Moscow, buying painted, wooden
toys and lacquer boxes in the big Peasants Workshop near
the Theatre Square, wandering in dusty curiosity shops
where broken pieces of jewellery, Caucasian daggers, battered
samovars, brilliant oriental embroidery and bright-coloured
leather shoes lay in unutterable confusion, and then going
on to the warehouse where the gorgeous brocades for the
priests vestments were sold, fashioned of gold or silver
stuff, sometimes so stiff that they could almost stand alone,
with intricate patterns of crosses, chalices, lilies and doves
woven into them, or plain and soft as the thinnest of silk.
One fingered them almost reverently, let the shimmer-
ing folds slip through one's fingers, and thought of
those old frescoes on the walls of the churches, where saints
and princes, noblemen and queens, walked softly with the
splendour of their brocades in never ending processions.

Always in all things, was there about Moscow an old
world atmosphere, something that set it apart from Europe.
Petersburg, for all the breadth and brilliance of the Neva,
the glitter of golden domes, might from some aspects have
been a cosmopolitan city, the society might have been that
of London, Paris or Vienna, but Moscow had remained
entirely Russian, keeping proudly aloof from the changes of
modern customs.

Clearly I remember a dinner given us by the Director of
the Kremlin Palace. His wife was a lovely old lady with
the whitest of hair, the softest of blue eyes and the most
exquisite manners I have ever seen. She might have stepped
out of some eigthteenth century romance, so gentle was she,
so charming and yet never fulsome, always a great lady,
always on her dignity and yet never stiff and rigid. Two old
men servants with grey whiskers and white cotton gloves

Other Memories of Moscow 207

served at table, and we had a true Russian dinner beginning
with pickled cucumbers, caviare and vodka, continuing
with red Borsh soup with cream, and an endless number of
succeeding dishes. Directly we got up from table every-
body went to thank the hostess, while, according to the old
Russian custom, when the men raised her frail little jewelled
hand to their lips, she bent and lightly kissed their forehead.

It was not perhaps a very amusing evening. There
were, as far I as can remember, two or three other members of
the Imperial household ; an old general with a short grizzly
beard, and very fierce blue eyes, two old ladies with smoothly
brushed hair and wonderful pearls ; a young girl in a badly
made white dress trimmed with daisies, very pink cheeks,
a snub nose, and lovely soft brown eyes ; two or three young
officers, shy and correct and entirely immersed in military
matters, and one nondescript civilian brilliantly clever, but
untidy and silent. No, as far as amusement went, one
could not say that the dinner sparkled, and yet there was
about it a certain charm, the spell of old traditions, the
fragrance of something untouched by all the noisy modern
glare and glitter, and false meretricious gaiety. It had been
like this fifty, a hundred, two hundred years ago, and one
could have imagined it continuing so for another hundred
years ; it would indeed probably have done so, had not the
war come, bringing in its train, revolution and Bolshevism.

I have often wondered since what happened to that old

lady with the silver hair, and I have hoped for her sake that

she died before the Kremlin became a Bolshevik citadel

flaunting its scarlet banner in the face of Europe. When

. war was declared in 1914 and we went again to Moscow for

the ceremonies attending the official proclamation of war, I

met her again. She was beside me during the service in

the Uspenski Cathedral, where the Emperor had come to

O

20 8 Recollections of Imperial Russia

pray for victory to be given to the Russian Army ; regardless
of her age and her white lace dress, kneeling on the stone
floor transported in an ecstasy of prayer, the tears running
unheeded down her cheeks, while all the time her trembling
lips whispered over and over again the same words, "Oh
Lord, give us victory — save our country and the Emperor."

The bells of Ivan Veliki rang out with clamouring voices
that same prayer, from all the other churches other bells
answered and took up the cry, till the rose-red walls of the
Kremlin seemed to shiver, shaken by the thunder, while
the huge crowd that stretched away across the Palace Square
to the Chudoff Monastery down to the Spasskaia Gate, knelt
in rapt emotion, singing the National Anthem. This was
no longer the twentieth century. Europe, with its culture
and modern progress had sunk away. This was the old
Moscow of the Tsars ! Little Mother Moscow, threatened
and besieged over and over again, and yet always miracu-
lously emerging from her smoking ruins ! Civilisation,
education, imposing on people a stern repression of all
feelings, could do nothing here to shake the people's child-
like faith. We were back in the days when the sacred
ikons were carried into battle, when the Church was more
powerful than the state, when the Court of Russia resembled
a monastery more than a palace.

Looking out over that kneeling crowd, past those
fantastic buildings, those great, golden-domed churches,
one could fancy one saw the figure of Ivan the Terrible in
a dress of cloth of silver coming down the red staircase
to receive some foreign ambassadors or go to witness an
execution on the Lobnoie Mest ! Or Boris Godounov riding
out to fight the Khan, Kazi Girei, with his army of Crim
Tartars ! One could almost hear the hideous clamour when
the False Dimitri fought for his life through the Palace

Other Memories of Moscow 209

corridors, and the hoarse shouts of the revolting Strelitsii
calling for the blood of the Narishkins. Fierce, dormant
only, but never extinguished, the passions of those old
days would not be hard to wake. Even so, praying, on
their knees, had the people of Moscow received the False
Dimitri, even so had they acclaimed Boris Godounov as
Tsar.

One looked at them, and one wondered, would that lust
for killing wake in them again one day ? Would they sweep
through the streets, their humanity forgotten, swamped in
the frenzy that made of them, not men and women, but one
great, ferocious beast, mad with the madness of primitive
savage instincts. That terrible infection of crowds ! What
civilisation in the world can guard against it ? What
principles, what education can quell it or subdue it ? Frag-
ments of human beings thrown together, quiescent very
likely, dull apathetic and patient, good-natured even per-
haps, and then — a spark ! A word quickly spoken ! A
blow given hastily ! A woman's scream — the sound of a
shot ! And the crowd that before was impassive, now just
one great, unbridled force, imbued with the instinct to kill.

Late in the afternoon of that radiant August day,
we drove out to the Sparrow Hills, and through the shimmer-
ing haze looked back at Moscow with its golden domed
churches, its glittering spires and crosses. Here on this spot,
Napoleon's grand army, weary and battered, halted with
the rapturous cry " Moscow ! Moscow ! " And from here
the man who had made himself Emperor of France, had his
first glimpse of that fair city of his dreams. The story of
Napoleon's entry into Moscow is well known. We have been
told of his bitter mortification and rage when he learned that
the city had been abandoned by the Government, that
no mayor or officials would come out to receive him and hand

210 Recollections of Imperial Russia

him the keys. His entry through the silent, deserted streets
where a few, cowering citizens watched him with malignant
hatred in their eyes, was not like that triumphant entry he
had planned. One old crippled soldier, barring his entrance
through the Barovitsky gate, fell beneath the blows of his
guard — a nameless victim — but the walls of the Kremlin
stood silent and grim, the town seemed almost deserted, the
bells of the churches were mute.

Looking out from the palace late that evening did
Napoleon draw a sigh of self-content ? Had he not con-
quered the world ? Did he not stand now where the Tsars of
Russia had stood, autocrat and master of this town of
churches and palaces, and riches unthinkable ? Many
of the holy Ikons, some of the most valuable of the
Kremlin's treasures had been removed by Rostopchin,
but the decision to sacrifice Moscow had been taken
finally at a moment's notice. Kutuzoff, withdrawing
hurriedly with his army, had left but little time, and the
churches and palaces were full still of their store of gold
and silver and precious stones.

The red September sunset flaming on dome and spire,
the blue dusk stealing round the Kremlin walls, the sound
of moving regiments, of French voices shouting commands,
the chorus of a French song rising from some narrow street,
the glint of French uniforms along the battlements. War-
weary and hungry, the soldiers of the " Grande Armee "
had taken possession of the city of the Tsars, seeking to
forget with wine and song the grim battle of Borodino, where
neither side had been victorious and neither side defeated.

Then, in the gathering hyacinth coloured twilight, a
sudden spurt of crimson fire from the warehouses beyond the
Trading Rows, another one to the right, the flickering light
gleaming on the golden domes, the acrid smell of smoke born

Other Memories of Moscow 211

on the soft evening air. Some house burning somewhere I
Ah well! had not the soldiers been promised Moscow and
their share of plunder ? What did it matter if they set
light to some old wooden barns ?

But all during the night the flames spread, while fresh
conflagrations seemed to start in all directions. The fire
brigade and the engines had been removed from Moscow by
order of Rastopchin ; the French soldiers, drunk with wine
and triumph, at first made no attempt to check the flames,
but amidst the rolling clouds of smoke, made the most of
the official permission given to sack and pillage the burning
houses.

The next morning the sunlight was obscured by the heavy
pall of smoke that lay over the city ; the warehouses along
the quays were swept by flames, the stores of oils and spirits
in the Gostinnoi Door had caught fire, showers of sparks of
burning wood and lead rained down on the palace roof ; the
Kremlin seemed surrounded by a sea of fire. The crackling
of wood, the crashing fall of masonry, the occasional explo-
sion of some store of spirit, the hoarse shouts of those who
tried to fight the tempest, the screams of those imprisoned in
burning houses.

Was this Moscow ? Or was it a Hell on earth ? Napoleon,
who at first had refused to believe that the fires were any-
thing but accidental, was forced at last to see that this city
of his ultimate desire had chosen rather to perish than to
fall into the hands of a foreign invader. Orders were given
to shoot all incendiaries, the Imperial Guard was sent to try
and overcome the conflagration, but the elements themselves
seemed to fight against the French, and all during the night
a fierce wind drove the flames on with increasing fury,
helping them in their work of destruction, till at last the

212 Recollections of Imperial Russia

Kremlin itself was threatened, and Napoleon had to seek
refuge in the Palace of Petrovski.

Then at last on Semptember 5, a heavy rainfall, which
continued for twenty-four hours, quenched the raging fury
of the fires, and after three days' absence the conqueror of
Moscow rode back into the smoking city, where the silent
streets were carpeted with red-hot cinders, where the air
was full of the fumes of still smouldering ruins, while here
and there a fire still burned with sullen, unquenched ferocity,
and a homeless population and a starving army clamoured
insistently for food.

After remaining on for a month in the midst of this
tragic desolation, Napoleon and his army withdrew, to begin
that grim and terrible retreat so well-known to history ;
while Marshal Mortier, staying on to carry out the Emperor's
instructions, finally left Moscow on October 11, firing a
cannon from Fili, this being the pre-arranged signal to blow
up the Kremlin. But either heavy rain had destroyed the
trails of gunpowder laid to the mines, or else the powder
itself was bad and the mines badly placed, for the terrific
explosion which shattered the silence of the dark October
night, and which was to have laid the proud walls of the
Kremlin in the dust, did little more than bring down one of
the towers and ruin the Nikolsky gate, miraculously sparing
the Image of the Saint, and leaving the rest of the walls,
the churches and palaces intact.

So once more the ruins of Moscow were rebuilt ; once more
busy streets, teeming with traffic, formed themselves, and
the great Cathedral of St. Saviour's with its five gilt domes,
was raised to commemorate the deliverance from the in-
vaders. Museums, theatres, hospitals, schools, factories
and warehouses sprang up in all directions, and in every
history book one reads how trade and commerce prosper,

Other Memories of Moscow 213

how the risk of fire is diminished, how the dangers of in-
vasion and destruction are over.

But when those books were written the word " Bol-
shevism " was still unknown, and the system of government
under the pass-word of liberty had not yet taught the
Russian people a more rigid tyranny than they had ever
known under Grand-princes or Tartars, Tsars or Emperors.

The Kremlin walls still stand to-day with the scarlet
banner flying there, where the Imperial standard with the
double-headed eagle used to fly, but the churches are empty
and despoiled of their jewelled ikons ; the Treasury is bare,
in the palaces soldiers with muddy boots lounge on brocaded
sofas, and men, who speak of the high ideals of equality
and Freedom, the while their hands are stained with blood,
give orders, surround themselves with mystery, with
precautions and a close protection no autocrat of Russia
ever dreamed of.

In the town the streets are falling into disrepair, the
houses are filthy and dilapidated, slops are thrown out of
the windows, doors and shutters bang, furniture has been
cut up for firewood, curtains and hangings torn down.
The " House Bureau " quarters whom it pleases on peaceable
citizens, who find their home circle invaded by workmen and
students, bringing unspeakable dirt and disorder into their
rooms.

And if ever the rule of terror ends, if ever the powers that
tyrannise over Moscow are overthrown, will they go, leaving
anything behind ? Or in their passing will they annihilate
the pride of those rose-red walls, leaving only crumbling
ruins and fetid dust behind. The future alone can say ; the
future that knows the ultimate fate of the people of
Moscow, cowering now under the supervision of the dreaded
Cheka, called the State Political Department.

214 Recollections of Imperial Russia

The horrors of the days of Ivan the Terrible, the pitiless
executions of Peter the Great, the absolute autocracy of
Nicholas II., has not the terror of the Cheka, the iron hand
of Trotsky, the fear of the Red Army, surpassed them all ?
When the blue mist steals up from the river, do the spirits
of Moscow's dead gather on the Red Square, does the low
wind bring their whispering voices up to the great Cathedrals
where the Princes and Patriarchs sleep ? And in the
Church of the Archangel do they not hold their ghostly
Requiem, mourning the fallen might of theircountry, praying
for her future deliverance and reinstatement ?

Princes in gleaming brocades, soldiers and peasants and
priests, faces evil or cruel or saint -like, jewels that flame
with sullen splendour, shimmering candle-light, the flickering
fury of flames, drifting smoke and flying figures — the spirits
of Moscow, flocking on the Red Square, shifting and passing
in unending sequence. The great walls remain impassive,
wonderful, the sunshine still lights the golden domes, and
the heart of Russia is still an unread secret.

A Street in Petrograd, 1914.

A Street in Petrograd, 1920.

p. 214.

