Russia in 1839 -Empire of the Czar: A Journey Through Eternal Russia

180 DIFFICULTY IN OBTAINING A LODGING.

" This room forms the corner of your house," I observed : " has it a private entrance ? "

" Yes."

" Very good: lock the door which separates it from the other apartments, and let me have it for a bedchamber."

The air that I breathed already suffocated me. It was a mixture of the most opposite emanations : the grease of sheep-