The Shores of the Black Sea 215

CHAPTER XII

THE SHORES OF THE BLACK SEA

I have often heard people describe the Crimea as the
Russian Riviera, or else perhaps compare its beauty to that
of the Bay of Naples, but to me it will always stand alone,
bearing no resemblance either to the south coast of France,
or to the loveliness of the shores along that most lovely of
all bays, and that most loathsome of all towns in Italy.
The Crimea has nothing of that cultured, obvious beauty of
the Riviera, with its gleaming white hotels and casinos, its
gorgeous villas, its sparkling jewel-like towns, its dusty
roads crowded with rich motors, its well-planned vineyards,
its fields of sweet smelling flowers, cultivated for the capitals
of Europe and the making of scent.

Nor has it any of the sensuous haunting magic of the Bay
of Naples, where the huge looming mass of Vesuvius shadows
the mirror-like sea, across which the white-sailed boats
seem wafted like a dream. The calling fishermen with
their strange, dark faces, their songs and flaring torches,
the sudden storms, the enervating oppression of the Sirocco,
the constant Festas and noisy fireworks. The atmosphere of
something brooding, intensely abnormal, restlessly immoral.
All this belongs to Naples alone, disturbing and amazingly
beautiful.

The Crimea is strange, wild and reserved, hiding under
its blue skies and blue seas, its sunshine and its blossoms, a

216 Recollections of Imperial Russia

soul eternally untamed and primitive ; the secrets of the
East — history, legend, romance and poetry — which hold all
the grim majesty of those rugged brown cliffs, all the un-
fettered immensity of the forests of pine trees that cover
the towering mountains; all the desolations of the plains,
where optical illusions bewitch the weary travellers ; all the
beauty of those blue seas, of those orchards of cherry
trees and almond blossoms. The charm of those names that
read like the titles of fairy stories — Bayadere-Aloupka,
Oreanda, Livadia, Massandra, and further on still, Aiou Dagh,
Koutchouk, Lambat.

The Romans called the Black Sea simply Pontus, the
Greeks at one time named it the Inhospitable Sea, till later
on, establishing their colonies, they changed it to Euxine or
the Hospitable Sea. To these shores Ovid, exiled by Augustus
came, and died after nine years of inconsolable home-sickness,
complaining of the fogs that sometimes veiled the country
in thick mists, of the snow and ice, the bitter winds that
swept down from the mountains, and seemingly finding no
comfort in the summer sunshine and flowers.

On the east of the Crimea lies the Sea of Azof with its
inlet arm of the Putrid Sea, later on called the Sivash, and
joining it to the main line is the Isthmus of Perekop, so
narrow, that the seas on either side look as if the first storm
would bring them rushing together. Long before the
Greeks and Romans came to the Crimea it was inhabited
by a race of the Tauri, from whom the name Tauride penin-
sula was derived ; it was also at one time the site of a Cim-
merian, and later on, of a Scythian kingdom. The legend that
Ulysses came to the Crimea on his wanderings and visited
the Bay of Balaclava has been discredited by historians
and learned men, but I like to think that this was the " fair
haven of the Laestryons," that is described in the Odyssey.

The Shores of the Black Sea 217

' Whereabout on both sides goes one steep cliff unbroken,
and jutting headlands over against each other
stretch forth at the mouth of the harbour, and straight is
the entrance, thereinto all the others steered their carved
ships. Now the vessels were bound within the hollow
harbour each hard by the other, for no wave ever swelled
within it great or small, but there was a bright calm all
around " or as another translation puts it, " and smiling
calmness silvered o'er the deep."

Like everybody else I had always associated Balaclava
with the " never to be forgotten Charge of the Light Brigade,"
my only ideas of it were of rolling clouds of smoke and a
green plain, and beyond that I never seemed to go. But
when we had stood a moment on the slope where those
British soldiers thundered to their death, and turned at last
to the Blue Bay, I remember that I caught my breath, shaken
by a sudden emotion I find it hard to explain. I know that
up to that moment I had been tired and more than a little
peevish ; four days journey from Petersburg, a day and a
half of strenuous sight -seeing in S.bastopol accompanied by
luncheons, teas and receptions, with the constant effort of
being polite and interested, were all rather wearying, and I
had the feeling that I wanted to go away, somewhere quite
alone, and not talk for at least twenty-four hours ; and
then suddenly those blue waters, between the towering cliffs,
the little sun-baked Tartar village, the golden ruins of the
Genoese fortress and a strange feeling of peace and tran-
quillity that made me forget all weariness and ill-humour.

For a long time I sat on the little wooden pier in front of
the hotel ; further down was the Naval Club with its landing-
stage and diving board. Lombardy poplars shaded the
dusty road, growing up the hill-side were little pink Tartar
houses, low roofed and quaint ; on the opposite shore a few

218 Recollections of Imperial Russia

white villas, and the only sign of life, some Tartar children
playing solemnly at a strange silent game and two young girls
walking down the road with a collie puppy who bounded
up to me and rubbed his cold nose against my hand. And
promptly then I made up my mind to come back one day to
Balaclava, buy one of those pink Tartar houses with a baby
cypress tree and one or two almond trees in the garden, bathe
every day in those blue waters, walk up the winding path
to the Genoese fortress, and sit there looking out to the far
horizon with only the sea birds to share one's solitude, and
at night sleep on the flat roof, looking up at the stars, and
listen to the far away whisper of the sea beyond the narrow
passage of towering cliffs, as one might listen to the far away
voice of the world, shut away from one's retreat.

Not far from Balaclava, towering out into the sea is
Cap Fiolente, which legend says is the ancient Cape Parthe-
nium, dedicated to Diana Tauropolitana, to whose temple
Iphigenia, saved from sacrifice, came as a priestess, and
nearby, where the rocks form a small bay, is the Monastery
of St. George set on the top of towering cliffs with little wild
gardens, grown by the monks, laid out on the falling terraces.

Founded in the tenth century the old monastery saw
many changing races come and go ; here the allied armies
had quarters during the Crimean War, and here Florence
Nightingale had a room, still shown to visitors. It was very
empty and silent, the sunny April morning we drove over
from Sebastopol, for the monastery supplied the Chaplains
to the Fleet, and more than half the Holy Brothers were
away, serving on the grey battleships at anchor in the har-
bour or guarding the coast. The almond trees in the garden
were all in bloom, the soft sea air seemed laden with the
scent of violets, half-way down the cliffs some yellow broom
flamed in sudden, startling splendour,

The Shores of the Black Sea 219

There was a little white chapel perched there on the
rocks, hung it seemed between sea and land, and as we sat
under the trees in front of the monastery, an old grey-
bearded monk came out and slowly began the long, laborious
ascent. Golden brown, amber and red, the great cliffs reared
themselves above the sea ; the colour of that water — vainly
one sought in one's mind for something to liken it to.
Aquamarine, turquoise, sapphire, lapis lazuli, all of these it
was, and yet not one of them seemed blue enough.

A bell chimed from the green domed church, the sound of
singing voices came out into the sunlit silence, in the distant
kitchen there was a faint rattling of pots and pans, a tor-
toise-shell cat curled up on the steps got up, stretched
itself with luxurious slowness, blinked solemnly at some
white chickens in the garden, yawned again, and settled
itself down once more ; while far out at sea a thin grey cruel-
looking ship drove at terrific pace through the smiling waters.
A torpedo-destroyer making for the harbour of Sebastopol,
a reminder of the war that raged in hellish destruction
miles away from the peace of this enchanted haven.

Further up the rocky coast towards Sebastopol lies
Cherson, founded originally by colonists from Bithynia,
and turned by the Romans into a military centre of the
Crimea. Later on, being a dependence of the Byzantine
Empire, it was besieged by Vladimir the Great, Grand Prince
of Kiev, and it was here that the Little Red Sun of Russia
was baptised in the Orthodox Faith. Golden walls crumbling
and falling against a background of a sea intensely blue, the
scent of thyme and mint, the soft radiance of sunshine and
that nameless mystery that lays a caressing hand on the
ruins of dead cities — that is Cherson, a fortress of Mithri-
dates, King of Pontus, a Roman military camp conquered
in turn by Greeks, Russians and Tartars.

220 Recollections of Imperial Russia

For in the thirteenth century came the dread invasion
of Russia by the Mongolian Tartars, and the great Genghis
Khan making Batou Khan viceroy of his Empire in the west,
and fixing the Capital of the Golden Horde at Great Serai
on the Volga, founding at the same time the town of Bakhchi
Serai, extending his conquests into the Tauride Peninsula, till
finally Mengli Timur gave it to one of his nephews, ordaining
that it be called Crim or Little Tartary.

The Genoese merchants, sending their ships on from
Constantinople into the Black Sea, had their settlements too
along the shores, making rich commerce in the treasures
brought from the far East — silks, perfumes, furs, flax —
brought by caravan to the Caspian Sea they were transhipped
to the Crimea, the dark-faced men of Genoa and Venice
sending them on once more to Italy and France, making
much profit through the transaction ; while at Kaffa was the
slave-market where the Russians who could not pay the
taxes were sold by the Tartars and sent to Constantinople
or to the Sultans of Egypt.

Then, spreading fear and terror before him, the great
savage figure of Timur the Lame rose on the eastern horizon ;
Taimur as he is sometimes called, Timur Khan or Tamerlan,
pitiless and unscrupulous, driven forward ever by a restless
insatiable desire for adventure, by the spirit of wandering,
the desire for new conquests and new countries. Born in
Samarkand, he became the leader of the Chagatai Turks,
when he was thirty-three, then conquered Persia and won
Teheran, where seven thousand victims fell, while later at
the siege of Bhagdad, towers were made of the severed heads
of men, women and children to serve as a warning and an
example. Persia he conquered, invaded India and sacked
Delhi ; in Egypt he overcame the Asmanti Turks, and north-
wards, so far that day and night were almost one, his banners

The Shores of the Black Sea 221

were seen. By his command his general Tokhtamish fell
upon the Golden Horde, murdered the Khan Mamai, swept
across Russia and sacked Moscow, leaving twenty-four
thousand dead in a ruined city.

The Crimea did not escape the common fate ; the Genoese
and Venetians were driven out and the country became a
tributary State of Timur's boundless Empire. But after his
death a prince of the line of Genghis, saved from the general
massacre when still a baby, and brought up in a rough
shepherd's hut, came back into his own and became Khan
of the Crimea, adapting the name of his protector and calling
himself Hadji Devlet Gherai.

The old pink " Palace of the Gardens " at Bakhchi Serai
has many memories. Here the Khans converted to Moham-
medanism had their harems ; here in the golden, paintedhalls,
crudely decorated in greens and blues and reds they held
their Court. Fierce men, fearless and intrepid, dark-skinned,
bright-eyed and lithe, they came back to these cool shadowed
rooms, tired of the glare of the hot sun, weary of hunting
and fighting, or chilled perhaps by the thin mists that drift
across the plains. And here in the green gardens with the
whispering fountains they lie buried, with a fading turban
of silk or brocade still lying on their stone coffins. Here lies
Hadji Gherai, and Mengli Gherai, and that Khan who had
his tomb unenclosed because " The Heavens were so beauti-
ful that even from his grave he wished to look towards the
firmament and the abode of God."

Here, too, is the " Fountain of Tears," erected, so
legend says to Marie Potocka, who passed her days in
weeping bitterly, held prisoner by Mengli Gherai. History
asserts that the legend is untrue, but when one stands in
that shadowed room where the beautiful Polish girl was
supposed to be imprisoned, one feels inclined — not for the

222 Recollections of Imperial Russia

only time — to think that history is, after all, very unsatis-
factory, throwing as it does doubts and disbelief on all that
is romance.

Dark and keen-eyed, and in his way beautiful, was Mengli
Gherai, and in his harem were women who worshipped him,
but though their loveliness charmed him, there was some-
thing his restless spirit sought for which they could not
give him, and always was he dissatisfied. Then in a warlike
raid over the frontier of Poland, he made a surprise attack
on the castle of the Potocki, and, among much treasure,
carried off with him the old Count's daughter. In triumph
he brought her back to his palace at Bakhchi Serai, and those
dreams of his, vague and dim in his eastern, half -savage mind,
were fulfilled at last, for in this little, captive Polish girl
with her white skin and deep blue eyes, he had found what
he had hungered for all his life. The women of his harem
were neglected and forgotten ; all the treasures his palace
held, gold brocade and stuffs of gleaming silk, furs and velvets
and precious stones, he laid in humble offering at the feet
of the girl who shrank in loathing horror from his touch,
unconsoled by all his gifts, cold as marble beneath his kisses,
weeping the golden hours away in a grief that nothing could
assuage.

Day after day he knelt at her feet imploring for some
return of the love that consumed him, beating his heart out
in vain against the barrier of her hatred and disdain. Appeals
and prayers, and offerings of precious stuffs, of flowers and
jewels, all alike powerless to stay her tears.

Then one morning he left the palace to go hunting across
the plains, seeking in the mad gallop of his white charger
forgetfulness from his misery, and during his absence one of
the women of his harem, a Georgian girl, filled with hatred for
the white doll who had stolen the heart of the Khan, crept,

The Shores of the Black Sea 223

thickly veiled, to the prisoner's door, and, with soft words,
bribed the soldiers on guard to let her pass. Noiselessly,
on bare, brown, slender feet, she crept across the shadowed
room to the divan, where amidst the green and silver cushions
the Polish girl lay in utter abandonment to grief. To have
the love of Mengli Gherai and yet to weep — the lip of the
Georgian girl twisted in bitter scorn.

In the old days his hand had sometimes played with her
dark hair, and he had often called her beautiful, now,
because of this white doll he never even glanced her way.
Once, twice, three times her slim, jewelled dagger flashed
above the weeping figure among the green and silver cushions,
and, after one little choking cry, there was silence in the
big room ; only through the carved wooden shutters came the
whisper of the fountains in the garden, the singing of a
blue-breasted bird in one of the flowering cherry trees.

It was sometime later that Mengli Gherai, his eyes
alight with the intoxication of his mad gallop, came to the
guarded door, the soldiers with their bared swords falling
back to let him pass. With hands outheld and words of
love on his eager lips he came across the room, and then
paused with a sudden cry, while beneath the tan of sun and
wind his dark cheek grew grey, and his eyes narrowed,
fixed in a stare of horror.

Beneath the poplars and cherry trees in the garden he
buried her, and to her memory he raised the fountain where
the water, dripping like constant falling tears, overflowed
into ten marble shells set in a low basin.

I remember dining in a wing of the old palace of Bakhchi
Serai, a dinner given us by the mayor of the town, the chief
inspector of police, and several other dignitaries. A strange
dinner, in a narrow room opening out on to the veranda, a
table adorned by a stiff bouquet of flowers in a bright blue

224 Recollections of Imperial Russia

vase, a Tartar waiter with an incredibly yellow, impassive
face, bringing us an endless succession of queer dishes.

Somewhere outside in the darkness the town band, con-
sisting of a somewhat cracked violin, a cornet, two or three
mandolins, and what sounded like a concertina playing
wild, haunting music, the distant subdued murmur of the
town rather like the buzzing of an insistent fly, and in the
garden the ripple of the fountains, the low whisper of the
grasses and the trees stirred by the soft night wind.

The scent of the East over it all, mingled with dust and
heat and flowers and musk, and the blended smells of sun-
parched grass, of oil and dirt. Against the starlit sky the
looming shadow and slender minarets of a mosque, and
beneath the trees the tombs of those long dead men, sleeping
in the gardens, great fighters and great hunters, restless and
unquiet and unafraid. Not far from Bakhchi Serai is
Tchoufout Kaleh and the valley of Jehosaphat, the almost
deserted city and burial ground of the Kharaim Jews.
Direct descendants of the tribes of Judah imprisoned in
Babylon, they are said to have wandered from thence into
Armenia, across the Caucasus and finally into the Crimea.
Various differences in their doctrines and rules distinguish
them from their brethren, and though they have the same
keen commercial sense they are scrupulously honest andclean,
and are respected by all with whom they come in contact.

One of them, a dark, grey-faced man, with a small, black
beard and the eyes of a dreamer, sat next me at that dinner
at Bakhchi Serai and I remember liking his quiet, soft voice,
his perfect manners, unobtrusive and simple, the forethought
through which a plate of hot honey cakes found their way to
our compartment in the train that evening, because, having
had them for tea at Tchoufout Kaleh, I had said that I found
them delicious.

The Shores of the Black Sea 225

In the fifteenth century the Crimea had become a
Dependent State of Turkey, but Russia striving ever for a
sea front to further her trade, struggled for many years for
the conquest of that Peninsular between the Caspian and the
Black Sea. Peter the Great tried to wrest it from the Turks,
but though he captured Azof he was defeated near the Pruth
and had to surrender it once more — might indeed have lost
all his army had not his wife bargained with the Grand
Vizier who commanded the Turkish hosts. Through the
succeeding reigns, war after war swept over the country,
till at last under Catherine the Great the Crimea was wrested
from Turkey, and the Empress in her triumphant journey
through her new province came at last to the old palace of
Bakhchi Serai which the Khan had been forced to leave.

The glittering superficial splendour of the Russian Court
mingling strangely in those old eastern halls, Catherine's
courtiers tittering and whispering in the harem with its
marble bath, the rustle of stiff brocade dresses, the tapping
of high-heeled shoes echoing on the stone pavements where
the bare feet of women had fallen softly. Music and
laughter, the stately grace of a minuet, the quick fire of a
mazurka in the hall where the fierce-eyed Khans had
assembled their warriors ; protestations of love, glowing
promises made in the gardens where the fountains sang
and dead men slept, fighting and love alike forgotten.

In the history of those times one name still lives, sur-
rounded by many legends of the Caucasus and the Crimea,
the name of the Bey Mansour, the man of mystery who
came, no man knew from whence, appearing suddenly as the
apostle of Allah. The Tartars of the Crimea and the Kuban
with the wild Circassians and tribes of the mountains flocked
to his standard, and by many he was believed to be the
Isman Mansour, who, according to the religious books of the

226 Recollections of Imperial Russia

Mohammedans was to come from the Caucasus and restore
the great Tartar Empire. Imbued it seemed by some magic
power he was saved over and over again from endless perils,
but pursued by the Russian hosts he always managed to
escape. The thunder of his great black horses' hoofs would
startle sleeping villages at night ; across the plains of the
Crimea the dust rose in a cloud behind him ; in the steep
rocky passes of the Caucasus he went where no man dared
follow him, till at last when the Russians conquered the
Crimea, he and his marvellous black horse both disappeared,
swallowed up it seemed as mysteriously as they had come.

Was he captured and killed in some secret ambush ?
Did that horse of his carry him across the steppes to the edge
of the world ? Or is the legend true that he was imprisoned
for a hundred years in the depths of a mountain cave ?

In many ways the Tartars of the Crimea differ from the
Mongolian Tartars, those fierce hordes of Genghis Khan who,
like an innumerable swarm of locusts flooded Russia and
threatened all eastern Europe. In the Crimea, the Asiatic
race has been mixed through centuries with Greek and
Italian, Turkish and Russian blood, and the dark faces are
keen and aquiline, the eyes slope only a very little, though
in the expression one can see that Oriental impassiveness,
the shut mask that hides all emotions, and leaves one won-
dering whether behind it there are depths unfathomable, or
just utter emptiness.

Perhaps in all the history of the Tartar hordes, the most
heroic and most tragic is the story of the terrible retreat of
the Kalmuck Tartars across Russia to the distant walls of
China, between three and four thousand miles away.

Settled on the banks of the Volga near the Caspian Sea,
the Kalmucks had their villages, their towns, and the
painted wooden palaces of their Khans. But incited by the

The Shores of the Black Sea 227

dark-hearted ZebekDarchi, they organised a concerted rising,
and against the better judgment of their gentle young Khan
Arbachi, started early in January in the year 171 1 that long
march, leaving behind them burning villages and palaces,
taking with them women and children and huge flocks of
cattle. Attacked by wandering Cossack tribes, pursued
continually by flying columns of the Russian army, a prey
to hovering packs of wolves, perishing in their hundreds
and thousands, from cold, from exhaustion, from
starvation, they toiled on through the long, bitter months of
winter, the radiant months of spring, leaving behind them
as they went a terrible trail of fallen bodies, the bleaching
bones of those who never were to attain the journey's end.
The cows and sheep and bullock, many even of the camels
had perished, when, in May, having traversed two thousand
miles they crossed the river Targan and were attacked by
savage tribes of the Khirgizes and Bashkirs who pursued
them unceasingly in their onward journey.

Not till September did the Chinese cavalry, sent out to
their aid by the Emperor Koan Lang reach the exhausted
people by the Lake of Tengis near the Desert of Kobi where
they were being once more fiercely attacked by the forces
of the Bashkirs. Then at last, for those who remained
of the Kalmuck millions, there was peace and plenty, but
along the endless roads of their grievous pilgrimage the
bones that lay bleaching in sun and wind told the tale of
their martyrdom.

Along the shores of the Black Sea, in green valleys, on
rough rocky slopes little Tartar villages cluster, mosques
with slender minarets, low-roofed houses, whitewashed or
painted a faded salmon pink, children with solemn faces
wearing stiff red and gold caps look up at one with enormous
dark brown eyes, men whose features are more Greek than

228 Recollections of Imperial Russia

Asiatic smile and murmur a gentle greeting, while women
peer at one curiously from dark door-ways or rough covered
carts drawn by little shaggy horses decorated with blue
beads to keep off the evil eye. All the radiance of the East
lies about them, all the glamour of a race fast dying out and
becoming extinct. The Empire of Genghis Khan of Timur
the Lame where has it gone ?

The fountains that whisper in the gardens of Bakhchi
Serai, the tombs of those sleeping princes with the turbans
of faded and decaying silk, the rocks that fall, golden brown,
into the sea, the masses of white cherry blossoms pure as new
fallen snow, the ineffable stillness of the Bay of Balaclava,
the legends that are only a far away memory ; these are all
that remain of the Cimmerian and Scythian Kingdoms, of
the rich prosperity of Genoese settlements, the might of
unconquerable Tartar armies, the splendour of Russian
Emperors.

The great palaces still stand in their green gardens.
Livadia, with its sweeping terraces dropping down to the
deep blue of the sea. Alupka, built by an English architect
for Prince Worontzof and called sometimes the Crimean
Alhambra by reason of its intricate Moorish style, Koreiz,
the wonderful palace of Prince Yousoupoff, Oreanda, Mas-
sandra, Ai Todor. Those who loved them are dead or have
been exiled from their beauty, and the roses of Livadia
wither, their petals wind-blown down the lawns like the
drifting fragments of fallen greatness.

The Cossacks 229

CHAPTER XIII

THE COSSACKS

Cossack ! A word derived probably from the Khazars,
of whose true meaning there seem to be many variants —
Outlaw, Fighter, Rider ! A name to be feared and dreaded ;
a name connected often with murder and plunder, with
the cries of women and children going down under the
thunder of horses' hoofs, and the pitiless strokes of the
nagaikas or whips with leather thongs weighted with
lead. A name associated with adventure, the craving for
untrammelled spaces, for liberty and freedom, the constant
pressing onwards away from civilisation and laws and
conventions, away into the Steppes, into the sandy plains
of the Crimea, into the mountains of the Caucasus and far-
distant Siberia. A nomad people, a race whose true origin
is still hidden, sprung originally perhaps from a branch of
the Turco tribe settling in the Kiev district, swelled by
Polovtzi stragglers, joined by deserters and fugitives from
the continuous insurrections in the cities, gradually adopting
the Orthodox Faith and the Russian language.

Not till the fourteenth or fifteenth century do the Cos-
sacks appear to any marked extent in Russian history, and
then they could almost be divided into two sections — the
Cossacks of the Ukraine, who lived in little wooden villages,
cultivated the land, and formed their own republics governed
by a " hetman " or chief, and the Zaparoghian Cossacks —

230 Recollections of Imperial Russia

those of " beyond the Rapids " into whose roving camps no
women were allowed, whose days and nights were one long
combat, always at war with some other wandering tribe
of the Steppes, eternally moving on from place to place.

Tartar invasions, the wars of the Russian Princes, the
irksome control of either Mongol, Lithuanian or Muscovite
Governments, drove the different tribes wandering over the
plains, joined constantly by adventurers and free-booters,
splitting up and forming into different groups — the Cossacks
of the Don, of the Astrakhan, of the Volga, and countless
others.

Peter the Great first tried to organise these various bands
into regular regiments, but his attempts to make them give
up their independence and take up agriculture all alike
ended in failure, and not till after the defeat of the Turks
did Catherine the Great succeed in wresting the Cossacks'
liberty from them.

Subdued they might be, formed into regiments, dis-
ciplined, held under the power of supreme autocracy, but
always they remained a force that had to be taken into
account, like the ancient Strelitsii Guards, a danger as well
as a protection ; and always about them clung the freedom
of great, windy spaces, the atmosphere of wide horizons, of
voiceless silences, of restless lawlessness, always the Cossack
on his little wiry horse remained a figure of romance sur-
rounded by legend and poetry.

There is a Russian picture which strangely catches and
conveys this impression to one's mind, though now I have
forgotten who painted it, or even what it is called. It gives
one just a view of a track across the Steppes, and a troop of
Cossacks riding along, while behind them the burning even-
ing sky stoops down to meet the unbroken plains. Weary,
covered with dust, and yet singing as they ride — surely one

The Cossacks 231

of those interminable songs whose haunting melancholy
pursues one indefinitely ! Looking at that picture one seems
to understand a little what those great plains mean, and
what it is that always made the Cossacks different to any
other military force in Europe.

The Cossacks of the Imperial Body Guard, tall, bearded
men in long blue coats lined with scarlet, which on feast-
days were exchanged for coats of vivid red bound tightly
round the waist, gleaming silver or ivory cartridge cases in
a black velvet band across their chests, and on their heads
high conical-shaped, black fur caps ! The Cossacks of the
Don, in sapphire blue with little round caps perched side-
ways on their heads, one long lock of hair on their foreheads !
The Cossacks of Orenburg in dark green, the Cossacks of
the Kuban and the Terek in brown coats, the Cossacks of the
Ural with their long-haired shaggy caps. They pass across
the screen of Russian history, wild, outlaw figures, always to
the fore-front of a battle, always seeking adventure, moving
on from place to place, always joining in every insurrec-
tion— pitiless and ruthless in battle, and yet with the hearts
of children, adoring their little shaggy horses, superstitious,
absolutely fearless.

Here and there in those flying squadrons, figures stand
out with prominent distinctness. Bogdan Chmielnicki,
Stenka Razin, Mazeppa, Emile Pougatcheff — their names
are written in legend and history, in folk-song, and poetry
and romance. Heroes perhaps, or just common adventurers
and marauders, rising always to a moment of great achieve-
ment, and then overwhelmed by the drifting smoke of failure.

Perhaps the one who is represented the most in the
legends of the county, endowed by the people with immor-
tality, and supposed to have been possessed of supernatural
powers, is Stenka Razin, or Stephen Timofievitch Razin.

232 Recollections of Imperial Russia

His brother having been hanged by George Dolgorouki for
deserting when an application for leave had been refused,
Stenka vowed vengeance on all Russian princes, gathered
to himself a band of outlaws and brigands, and established
himself at the Fortress of Katchalinsk on the Volga.

From here he arrested the passing convoys of barges,
among others the caravan of the Patriarch Joasaph, gaining
in this way riches, arms and munitions, till presently he
and his ever increasing band of followers sailed down the
river into the Caspian Sea, overcame and took possession of
the stronghold of Iaik, making it into his winter quarters.
Legends assert that Stenka used magic words to stop the
passing barges, that he had an enchanted boat in which he
had power to swim or fly, that, at the Fortress of Tsaritsin
he cast a spell on the cannons which refused to fire on him,
that the garrison of Iaik were overcome by enchantment,
surrendering the fortress to him and his followers without a
struggle.

Be that as it may, Prince Prozorofski, Voivode of Astra-
khan, tried in vain to dislodge him and his followers and
failed completely, and in March 1668 Razin embarked on the
Caspian Sea, and during all the ensuing summer ravaged the
rich ports and villages along the shore. New recruits were
daily joining him ; his power and his fabulous wealth were
becoming proverbial ; the fame of his name spread like wild-
fire across Russia. In the winter he entrenched himself once
more, this time in the harbour of the Island of the Pork,
and from here, sailing out on one of his marauding expedi-
tions, he captured the sixteen galleys of the Shah Menedi
Khan, making himself master of all his treasures and carry-
ing off his son and daughter as prisoners.

Then, once more sailing up the Volga, he made a trium-
phant entry into Astrakhan, listened with apparent meekness

The Cossacks 233

to Prozorofski's rebuke and good counsel, gave up some of
his munitions, made solemn promises not to fight or pillage
any more, and embarked again on his ship with its sails
woven of gold and silver tissue, its cords of silk, its awnings
of brocade, its hangings of velvet and priceless carpets.

On board with him he carried the daughter of the Persian
Shah, whose heart had become enflamed for this rough, fierce
captor of hers, and who the legend says was very beautiful.
But was not the love of women forbidden to the Cossack
soldiers when bent on warlike enterprise ? Had her dark,
Eastern eyes, her satin skin, her caressing fingers grown too
dear to Stenka ? Fear, superstition, heroic self-sacrifice,
drunken passion — what feeling was in his heart that radiant
summer afternoon, when in the middle of a banquet he rose,
took the fair Persian princess in his arms and looked down
on her with eyes of burning agony. So lovely she was in
her silken raiment, the fire of jewels braiding her luxuriant
hair, encircling her slender throat, gleaming on her rose-
tipped fingers !

The smooth waters of the broad river, whispering against
the prow of the ship seemed to mock him with laughing voices ;
the other guests at the banquet sat in frozen stillness, and
slowly the great bandit chief strode across the deck. " Volga
— little mother Volga," he cried, and his voice was full of a
passionate entreaty, " For two long years now thou hast
overwhelmed me with riches ; thou hast given me handfuls
of gold and silver and precious stones, treasure and wealth
of every sort, my heart tells me I owe thee something in
return. Take then, that which I cherish most in all the
world, the greatest treasure I possess, the most priceless and
dear of all my jewels."

Then with his great arms he lifted his burden high
above his head and flung her down into the swiftly flowing

234 Recollections of Imperial Russia

river, standing there immovable, a statue carved in bronze,
as the golden sails of his ship carried him onwards, and the
blue waters closed above the beseeching hands flung out to
him in desperate appeal. The sacrifice was accomplished,
and he turned to face his followers who had whispered that
his passion for the Persian princess was destroying his great-
ness and his power, and at sight of his rigid countenance they
stood silent, abashed, not knowing what to say.

His promise to Prozorofski forgotten, Stenka continued
his career of pillage and plunder, captured Staritsin, murdered
the governor Tourgueniev, spread insurrection and rebellion
everywhere among the people, and finally returned to
Astrakhan which was delivered by treachery into his hands.
Fatally wounded, Prozorofski was carried into the cathedral
which was speedily filled with fugitives from the town.
But to the followers of Stenka Razin the church provided no
sanctuary ; in vain the great iron studded doors were shut
and barred ; in vain Trolboura, an officer of the Streletsii
Guard tried to stem the rush, falling hacked to pieces, as the
doors crashed in and Stenka 's powerful, broad-shouldered
figure strode into the darkened church. Dragged to his
feet Prozorofski was thrown down and left to die on
the stone pavement of the square, and over all the city of
Astrakhan spread murder and terror, while the brigand chief
feasted and drank with his boon companions, dreaming
mad dreams of further conquest and power.

After Astrakhan Samara, Saratov and Simbrisk fell one
by one into Stenka's hands, till at last the armies of Milo-
slavski and Bariatinski overcame him, and, besieged and be-
trayed, he was delivered into the hands of his enemies.
Loaded with chains he and his brother were taken to Moscow,
dressed in filthy rags, led in triumph through the town, tor-
tured in order to try and wring from them the hiding place

The Cossacks 235

of their treasure and munitions, the ultimate intention
of their conspiracy, and then finally put to death.

Through it all Stenka kept an immovable silence, an
unfaltering bravery. " Have we not had our good time ? "
he questioned his brother, whose courage was shaken.
" Now it is our turn to suffer and we must endure
it."

But in the minds of the Russian people Stenka Razin
is not dead. The legends say that neither Heaven nor Hell
would receive him ; that one day he will return and save the
country from oppression. Already in Emile Pougatchefr
he lived again. His was the same cry as Stenka's : " Down
with the Boyars ; down with authority ; liberty to the
peasants." Calling himself Peter III., the murdered hus-
band of Catherine, he marched through the country gathering
hundreds of recruits, threatening the government and the
State till at last he, in his turn, was captured and put to
death. And somewhere the treasure of Stenka Razin still
lies in undiscovered splendour ; legend and poetry sing his
name all over Russia ; the verses he made the last night in
prison are known by all the people. " Bury me brothers at
the three cross roads that lead to Moscow, to Astrakhan
and the Holy City of Kiev. Place at my head the Cross
which gives life, at my feet my sharp sword. Oh, passing
traveller, stay a moment ! Before my life-giving Cross say
a little prayer. Look at my sword, my terrible, sharp
sword, and tremble. He who rests here was an adventurer
and an outlaw, but a good fellow. Stenka Razin Timofief
was his name."

The story of the Cossack Hetman, Bogdan Chmielnicki,
lacks some of the poetry that surrounds the name of the
great brigand chief, and yet it is also full of daring and
high adventure, and though his dreams only ended in failure

236 Recollections of Imperial Russia

they came very near to achievement ; success indeed seemed
almost within his grasp.

A descendant of an impoverished noble family of Lithu-
ania, or, as some think, a son of a Hetman of the Zaparogue
Cossacks, he was brought up by the Jesuits, and though they
could not induce him to renounce the Orthodox Faith, they
taught him to hide his thoughts beneath an expressionless
countenance, and gave him the art of a wonderful fluency,
the power of persuading men even against their better
judgment. Warlike and courageous, he distinguished him-
self as a soldier, and in a battle against the Muscovites in
1635, received a sword of honour from Vladislas of Poland.

His history might have been very different had not
Czaplinsky, a Polish over -lord taken possession of his small
domain at Soubotof, carried off his wife and beaten his ten-
year-old son to death. In vain Chmielnicki appealed for
justice and retribution ; he was put off with vague promises,
pointed out as a dangerous man, till at last he took refuge
in flight, and swearing vengeance, began to gather together
an army of Cossacks and insurgent peasants. Maintaining
the greatest secrecy as to his movements he journeyed
to Bakhchi Serai, employing that marvellous eloquence of
his to win over the Khan, Islam Gherei, to support his
Cossacks against the Poles.

Etienne Potocki, sent out by his father, came across the
army of the rebels near the river of the Yellow Water, but
the fleet of the Hetman, Barabache, which should have come
to his assistance was won over by Chmielnicki, who with his
Cossacks manned the boats, so that Potocki 's army, caught
between two fires, was defeated and utterly overcome, he
himself succumbing to his wounds. Seeking to avenge his
son, Potocki placed hi mself at the head of an army, but was in
his turn defeated and made prisoner, and overwhelmed with

The Cossacks 237

grief Ladislas of Poland died, leaving his country without
a king, at the mercy of Chmielnicki's victorious Cossacks.

A time of terror followed ; there were risings of the
peasants, terrible massacres of the landed gentry, the
Catholics and the Jews, another army of the Poles beaten
by Chmieknicki, disorder and chaos everywhere ; till finally
Jean Casimir was chosen king of Poland and Chmielnicki
made his triumphant entry into Kiev, proclaiming himself
Hetman of the Cossacks.

Here, surrounded by pomp and ceremony, he received
the envoy from the Polish king but would come to no
definite decision, at one time making suave speeches which
promised everything but gave nothing, at another moment
threatening to over-run Poland with his army of Cossacks
and Tartars.

Here, in the Holy City of Kiev, where the ruins of the
old Cathedrals still seemed to mirror the greatness of long
dead Rurik princes, ambitions and dreams soared in the
mind of the fierce old Cossack chief. To free the Ukraine
from the government of the Poles, to make himself duke
or prince of the Province, to conquer and subdue the Tsar
of Moscow as well — that was what Kiev was teaching
him, as, wrapped in a coat made of black fox fur he feasted
and drank without measure, wild bloodshot eyes looking up
at the golden domes, seeing visions of triumph, picturing
himself as a second Vladimir.

But the long struggle with the Poles was still not finished.
The heroic defence of Zbarcy by Wisnoiwicki was followed
by another battle where Jean Casimir himself took command,
and finally in 1650, at Sokal in Volhynia, the Polish army
defeated and utterly routed the Cossacks, and at last Chmiel-
nicki was forced to write to the Tsar at Moscow, promising
submission and obedience to the Russian supremacy.

238 Recollections of Imperial Russia

The glory of his triumphs had deserted him ; rapidly he
seemed to go from one defeat to another, deserted and
abandoned on every side, till at last in 1657, worn out by a
life of hard fighting and hard drinking, he died, leaving his
task unaccomplished, and the Ukraine still a dependent
state, torn by conflicting passions and warring armies.

With a face of granite, small fierce eyes, tempestuous
passions and vivid eloquence, he passes across the screen ;
in his way a great leader of men, but lacking singleness of
purpose and astuteness of policy, and following him comes
the more courtly graceful figure of Mazeppa, known to
English readers by Byron's poem.

A gentleman of the Court of Jean Casimir of Poland,
Mazeppa was of Russian birth and of Cossack extraction,
but, having quarrelled in an unseemly fashion with another
courtier, was banished in disgrace to his estate in Volhynia.

Here he fell in love with the beautiful young wife of a
Polish magnate, but his intrigue being discovered by the
jealous husband, a trap was laid for him, he was caught, and
bound naked on his horse which was driven off at a mad gallop
across the country. In his poem Byron makes that ride
last for days, and carries Mazeppa across the Steppes to a
Cossack encampment ; but in reality the horse brought him
back to his own estate, and it was his fury at the insult to
his pride that made him join the Zaparoguin Cossacks, who
in 1687 made him Hetman.

Good looking, bold and fearless, with a genius for in-
trigue, a keen intuition in reading men's minds, and a power
of masking his own thoughts under pretended drunkenness
or ignorance, Mazeppa kept his own council, professed
complete loyalty to Russia, yet all the time played the
double game and remained faithful to Polish supremacy.

Peter the Great had just ascended the throne of Russia

Members of the Aristocracy Selling their Clothes during

the Bolshevik Terror.

A Restaurant Wrecked by Bolsheviks.

p 238.

The Cossacks 239

and, recognising perhaps a kindred spirit in the Cossack
Hetman, gave him his full confidence and affection, refus-
ing obstinately to listen to the many warnings given him,
determined that his opinion was the right one, and that in
the tall, good-looking man with the eagle eyes he had a
devoted adherent and true sympathiser.

Mazeppa was now nearing the age of sixty, but romance
seemed to be part of his life, and a poem of Pouchkin deals
with his second great love story which took place at this
period. Matrena, the daughter of Basil Kotchubey, was a
ward of Mazeppa's, and, brought up in solitude, romantic
and imaginative, gave all her girl's heart to the old
Hetman. A name, the halo of greatness and renown, a
smiling affectionate greeting, a gentle unfailing courtesy —
how soon a woman will turn these into love ? And the
beauty of radiant eyes, the freshness of smiling lips, the
joyousness of young laughter — Mazeppa was just not too old
to turn away from these. Harshly treated by her father,
Matrena fled to Mazeppa's house. Poetry says that they
subsequently eloped together, while history affirms with
sedate propriety that Mazeppa escorted her back to her
parents, though they continued to meet every evening
under the willows of the Kotchubey garden. At last, how-
ever, these secret meetings were discovered and Matrena
was imprisoned, and, eventually yielding to her parent's
wishes, married the man of their choice, though often surely
the name of Mazeppa must have haunted her mind.

Again and again Kotchubey, determined to be avenged
on the man who had seduced his daughter, sent warnings
to Peter of the Hetman's infidelity, but, refusing to be con-
vinced, the Tsar, with grim humour, delivered him to
Mazeppa, who immediately had both him and his faithful
servant executed. All too soon was the Tsar to see how

Q

240 Recollections of Imperial Russia

foolish and blind he had been to neglect the repeated warn-
ings he had been given, for when Charles XII. of Sweden
attacked south Russia, Mazeppa, commanded to join Peter
with his Cossacks, suddenly went over to Charles. What
was in the old chieftain's mind ? That long cherished
dream of the liberty of the Ukraine ? The belief that
the king of Sweden would annihilate the Russian Army ?
A vision of personal aggrandisement — a high command —
a crown perhaps ?

Visions and dreams all shattered into a thousand frag-
ments at the battle of Poltava, when the invincible army of
Charles was scattered to the winds and Mazeppa was forced
to fly with the young King of Sweden, seeking refuge under
the protection of the Turks from Peter's wrath, and dying at
Bender a year later, a bitter, disillusioned, broken old man,
whose heart was filled with the unutterable pain of failure,
in whose trembling hands great opportunities and high
ambitions had turned to shifting ashes.

And in time the great, independent Cossack state he had
dreamt of, he with those other outlaws, Stenka Razin,
Bogdan Chmielnicki, Zarucki, Marina Mniszech's lover,
later on Pougatcheff, and many more whose names history
has not recorded, was blown to the winds, scattered
in flying particles across the Steppes, exterminated and
annihilated by Catherine the Great who broke up and dis-
banded the Zaporoguin Cossacks, driving some into distant
exile, forcing others to settle down as farmers, distributing
others again in the various regiments.

But always the need for wide spaces, for the liberty of
the great wilds, for adventure, for fighting and wandering
remained ingrained in the Cossack nature, and always in
all the wars and conquests of Russia their name figures.

In the long wars of the Caucasus, the Cossacks of the

The Cossacks 241

Ciaters, those wandering bands who had settled in the
mountains, fought and overcame the Tchetchenzes who were
vassals of Turkey, and were the first to plant vineyards and
make the Caucasian wines. In the conquest of Siberia a
small group of the Volga Cossacks under their Hetman,
Yermak Timofeiev, pushed on into the unknown wilderness,
extending the territory already won by Ivan the Terrible,
and, having overcome Tartars and Astiaks, offered the
conquered country to the Tsar. There were those Cossacks
who took part in the war with Persia, those others who,
in their quest for adventure, advanced as far as Kamchatka,
and there were, too, those heroic few, who, under their
Hetman Tolbusin, defended the small far -distant frontier
town of Albasin from the Chinese in 1659.

For two years, eight hundred men held the walls against
an army of Chinese, fifteen thousand strong. Winter and
summer passed and came again, and at last, after twenty-
four months, the garrison of Cossack warriors, thin and
haggard and hungry-eyed, surrendered to the Chinese
Generals who, full of admiration for their heroic resistance,
treated them with the honours of war and gave them
their freedom.

But after a few years Tolbusin returned, underterred to
the half -ruined fortress ; again his Cossack soldiers manned
the walls, and again the armies of China gathered round,
besieging them for thirteen weary months, till at last the
Treaty of Nerdchinsk gave the coveted city to the
Russians.

A few of the soldiers who had fought in the first siege had,
however, been taken prisoners by the Chinese, either in an
assembled sortie, or by trying to get through the enemy's
lines and go for help. These were sent to Pekin and taken
before the Emperor, in order to show him what these

242 Recollections of Imperial Russia

Cossacks were, who for two years had kept his armies at
bay. And the Emperor looked at the huge, broad-shouldered
men with their bronzed impassive faces, with their light
beards and fierce blue eyes, and declared that these men
who had shown his soldiers how they could fight should be
his special body-guard.

Shut within the great walls of China, in the secret city of
Pekin whose mysteries are impenetrable as the grave, the
descendants of those old Cossack soldiers still hold their
posts, handed down from father to son through the passing
years. Their religion is based on the Orthodox and Buddhist
Faith, their names, written in Chinese characters, are still the
same.though pronounced in a different way. Their pigtails
are very often fair, their eyes, not infrequently blue, hardly
slant at all ; an odd confusion of East and West, a strange
study in the psychology of inheritance.

Some of these men were sent to defend the Tsian Tsin
forts during the Boxer Rising, and still in their veins runs
the old Cossack fighting blood, the old craving for adventure
still haunts their minds, the old longings perhaps for the
great, free spaces, the scent of thyme and mint and sweet
wild flowers on the Steppes, the chattering of partridges,
the flying shadows of wild geese, the fresh pure winds that
sing across the untrodden spaces, the blue smoke of camp
fires rising in the still evening air, men's voices that
chanted melodies not remembered, but never quite
forgotten.

And up to the very last the Cossacks played their part
in Russian history, and during the war the so-called " Wild
Division" was looked on as invincible. In the revolution
of March, 1917, they sided with the people, refusing to fire
on the crowd ; but in July when the Bolsheviks took posses-
sion of Petrograd for three days it was the Cossacks who

The Cossacks 243

took it back for the Government, only to find that Kerensky
did not support them.

I shall never forget the charge they made across the
Square in front of the Embassy, their headlong rush up
from the Champ de Mars and round the corner of our house
on to the quay ; the thundering clatter of their horses' hoofs
dying away, and then the sudden hideous clamour of unseen
fighting, the report of field guns, the sick feeling one
had when a message was brought that the Cossacks had
fallen into an ambush and that many of them had been
killed.

I remember, too, watching the funeral of those men
and the dull brooding faces of their comrades who followed
the flower-decked coffins. Had not these, their brothers,
saved the capital and the Government, and what was their
reward ? Kerensky, with the Bolshevik leaders delivered
into his hands, liberating the latter with the catch-word
phrase that no blood should be shed.

It was a thing the Cossacks never forgot or forgave, and
when in the autumn the Bolsheviks again took Petrograd
and Kerensky called on them, they refused to follow him ;
but in the armies of Korniloff, of Kolchak, of Denikin and
Wrangel, the Cossacks fought against the oppression of the
Bolshevik Rule ; in the Crimea, in the rocky Caucasus, in
distant Siberia, in the Ural Mountains, in the great, limitless
Steppes they still exist.

Their camp fires gleam at night across the plains, the
sound of their songs comes still across the unbroken silences,
and in their hearts they wait for a leader like Stenka Razin
to come and show them the way to victory.

Some day, perhaps, that man may come, for Russia is
still the land of miracles, the country of the unexpected
where no man knows what the next hour may bring forth.

244 Recollections of Imperial Russia

And, though now everything seems dark in the welter of
confusion, it may happen that from this hopeless chaos a
man may step out, endowed by the people with the magic
powers of Stenka Razin, or with the rough eloquence of
Bogdan Chmielnicki, and, flocking to his banner, perhaps
the Cossacks will once more sail up the Volga, sweep in serried
ranks across the country, and thunder at the gates of Moscow,
making those men who hide in the Kremlin shiver and
turn pale.

Religion, Mysticism, Melody and Colour 245

CHAPTER XIV

RELIGION, MYSTICISM, MELODY AND COLOUR

So the memories of Russia pass and fade away.— The
romances and tragedies of her history, the great figures of
those men who governed her, sometimes with justice, some-
times with brutal harshness ; the fire of women's jewels,
laughter and tears, the refrain of the constant clash of arms
that runs through all her legends, the haunting sadness of
the songs the peasants sing, the flying figures of wild horse-
men across the plains, the swing of dancing feet, the ringing
of church bells, the Cathedrals of the Kremlin, little white
churches with blue and green and silver roofs, mystery and
an incomprehensible charm.

Wooden chapels in the villages with crudely painted, star-
covered domes. Wayside shrines where pitying Madonnas
and gentle-eyed Saints look out with infinite compassion on
the passing crowds. Yellow trams that shriek and rattle,
long lines of carts with strugglinghorses andswearing drivers,
little Isvostchiks with small, shaggy ponies and bearded
coachmen, following the hurrying passers-by. " Let me
drive you, Barin ? We'll go like the wind with my little
horse. Look at him and see if he is not nice and fat. I'll
take you anywhere you like for fifty kopyecks. Eh now, I'm
a poor man, but I'll drive you right down the Nevsky for
twenty."

Hard-faced men, women with hopeless eyes, laughing

246 Recollections of Imperial Russia

children, moujiks in bright coloured shirts, officers in grey
over coats — they pass on intent on their thoughts and their
own individual tragedies, and the Saint in the way-side
shrine looks out at them in gentle sympathy from amidst
the flickering candles.

The Religion of the people is so intimately part of their
everyday lives, that, though one may smile a little scepti-
cally at much that is superstition and childish credulity,
one cannot help at the same time being stirred to wonder,
almost to envy, thus in every room of a Russian house an
ikon is placed high up on the wall facing the door, and every
one is supposed to salute the Holy Image both on entering
the room and before and after a meal. As soon as a baby
is born a priest is called in to pray over it. When it is eight
days old he comes again to hold it up before the ikon of the
Virgin, and to give it a Christian name ; then after forty days
the official christening takes place in church, the priest
makes the sign of the Cross above the baby and carries it in
his arms up to the doors of the Ikonastas.

Several times when we were in Russia I went to weddings
— strange ceremonies, still retaining a certain Byzantine
half-Oriental atmosphere. At their betrothal the couple
present two rings to the priest who places them before the
altar, and after the Benediction returns them to their owners
who then exchange them in sign that they may bestow on
each other all their worldly goods.

For the actual wedding the bride and bridegroom are
led by the priest into the church, and, after solemnly renew-
ing their betrothal promises, stand, holding lighted candles,
while behind each of them a long line of pages takes it in
turn to hold two richly jewelled crowns over their heads —
symbols of virtue triumphing over the passions ! Then the
priest, after once more exhorting them to faithfulness,

Religion, Mysticism, Melody and Colour 247

patience and affection, presents them with the chalice, and,
after joining their hands together, leads them three times
round the church.

It was believed that who ever first set foot on the carpet
specially laid down, should be the ruler of the household, and
I well remember a radiant young bride and bridegroom,
in spite of the solemnity of the occasion, making an un-
dignified rush, the bride just managing to place her white
satin slipper one inch before the bridegroom's heavy cavalry
boot, at the same time turning her head to laugh
triumphantly at a group of her girl friends. Had she not
told them that she was going to rule Nikita with a rod of
iron, and do exactly as she pleased in all things ?

But this time the prophecy proved very incorrect, for
Nikita was a stern, if a very loving husband, and always the
absolute master, till he was struck down by a German bullet
at Tannenberg ; while that laughing young bride, summoned
to the hospital where he lay dying, arrived only just in time
to kiss his stiffening lips. Afterwards she devoted her
whole life to the nursing of wounded soldiers, was arrested
by the Bolsheviks on the charge of counter revolutionary
sympathies and died of starvation in prison.

I have often heard people say that Russian funerals
give them more belief in Resurrection and Eternity than
those of any other church. The constant prayers read
over the body, the wonderful singing of the final service,
the gleaming candles which are held by all the congre-
gation in sign that the soul of the departed has left the
shadows of this world for the ineffable radiance of the
true light, the open coffin with the face of the dead
turned to the East as if he still joined in the prayers
of his friends, the custom that all related should after the
service kiss the cold forehead in a last farewell ; all this,

248 Recollections of Imperial Russia

perhaps, makes the dead person still seem part of the living
world, going on a journey accompanied by the prayers of
his friends, but that last kiss is a terrible ordeal, and I have
seen widows break down in complete abandonment ; mothers
carried fainting away.

The Altar in Russian churches is hidden by the Ikonastas,
or Rood Screen, which holds three doors, the centre of
which is called the Royal Door, and only opened on rare
occasions. During the service, and behind the sanctuary of
these doors, no lay-man was allowed to pass, save the Tsar
at the moment of his coronation, or if he wished to place an
offering on the Altar.

The domes that surmount the churches represent Our
Lord in the centre, and the smaller domes, either the four
Evangelists, or, when there are twelve of them, the Twelve
Apostles, while the cupolas of odd shapes that surmount them
signify the flames of candles burning before the Divine
Majesty. The ringing of church bells is said to frighten
away the devil, and one can imagine Satan having had a very
bad time in Petersburg or Moscow where the air seemed
constantly to echo to the jubilant music of bells.

Many other services in Russian churches come back to
me. The First Sunday in Lent, called Anathema Sunday,
when the priest solemnly curses the memory of all rebels such
as the False Dimitri, Stenka Razin or Emile Pougatcheff.
The midnight service on Easter Eve, when the churches
and squares and streets outside were thronged with wor-
shippers, all holding little flickering candles, when the long
rows of Easter cakes were blessed, and at midnight the
priest opened the great doors, announcing in a joyful voice
to those who waited, " He is Risen." Whereupon all the
bells in the city broke into clamorous jubilation, the
cannons thundered from the fortress, and the people turned

Religion, Mysticism, Melody and Colour 249

to kiss each other with the words, " He has Risen indeed."
Vespers in a little village church, an old priest in a red
and silver cope raising his trembling hands in supplication
before the gilt doors of the Ikonastas, men in blue, yellow,
red or green shirts standing amidst the shadows, ragged
children clinging to the skirts of women with shawls or
bright-coloured handkerchiefs over their heads, and through
the open window the singing of a nightingale, the distant
music of a concertina ; or else an official service in the Khazan
Cathedral of Petersburg, attended by dignitaries of the
Court, members of the Imperial family and diplomatic body.

The flickering haze of candles, the drifting blue mist of
incense, a low, subdued murmur like the whisper of a
distant sea, the shifting brilliance of uniforms and jewelled
decorations, the perfume of scent and powder, mingling
with the smell of incense and melting wax. And then as
the royal doors of the Ikonastas swung open, the voice of the
priest chanting in the sudden breathless hush, " Glory to the
Holy Trinity, One Indivisible, to-day — to-morrow — to all
Eternity." Slowly the old man with his white beard, his
golden crown and heavy brocaded robes comes down into the
church while the deacon with his full, black beard and robe
of olive green, precedes him swinging the incense, and the
voices of the choir, like the voices coming from some far,
unseen, distant paradise, break out into the hundred-and-
fourth Psalm. The great doors of the Ikonastas close in
symbol of the punishment of man who disobeyed the
commands of God and was exiled from Paradise, till, later
in the service they open again for the priest to come out
once more and stand in silent prayer, and this time the
opening of the doors symbolises the re-opening of the Gates
of Paradise bj' the sacrifice of Our Lord.

Full of symbolism, of romance and mysticism is the

250 Recollections of Imperial Russia

Religion of Russia — full of superstition as people say, a
statement which cannot be denied, but if superstition can
make a Religion so real, so vivid and alive, can one blame it
very severely ? For always, all day long the churches
were open, and, at whatever hour one went, they seemed
to be crowded with worshippers come to pray or to place
a little yellow candle before the image of a Patron Saint or
wonder-working Madonna. Women with shawls over their
heads, women in rich furs, old women with lined, sorrowful,
work-worn faces, young girls radiant and smiling, here and
there a bearded peasant, an officer with a grey overcoat, an
old man half asleep, some children stretching up to place
their votive candle and make their little prayer ; so sure of
its being fulfilled because that candle burnt before the
Holy Image, that one's heart was stirred to a sudden swift
emotion.

Blindly the people still believe in miracles, the omni-
potence of the Saints, the power of wonder-working ikons
to heal their ailments, and grant their wishes. Among the
most celebrated of these are the Virgin found in Khazan
in 1597, removed to Moscow and finally brought to Peters-
burg in 1760, the Virgin of Vladimir in the Uspensky
Cathedral at Moscow, the Virgin of the Don and the
Iberian Virgin, copied from the celebrated picture in the
monastery on Mount Athos, a few other ikons of Saints —
St. Nicholas, the wonder-working Saint of Russia,
St. George, St. Helena, St. Xenia. Found sometimes
through the dreams or visions of monks, these ikons were
looked on with the utmost reverence, covered sometimes
with jewels and offerings from those who had been granted
their prayers.

Now under the excuse of feeding the starving population
the Bolsheviks have despoiled the churches of all their

Religion, Mysticism, Melody and Colour 251

treasures, have broken up the jewelled ikons, taken away the
gold plate, the silver chased cups and chalices, ostensibly
with the intention of exchanging them for grain and corn
to be sent to the famine districts. But whether those
provisions or that money ever reached the starving
people, or whether it went to feed the enormous system
of propaganda which the Bolsheviks have organised all over
the world is the question that has often been asked and to
which there is never any definite answer.

And yet even the Bolshevik Government, with its limit-
less power, has reason sometimes to fear the wonder-working
ikon. I was told a story a little time ago which shows how
the spirit of mysticism still stirs in Russia under the rule of
tyranny and terror ! Every year on the Feast-day of St.
Nicholas there had been a procession to the Nicholas Gate
in Moscow, where the Holy Image had been miraculously
spared when the Gate was ruined in Napoleon's attempt to
blow up the Kremlin. Under the Bolsheviks the procession
had been stopped, but last year the people sent a special
petition asking to hold it once more, and afraid of rousing
a religious outcry, the Government reluctantly gave their
consent, and made careful preparations beforehand, draping
a huge red flag over the gateway, thus entirely hiding the
Holy Ikon from sight.

The procession arrived in due course, and the Religious
service began, severely watched by the soldiers of the new
army on guard all round. Then suddenly though it was
a grey and windless day and not the smallest breeze
stirred in the air, the great, scarlet flag, hung over the
gateway, slowly split from top to bottom, falling apart and
displaying the ikon to the gaze of the amazed and wonder-
ing people, who fell on their knees while the terrified soldiers
broke up in panic.

252 Recollections of Imperial Russia

It is certain that the Bolsheviks are finding the Church
of Russia harder to overthrow than they did the Empire ',
it has been and still is the most insurmountable obstacle in
their path, though they are expending every means in their
power to lower and debase it in the eyes of the people. With
Vedensky, the head of the Church Reform, using Bishop
Antonin as their instrument, they have founded innumerable
new sects which, seeming to carry out the teachings of the
Church, in reality preach the Communist propaganda.
The " Living Church," the " Free Labour Church," and
the " Russian People's Church," through these they declare
to the people that the Bolshevik Revolution follows the
Gospel of Christ, and those priests who dare speak against
them are imprisoned, banished, or executed without mercy.

So, though originally Christianity was introduced into
Russia, without any of the convulsions, persecutions or
oppressions that marked its birth in other countries, it is
now passing through its supreme trial, and those who know
and love Russia wonder sometimes whether the faith of the
people will emerge triumphantly or whether it will be dragged
down by those men who blaspheme in the Name of Christ.

When Vladimir, Grand Prince of Kiev, was baptised in
the Orthodox Faith, Christianity was accepted all over
his kingdom and spread with almost miraculous rapidity.
But with the invasion of the Mongolian Tartars, who
were Shammamites, the Church was baptised in fire, and
sanctified by the blood of martyrs. Michael of Tchernigoff ,
journeying to the Tartar Horde to swear fealty to the
Khan, refused to bow his head to the Tartar gods or to
pass through the sacred fire, and was murdered with his
companion, the Boyarin Theodore. Michael of Tver,
accused of plotting against the Tartars, voluntarily delivered
himself into their hands to save his people from massacre.

Religion, Mysticism, Melody and Colour 253

Alexander Nevsky, in his turn journeying to the Golden
Horde, resolved to suffer martyrdom rather than abjure
his religion, was spared the supreme sacrifice, but gave
his life and his strength in one continual struggle for the
security of his people and the freedom of the Church.
Roman, Prince of Riazan, was tortured and put to death
because he refused to embrace the Mohammedan faith to
which the Tartars had been converted.

Many others there were — princes and priests who gave
their lives, while bowed beneath the terrible Mongol rule the
people clung to the comfort of dim churches, and the sweet-
faced ikons listened compassionately to their prayers.

Up till the capture of Constantinople by the Turks the
Russian Church had been united under the Supreme Patriarch
of that city, but in 1589 the Partiarch Job was elected in
Moscow, and up till the death of Adrien in 1700 the Tsar and
the head of the Church had equal riches and rights, though
the Tsar was nominally the head of both Church and
State. Among the great Patriarchs of Russia may be cited
Hermogenes, starved to death by the Poles, because he
refused to withdraw his command ordering the people to
fight against the invaders, Philaret, the father of Michael
Romanov, and Nikon, who instituting new reforms into
the Church brought to a head the great schism or " Raskol,"
which gave birth to the sect called the Old Believers who
still exist in Russia, steadily refusing to acknowledge the
new Liturgy.

The famous siege of the Monastery of Solavetz where the
monks held out stubbornly for seven years against excom-
munication and the armies of the Tsar, the harsh treatment
of the Old Believers, their exile, their voluntary martyr-
dom when they built up huge pyres, which they set alight
with their own hands, perishing together in the flames

254 Recollections of Imperial Russia

rather than submitting to the Tsar's orders. All these make
one wonder at the stubborn resistance which preferred death
to making the sign of the Cross with two fingers instead of
three, or the new way of spelling the name of Our Lord
as Jisus instead of Jesus.

But the tempest of feeling raised throughout the country
ended in the abdication of Nikon, and his successors were
colourless figures, till finally, with the death of Adrien in the
reign of Peter the Great, the Emperor, who cared not at all
whether the people called him anti-Christ, allowed the post
of Patriarch to lapse, replacing it by the Holy Synod or
Ecclesiastical Senate, which, composed of priests and bishops,
was governed by a procurator who represented the State,
and was the intermediary between the Synod and the
Emperor.

Then at last during the Bolshevik Revolution, Tikon was
elected Patriarch and in him the spirit of holy Russia seemed
to be re-born. Severely reprimanding the Government for
the murders committed by their commands, remonstrating
with them for the blasphemy of their mock religious pro-
cessions, certain that the treasures of the Church would be
expended in propaganda, he demanded that the relief be
administered under the Church's supervision, and was
finally forced into retirement and imprisoned.

A woman who had done heroic work in the Bolshevik
prisons during the terrible years of 1919, 1920 and 1921, told
me a story of him which has remained vividly in my mind.

Forced to leave Russia early this year she managed to
send word to the Patriarch that she felt she could not go
away without his blessing, and that, at such and such an
hour, she would be outside his prison. Coming there at the
appointed time she knelt in the snow looking up at the small
barred window, which she knew was that of his cell, and

Religion, Mysticism, Melody, and Colour 255

presently through the shadows two hands were raised in
Benediction. That was all she saw, for the window in the
thick wall was too high for the old man to lookout, but
nevertheless that woman went away happier for the blessing
given by those two trembling hands.

There are many other grand figures that pass across the
pages of the history of the Russian Church. The Metro-
politan Philip, martyred because he refused to give his
public blessing to Ivan the Terrible when the latter entered
the church in an unseemly condition. Hilarien the hermit
of the caves near Kiev, Anthony the holy monk who carried
on his work and founded the famous Lavra Monastery, the
Metropolitan Platon, who sought to curb the madness of
the Emperor Paul, Father John of Cronstadt, the Metro-
politan Benjamin, barbarously executed by the Bolsheviks
for refusing to sanctify the plundering of the churches.

And passing among the great figures of holy men there
are some, sinister and terrible with the power of evil, such
as Rasputin, that debauched and drunken peasant.

A huge, tremendously powerful figure, dressed nearly
always in bright -coloured, or finely embroidered silk shirts,
velvet breeches and high boots of the softest leather, a face
strange and arresting, eyes that probed deeply, that com-
pelled, that seemed lit with fires not human, a voice that
for all its untutored commonness could be wonderfully
charming. So Rasputin has been described, but who could
read or understand the distorted mind, the fits of ungovern-
able passion, the moments of transported fervour, the
reasoning that asserted the right to sin in order to attain the
salvation of repentance, the necessity of the benediction of
• love, the excesses of sensual passion and drunken intoxica-
tion ? And what was it, the mysterious power of this man, the
force that seemed to emanate from him, and subjugated all

R

256 Recollections of Imperial Russia

with whom he came in contact ? Poor women, old women,
young girls, women highly bred, intellectual and refined,
seeing in him a holy man, and forgetting the common dirty
moujik.

Indisputably the Empress herself was blinded, for her he
was almost a saint, endowed with the mysterious power of
relieving and curing the little Tsarevitch whose health was
a constant and continual anxiety, and obstinately she
refused to listen to the many warnings given her.

I read a description the other day of some of the recep-
tions held in Rasputin's house, when crowds of his women
devotees gathered together, and he danced and sang and
raved in a flood of drunken eloquence. Once in the
middle of one of these revelries, he was summoned to
the telephone to answer a call from the Palace at Tsarskoe.
The message was that the little Tsarevitch had been
tortured all day with an agonising earache, that his tempera-
ture was rising, and he was tossing feverishly on his bed.
Immediately Rasputin, breathless, perspiring and half
intoxicated, assumed his grave and compelling voice. " No,
no," he said, " Alexis has no earache, tell him to come and
speak to me on the telephone." There was silence for a
few moments and then Rasputin spoke again. " Is that you
Aloucha ? They tell me you have earache but it is not true.
It is better now, it is quite gone — do you understand ?
You will go to bed and sleep because the pain has quite gone
away." A quarter of an hour later the telephone rang again —
the little Tsarevitch had complained of no more pain ; his
temperature had fallen and he was sleeping peacefully.

Can one wonder that the mother clung to a man who
could work such miracles ? That she believed he had been
given the Divine gift of healing ?

The story of Rasputin's murder has been told too often

Religion, Mysticism, Melody and Colour 257

to make it necessary to go over it again, but reading it one
wonders if one is not back in the days of the old Rurik
princes, of Ivan the Terrible or Boris Godounov, so in-
credible it seems in our modern time shadowed still by a
certain mystery. Done with the highest motive of delivering
Russia from a poisonous, pernicious influence, it had, alas,
only the effect of hastening the final catastrophe ! Had not
Rasputin said, " If any harm is done to me the Russian
Empire will crumble ? "

Mysticism, mystery, the secrets of Russia which no
man has yet been able to read ! The shadows that gather in
the old cathedrals ! The eternal melancholy of the chanting
of the Volga boatmen, the low mournfulness that underlies
the soldier's songs ! Can one explain it all, or reason on the
whys and wherefores ?

A certain hopeless resignation ingrained in the people's
nature ; a pathetic wistfulness sounding always through
even the gayest dance music, while the singing of the
church choirs, uplifting and transporting, yet brings the
tears to one's eyes, and a sudden aching pain to one's heart
whose cause one cannot define.

The Church in the old days looked with disfavour on
music, condemning it as a frivolous encouragement of
passion, allowing only the ritual chanting of choirs during
religious services, or at the performance of mystical plays
given in the Tsar's Palace. The first Romanovs introduced
the playing of lighter music at Court ; Peter the Great
sent students to study music in Germany and France,
Elizabeth and Catherine encouraged foreign artists of all
kinds to come to Russia. Pantomimes, operas, tragedies
and ballets were got up, people in society themselves
taking part ; there were performances nearly every night
in the theatre of the Hermitage, public theatres were built

258 Recollections of Imperial Russia

in Petersburg, and French and Italian companies were
invited to Russia, and gradually the Russian Ballet grew
into being, becoming famous all over the world.

I remember how soon after our arrival in Petersburg we
were taken to the Marinsky Theatre to see a performance of
the " Sleeping Beauty." Knowing nothing at the time of
the art of dancing, I was more interested I think in the
audience than in the performance ; the four tiers of boxes,
the dim, far away gallery, the huge parterre of stalls
where artists, musicians, young diplomats, officers in
brilliant uniforms, and old, bald-headed generals jostled
and pushed, the royal boxes where some members of the
Imperial family were always to be seen. It was all of
entrancing interest and I strongly resented the etiquette
that expected one, during the long entr'acte, to retire into
the little cabin-like ante-room at the back of one's box
where streams of visitors came to chatter and gossip.
It was so much more interesting to watch the comings
and goings in the stalls, the fat ladies of the rich merchant
class in the boxes, munching chocolates brought to them
in brightly be-ribboned boxes by men with smooth faces
and queer -shaped bald heads, the young girls with beauti-
fully brushed hair who leant over to smile at the officers down
below, a few old men grouped together discussing — not poli-
tics as one might imagine — but the technique of some
dancer's steps, shaking their heads mournfully as they agreed
that the true classical art of the ballet was deteriorating.

The big theatre with its decorations of gold and white
and blue. If I shut my eyes I can almost see it now, smell the
scent of Russian cigarettes, of ambre and chypre and choco-
lates that always filled it, mingled with the all pervading
faint smell of the heating, and of the dust raised by many
hundreds of dancing feet. The men in Court uniforms who

Religion, Mysticism, Melody and Colour 259

unlocked the doors of the boxes, the foyer where, during
the entr'acte, crowds gathered for refreshments, old men
assembling together for a smoke or a drink, old ladies sitting
together discussing servants and the price of food, young
couples walking up and down, arm in arm, able for a time
to evade the parental ear.

On the week-days operas were performed in the Marinsky
Theatre ; the special nights for the ballet were Sundays or
alternate Wednesdays, and though for the opera one could
sit in any part of the house one pleased, for the ballet it was
considered highly unseemly to sit anywhere but in the first
two tiers of boxes. The prices for the ballet were also more
than double, and unless one had one's own box it was
almost impossible to get one, and abonnements were not
always easy to obtain, as some of the boxes were hereditary
and were passed on from father to son.

It has been the fashion in England to rave about the
Russian dancers, but I wonder how few of the average
audiences in London have the slightest conception of the
technical qualities of dancing. Often have I seen them
wildly applauding a step that, though effective, had no real
difficulty, while some movement that required absolute per-
fection of balance and training passed unnoticed. London has
also only seen the light one-act ballets like " Petrouchka,"
" Carnival," or " The Good-Humoured Ladies " ; those long
old-fashioned three- or four-act ballets like "The Little
Hunchbacked Horse," the " Lac des Cygnes," " Bayadere,"
or the " Daughter of Pharaoh," would probably bore audi-
ences not knowing the technicalities of ballet dancing;
but in Russia every movement, every gesture was known ; a
step just the fraction of a second out of time, a pose whose
lines were not absolutely in harmony, and an icy silence

260 Recollections of Imperial Russia

settled over the audience, while thunders of applause would
greet the execution of a difficult pirouette.

Trained from their early childhood in the Imperial
Ballet School the Russian dancers devote their whole lives
to their art with a single-hearted enthusiasm and intensity.
Not so easy is it to gain the fleeting lightness that makes
them look like bits of thistledown blown across the stage, or
to attain the iron strength of perfectly-trained muscles that
is required for those Arabesques and Releves. It means
an unceasing endeavour, a never resting persistence of
work, hours of strenuous practice every day, continual
lessons all the time. Perfection it seems can never be
complete, and there is always something more to learn.
To have a few weeks' rest is fatal, for the highly-trained
muscles relax very quickly, whereas to shirk the daily lesson
or class means a certain slackness creeping in, movements
becoming ragged and unfinished instead of flowing and
soft, the whole effect being blurred instead of exquisitely
clear.

Having for a short time gone to the class of that great
old man Cechetti, who for years was master of the Imperial
Ballet School, I have a faint conception of the incessant
effort and strain, the ages oj: practice required for a dancer.
To be graceful and light is not by any means enough ;
every muscle, every finger, every turn of the head, every
expression must be studied, while even the memory must be
trained to grasp and retain the many intricate steps and
gestures.

Melody and harmony, a poetry that is hard to describe,
the rhythm of absolutely perfect movement, a voiceless
expression of passing emotions, a haze of shifting colours,
blending and moving to exquisite beauty — that is to me the
Russian Ballet.

Religion, Mysticism, Melody and Colour 261

Colour in everything, even on the dullest most sunless
of autumn days ; that is the spirit of Russia.

The painted dome of some church, a moujik in a bright
green blouse, a gipsy woman in a red and orange shawl,
a winter morning of dazzling blue and white and gold,
sunsets as namingly incredible as those of some desert
picture glowing on the ice-bound river, the sapphire blue
darkness of snow-still nights pressing against the windows.
And then, beneath a leaden sky the snow turns to
impassable slush, the melting ice drips from the roofs
and the frozen Neva stirs and mutters in its sleep. The
golden domes gleam sullenly against the sky, a Court
carriage with a scarlet-liveried coachman passes, the pink
walls of the palace, where the mad Emperor Paul was mur-
dered, rise up above the waste of the Champ de Mars, while
on the other side of the leafless elms in the Alexander Garden
shine the blue and green and yellow domes of the church
which marks the spot where the Emperor Alexander II.
fell a victim to a Nihilist's bomb. And slowly the opaque,
dun-coloured clouds lift and pass, a soft wind, sweet some-
how with the scent of violets, blows through the slush-
drowned streets, the ice sighs, shivers and suddenly begins
to move on the river and with a rushing impact, a hiss
and roar, the great blocks crash against the bridges.

According to old custom the Governor of Petersburg
sets out in his painted barge with his sixteen rowers to meet
the Governor of the fortress in mid-river. The cannons
thunder their tidings that the Neva is free from ice, bluer
than the blue sky, the blue waters laugh in the spring sun-
shine, and the trees in the summer gardens burst into leaf
with a sudden rush and hurry. The wooden green-roofed
landing stages are deposited all down the quays by little
black steamers, small penny passenger steamers come and

262 Recollections of Imperial Russia

go, and fussy-looking tugs draw wooden barges painted
blue and green where men in coloured shirts sit idly playing
the concertina or singing their endless mournful songs.

The days lengthen into opal coloured twilight, the golden
spire of Peter and Paul glows through the summer nights
with the red flame of sunset, till the radiance of the sun-rise
turns it again to gold.

Mysticism, the childlike faith in the hearts of the people*
music that follows one with haunting persistence, colours that
arrest and thrill and enrapture ; these are the secret spells
Russia casts over one's heart ; with these she holds one, and
will not let one forget.

Room in the Kremlin.

The Kremlin.

p. 262.

The Spirit of Bolshevism 263

CHAPTER XV

THE SPIRIT OF BOLSHEVISM

The Russia of the Rurik princes, when Kiev the Golden en-
circled by her white walls, shone like a city of amber and
pearl above the yellow Dnieper ! Russia, bound and
bleeding under the pitiless rule of the Mongolian Tartars !
The Russia of the Tsars, when the white walls of the Kremlin
enclosed the clustering palaces and churches, the court that
was half Monastic and half Eastern ! The Russia of the
Emperors with a society that copied the cosmopolitan bril-
liance of Paris ! It seems incredible that it has all been
swept away, that there is nothing left, and that the Russia
that exists to-day is a new Russia, different to anything
that has ever gone before.

And what is it that has taken the place of the old Empire ?
A country that has been ostracised by the great powers
of Europe, a country where a tyrannical rule of terror calls
itself Communism or the free independence of the people,
where religion is debased and children are taught to be
lawless and immoral.

People who do not know Russia shrug their shoulders in
despair. Why is there no man to lead an organised rising
against the Bolsheviks ? Why were they not driven from
the country before they became all powerful ? How could
a solitary group of men overthrow a Government, tyrannise
and cow into utter subjection a whole people, keep their
hold during all these years ?

264 Recollections of Imperial Russia

And to all these questions one can only really give the
one obscure and indefinite explanation — the mentality and
psychology of the Russian people inherited from centuries of
oppressions, from a mixture of Oriental blood, and the
apathetic fatalism engendered by years of Eastern domina-
tion.

The violent upheaval under the reign of Peter the Great,
who tried to complete in a life-time the work of a century
and left the country breathless, gasping and un-settled in the
new conditions he had imposed with such an iron hand.

The erratic, idle governing of Elizabeth, the extravagance
of Catherine's Court, the mad tyrannical rule of Paul, the
firm autocracy of Nicholas — each in turn had left their
impress on the Russian people.

The Ukase passed by Alexander II. liberating the Serfs,
did little to ameliorate the situation, aggravated as it was by
the growing infection of the Nihilists ; the Terrorists who
started the assassination of notable men, the Socialist Revo-
lutionaries, the Social Democrats ; one by one the different
secret societies were formed by men with the brains of
crazy dreamers and eyes that saw impossible visions.

Always beneath the surface the cauldron of sedition and
discontent seethed and boiled, while the oppression of the
secret police added to the people's smouldering anger. At
any moment might come the dreaded tramp of feet, the
thundering knock at the door, the figures in the hated uni-
forms, and old men, young boys and girls arrested on the
faintest suspicion of Nihilist sympathies, dragged off to
prison, lost perhaps for ever on the grim roads to Siberia,
that land of exile from which so many never returned.

For so long had the Russian people dreamt of liberty,
for so long had it been presented to them in glowing colours,
for so long had they pictured it and the joys it would bring,

The Spirit of Bolshevism 265

and when it was given them they shattered it to pieces, like
a child, who, chasing a butterfly, clutches at the luminous
transparent wings, and tears them with eager, ungentl.
hands.

Liberty ! Equality ! Fraternity ! How could the true

meaning of those words penetrate to the poor, untutored
minds of men, taxed and beaten by Mongolian tyranny,
treated almost as animals, used as cannon fodder, sacrificed
mercilessly to the grasping ambition of princes and
Emperors, thrown away and wasted in hundreds and
thousands by the hopeless inefficiency of some intemperate,
self-indulgent general.

The Revolution of March, 1917, cutting the ground from
under their feet, leaving nothing stable or firm, sent them
drifting helplessly like a flock of sheep without a leader,
ready to assimilate the Bolshevik propaganda which pro-
mised the realisation of all the dreams that had been in their
minds for centuries.

Can one wonder that they followed blindly ? That,
caught up in the flood, they were swept away, infected by
the madness of destruction, unable to reason, blind and
drunk and insane.

In 1918 or 1919 there was a picture in the Academy called
" The Bolshevik." It portrayed just simply a man's head
and shoulders against a huge red flag that spread itself out
behind him, as if driven by the same fanatical fury that
possessed the man himself, with his wide-open mouth and
blood-shot crazy eyes. I remember the shudder that went,
through me as I stopped before that picture, for that man
was not a phantom illusion the painter had wrought out of
his own imagination.

I had seen that same face with its scrubble of dirty beard,
its evil eyes alight with the maniac flame of fanaticism, thrust

266 Recollections of Imperial Russia

into the open door of the motor demanding in hoarse,
threatening tones that we should alight. I had seen it lit
up by the flickering flames of the fires at street corners,
scowling ferociously from under a greasy fur cap. I had
seen it, even as in the picture, convulsed by the fury of
oratory. I had stood and listened to the words that poured
from those crazy lips, and I had watched the effect on the
listening crowd of the speech, that called on the proletariat
of the world to overthrow the existing order of things, to
wade in the blood of men, women and children, to strike
without pity or compassion, to march onwards through ruin
and havoc, to overthrow religion and laws, capitalism and
education ; to devastate, to massacre, and build a new world
for the workmen from the smoking, blood-soaked ruins of
the old.

That man's face typified the spirit of Bolshevism. For
him neither sanity nor common sense existed. He was
swept away by the torrent of his own eloquence, and the
world was all lit up by the fierce light of his own madness,
red as the scarlet flag that blew out behind him, crazy and
insane as those theories he expounded, as those pictures of
a world governed by Communism and equal liberty.

The Spirit of Bolshevism ! The word that only seven
years ago had never been heard of, that represents a force
greater than armies. The word that is the bitter enemy of
civilisation and progress. Bolshevism ! Sweeping away the
new Democratic Government as well as the old autocracy,
crouching, a grey wolf on the crumbling ruins with bared fangs
and red-rimmed eyes, that watch and wait, insatiable,
pitiless, unsleeping.

Little did Europe guess the full significance of the
Russian Revolution ! At first only a whisper in the air,
then a growing unrest, a low, underworld thunder that

The Spirit of Bolshevism 267

communicated itself in a sense of strange, feverish restless-
ness, a spirit of unusual activity. Cloudless days of brilliant
winter sunshine, everybody keyed up to a breathless expecta-
tion for the opening of the Duma, when it was rumoured that
a great rising of the people was to take place, for which the
Government was preparing with patrols of fully armt d Cos-
sacks, with hidden machine guns, and forces of police. In
a quiet, unbroken and breathless, the day came and went,
and yet, though many pretended that the danger was over,
the sense of strain continued, till, less than a fortnight later,
the storm broke with an overwhelming force, the thunder of
falling masonry, the clash and clatter of breaking chains.

Arriving back from the unconscious peace of the country,
where no whisper had reached us of the stormy days of
shooting in the capital, and plunged suddenly into the breath-
less succession of tremendous happenings, it is perhaps the
drive from the station in the early morning that stands out
the most clearly in my mind.

It is very often the space of time just before a catastrophe
that seems impregnated with the force of the hours whose
actions are still hidden in the darkness of the future, and
on the morning of March 12, 1917, the storm had not yet
broken in all its violence, but the deathly silence of the
waiting city was a thing never to be forgotten.

There were the same wide streets, the same great, solemn
palaces, the same gold spires and domes rising out of the
frozen, pearl-tinted mists, and yet all somehow abnormal,
weird, held in a spell of baleful stillness. And everywhere
emptiness ! No lines of toiling carts, no shrieking, yellow
trams up the Nevski, no little ambling sledges across the
great, white emptiness of the Palace Square. And then, as
we turned out into the Palace Quay, the solitary figure of
the policeman who always was on guard at this corner stood

268 Recollections of Imperial Russia

out in dark and sinister significance in the waste of deserted
streets and ice-bound river. Round him the utter silence,
behind him on the opposite shore the low, grim walls of the
fortress and the Imperial flag of Russia, that for the last
time fluttered against the winter sky.

Later during that day all the policemen found by the
crowd were brutally done to death, and the white, fixed face
of that one man who, from his old post, had saluted us as we
passed, haunted me with a dreadful persistence — symbol as
he was of the old order that had gone for ever, of the Russia
we had known, swept away in the cataclysm of this new power
whose strength was a thing still unguessed at — he must
have known, as he buckled on his uniform in the grey dark-
ness of that early morning the danger that was threatening,
the temper of the crowd, savage with the memory of count-
less wrongs to be avenged. Did he kiss his wife and did
she wait for him in vain through the long hours of that
memorable day ?

One man amidst millions ! What did he count for after
all ? One little atom blown along the road to Eternity by
the fierce gale of Revolution ! The red flag had replaced
the Imperial Standard on the fortress, and the Emperors,
buried in the white and gold cathedral, must have stirred in
their sleep, hearing the rattle of machine guns across the
Neva. An icy wind that drove down the quays, a flurry
of snow, flitting figures that ran in the shadows, the crack
of rifles, the hoarse sound of cheering, the mighty crash of
falling monarchy — that was the Revolution of March 1917 —
but the word Bolshevik was still an unknown terror.

That was to come later. Mentioned at first with a half
scornful shrug of the shoulders, a passing smile as the
meaning was explained — the greater or the larger party, the

The Spirit of Bolshevism 269

more extreme Socialists, distinguished so from the Men-
sheviki or lesser party.

A handful of crazy fanatics exiled from Russia for their
revolutionary ideas, the riff-raff of political prisons, come
through Germany in a mysterious train with sealed doors
and windows !

It was a story that did credit to a sensational melodrama
or cinema. What harm could these wild men do to the great
realm of Holy Russia ?

But the soldiers, now that there was no Emperor to fight
for, now that there was no figure-head to look up to, no
order and discipline to keep them together, wandering like
straying children demoralised and idle, were ripe for the
insidious Bolshevik propaganda, and already something
malignant and sinister seemed to hover on the horizon like
a hideous bird of prey, something wicked and baneful grinned
from the red flags fluttering from all the windows, something
that was grim and horrible lurked in shadowed doorways,
and crept on noiseless feet behind one down the streets.

Slowly, gradually, almost imperceptibly that con-
sciousness of evil seemed to grow, the phantom of threaten-
ing wings spread an enormous shadow across the sky, the
name one had questioned and smiled at became one of menace
and terror, the madness it bred was to be read plainer and
plainer in the sullen faces of the workmen and soldiers, in
the growing discourtesy that encountered one on all sides,
in the half-veiled threats that followed one, the looks of
ominous hate one met and tried to avoid.

For so long had the lower classes cowered under the
power of supreme autocracy ; inbred in them through the
centuries were the remains of countless acts of injustice,
of endless sufferings. Now they could throw back the
insults, they could refuse to obey the tentatively made

270 Recollections of Imperial Russia

requests, they could assert their independence ! They were
beginning to realise the power of this new freedom. Like
a savage animal released from captivity, theystretched them-
selves a moment, uncertain still how to use their strength.

And at every street corner there were orators expound-
ing their heresies ; every day, every hour there were meetings
with speeches that fanned the ever increasing frenzy. A
burning stream of words growing to a devastating flood,
breaking down the bridges and bulwarks of reason, sweeping
away the credulous, easily swayed peasant minds of the
army.

For Bolshevism is essentially a doctrine easily preached,
a theory that clothes itself in glowing colours, a policy with
a number of catchwords that make it full of bombastic
promises for future well being. The untutored minds of
the people reaching out of their darkness, caught and clung
to those resplendent promises, the assurance that bread would
be plentiful, that the war would finish speedily, that there
would be equal land, riches and liberty for all. How the
miracle was to be accomplished, or how, once accomplished,
the country was to be governed, they did not ask, carried
away as they were by that blazing oratory, madness catch-
ing fire alike in the eyes of those that spoke and those that
listened. And every day the terror that skulked in the
shadows grew more distinct ; every day the shops grew
emptier, the horses thinner, the drivers more surly, more
exorbitant in their demands.

A weight of silence seemed to stifle the activity of the
city, the people passing glanced at each other half fearfully,
as if always expecting a hidden enemy to confront them
with a brandished revolver, and never on any face did one
see a smile, never down the wide, grey streets did one hear
the echo of a laugh, always one felt, with an indefinable

The Spirit of Bolshevism 271

sense of oppression, that one was in the presence of death.
The growing filth of the streets, and here a window thai
was broken, a lamp-post that had been knocked down, 1
paving stone that had been displaced, a cart without a
wheel that lay on the side of the road, a heap of rubbish
thrown from a window which nobody had troubled to
remove. Soldiers slouching everywhere, their uniforms in
varying stages of dirt and disorder, armed workmen who
growled out unspeakable insults as they passed, guards with
fixed bayonets challenging one at every corner. And,
when night came, covering spire and dome and palace, no
lamps to light the dense, enveloping darkness, and now and
then, in the silence, a shot, a sudden, hunted cry of pain
and fear, the rattling bark of a machine gun, the roar of a
passing motor with shaded lights bristling vvith evil-looking
bayonets, bent on God knows what errand of destruction —
and with it all always the sense of implacable evil whose
full force of devastation was yet to come.

That was early in 1918. The two years that followed
were years of such nightmare hideousness as the world has
seldom seen.

First came the darkness, the electricity completely cut
off, no gas, no oil for lamps, and presently no wax for candles.
Occasionally people were able to fabricate little glimmer-
ing lights made of cork or flax, but for the most part during
the endless winter evenings, stretching into the grey morn-
ings, the citizens of Petersburg cowered in their rooms
staring with aching eyes into the blackness where visions of
horror painted themselves, driving many to raving madness.
Then came the cold. The perfect system of heating
which had made Russian houses so marvellously comfort-
able even on the most bitter winter days, long ago fallen
into dis-repair, through neglect and lack of fuel. The price

3

272 Recollections of Imperial Russia

of wood beyond all reason, books, papers, old photographs
burnt to produce a momentary glow, people living wrapped
up in fur coats and high felt boots, water pipes freezing
and bursting and nobody to mend them, windows very often
broken by bullets or the wanton love of destruction of the
Red Guards, making their frequent requisitions for arms or
incriminating documents.

Then, grim and terrible, striking despair and fear into
all hearts came hunger, with disease following close behind.

I don't think we can really have any conception of what
that hunger meant. The Government had started com-
munal kitchens, where the citizens, divided into four sec-
tions received their daily ration according to their class
The first class of the workmen or factory hands received
the highest portion, the fourth class in which were reckoned
the bourgeois, the proprietors and merchants, received
the least — a small piece of black bread, one salted fish that
was generally uneatable, sometimes a cup of tepid greasy
water that was given the courtesy title of soup.

A Russian girl told me that once, having occasion to go
and see one of the Bolshevik leaders, she was told to wait
in the kitchen, that being the fit place for one of the hated
bourgeois.

Her father had died of starvation a few days earlier, she
herself was faint from long weeks of hunger, and waiting
in the kitchen, till the great man condescended to receive her,
she watched the white-capped chef preparing his dinner.
A steaming soup of vegetables, ham, potatoes, things
that all seemed to belong to another world ? She told me
that she had not believed it was possible to suffer such
physical agony as well as such mental rage as she endured
during those hours of waiting, watching those dishes being
prepared, thinking of her dead father, her mother, who was

The Spirit of Bolshevism 273

growing daily weaker, her own hunger, driven to maddened
acuteness by the smell of food.

In forcing Communism and the nationalisation and
monoply of all industries on Russia, the Bolsheviks themselves
took care not to suffer from their principles, abandoning
Petrograd like rats leaving a sinking ship, taking refuge in
the Kremlin at Moscow, surrounding themselves with every
comfort. And meanwhile the horses died by hundreds and
were cut up as they fell ; cats, dogs, the very pigeons and
sparrows were killed and eaten. People passed each other
unseeing, their eyes fixed in the pale stare of hunger, swaying
as they walked, too weak to get up again, if stumbling
they lost their footing and fell.

But even the famine was not enough of suffering. To
add to the despair and misery there was the dreaded Cheka,
or Extraordinary Commission, formed by the inhuman Dzer-
zhinsky, a sort of secret police to fight any counter-revolu-
tionary movement. So perfect was the system of espionage
organised that the very walls had ears, and people hardly
dared look at each other lest some agent of the Cheka should
creep up behind them, interpret in that look some hidden
meaning, drag them off to prison, have them shot most
likely after a mock trial in which they would not be allowed
to defend themselves.

The ghastliness of those Bolshevik prisons cannot be
described ; the swarm of vermin that covered the walls and
flung themselves on each new arrival, crawling over him in
a few seconds in one moving mass ; the lack of space, the
unspeakable dirt and smell, the famine and disease.

Whatever the faults of Russia had been, and however
greatly the upper classes had sinned, surely they paid in
full and over-flowing measure during those years of terror
and despair, when the soul of the whole country was

274 Recollections of Imperial Russia

baptised in fire, and God seemed to have forgotten His
People.

The Revolutionaries themselves, the great patriots,
who had suffered for their Liberal ideas, turned in horror
from the orgy of blood and terror of the Bolshevik regime.
Madam Brechko Brechkovskai — known as the Grandmother
of the Revolution — returning from her long exile in Siberia,
only to fly to Osmk and die of a broken heart ; Prince Kro-
potkin, imprisoned at seventy-six by the men who had
desecrated his ideals of Liberty, and many others, exiled,
imprisoned or condemned to death, for trying to preach
moderation to men like Trotsky, Zenoviev or Dzerzhinsky.

But even the Bolsheviks had to see that it was impos-
sible to govern by absolute communism. Lenin, the master
brain, the only one perhaps who had any real ideals, ack-
nowledged the failure with a certain grim bitterness. Now
food can be procured again, though at exorbitant prices.
In Moscow and Petersburg the shops are open, the restaur-
ants crowded, the electric light restored, the roads repaired.
People, knowing nothing of the real Russia, go there for a
time, and come back full of admiration for the restoration
of trade and commerce, the wonderful organisation of the
schools, the music and lights, the high ideals of liberty and
equality.

And the Bolsheviks laugh at the simplicity of these
foreigners who allow themselves to be deceived with such
consummate ease. They have been shown just exactly
what it pleased the Government they should see. The
G.P.U. — or State Political Department, which is but the
Cheka under a new name — spies on their every movement
with indefatigable persistence. Apparently they are at
liberty to go anywhere they like, but in reality their steps
are carefully watched, and though they may not know it,

The Spirit of Bolshevism 275

tbey are virtually prisoners. Every word they speak is re-
corded, they are only allowed to see the people who are
considered desirable, and if by accident they come in con-
tact with any person who might betray the true state of
affairs, the latter is immediately removed by the G.P.U., and
some plausible excuse is given for their sudden disappearance.

Europe has not yet been able to realise the crafty wiliness,
the evil force of these men who have taken possession of
Russia. When we invite them to Conferences, when we
shake hands with them, treat them as lions and celebrities,
do we utterly forget that, by their orders the Tsar and his
family were brutally murdered, shot down in a way that
should brand them with eternal shame ? Have we for-
gotten the memory of the Empress's sister, the Grand
Duchess Elizabeth, who, after the assassination of her
husband the Grand Duke Serge, entered a convent and
devoted her whole life to the care of the sick and the ailing, the
poor and the unhappy ! Do we no longer remember how she
and the young Grand Dukes who were with her died ? Have
we forgotten the murder of Captain Cromie in the British
Embassy, and the shameful desecration of his body ? And
are we foolish enough to believe that the men who did these
things can ever be trusted or considered ? That they will
ever give up their far-reaching propaganda, their secret
hope of a World Revolution ?

And yet, cowering under the grim rule of tyrannical
despotism, Russia is not yet dead. Kolchak, Denikin,
Wrangel have been defeated, but now and then an attempt to
overthrow the Government flares up spasmodically, bullets
scream and whistle down the streets, armed peasants turn
out to fight the red soldiers, Cossacks ride into the village and
shoot or hang the Bolshevik Commissaries. Men and women
have sacrificed their lives in heroic and hopeless attempts to

276 Recollections of Imperial Russia

kill Lenin or Trotsky, and every time reprisals, so hideous
that they shatter the people's courage, are the punishment.
Then the prisons are crowded again, the war on Religion
becomes intensified, and the problem of Russia more
insolvable than ever.

Kiev with her golden gates, Moscow with her churches
and palaces, Petersburg, built by one man's endeavour,
was it for this they were made beautiful ? For a handful
of Jews and foreign outcasts ? For men who deride
Religion, and teach their children to defy laws and morality,
poisoning the minds of the growing generation with the
subtle doctrines of atheism and depravity ?

Will not the dead rise from their graves to deny it ?
Round the silver sarcophagus that holds the skull of Vladimir
at Kiev, round the coffins of the Tsars in the Kremlin, in
the Fortress Cathedral of Petersburg where those other
Emperors lie at rest, do not the shadows gather ? Do not
ghostly voices whisper, does not the sound of wailing echo out
into the night, do not pale candles glimmer in the darkened
windows frightening the men who say there is no God ?

And the Emperor with the rough face of iron, the fierce
eyes and mighty powerful hands, is the grave deep enough
to hold him ? Does the silence of death wrap him close
enough for his unquiet spirit not to hear the voice of his
country calling in her bitter need ? The great Tsar Peter,
surety one day he will rise from the grave and summon those
other mighty shadows of history to follow him.

Vladimir, the little Red Sun of Russia, Yaroslav the
Wise and Alexander Nevski, Elia Muramets, Stenka Razin,
Michael Skopin Schouiski, Dimctri of the Don, the Butcher
Cosmo Minin, Prince Pozharsky, Marshall Munich perhaps,
and old Suvoroff with his rasping voice ! They will all ride
out in battle array in the defence of Holy Russia.

The Spirit of Bolshevism 277

ET It may be that some day indeed that phantom army will
ride along with a living army, and the old banner of St.
George, or perhaps the double-headed eagle will replace that
flaunting scarlet flag that flies above the Kremlin. But that
day is not yet, and who knows when, or how, or in what
manner it will come.

But could the great Tsar Peter come once more to the city
he raised from the swamps, " the window towards Europe "
he built for his unwilling people, and see her ruined
disrepair, her silent desolation, abandoned as she is by the
Government, I think his heart would break at the useless-
ness of all human endeavour.

A city of ghosts, of lost hopes and fallen splendours, of
constant disorders and riots, of dirt and squalor, and sordid
misery. This is Pet rograd to-day, the Petersburg of the past.

If the spirit of the dead Emperor wandered down those
silent streets, past the deserted churches, the empty ware-
houses, out on to the wide quays with the mournful palaces,
would he not cry out to the Neva, to rise and submerge this
town of haunting, tragic memories, leaving only above the
waters the slender spire of St. Peter and St. Paul pointing
towards Heaven, as the faith of the Russian people rises
still, a golden flame above the dark waters of Bolshevism.

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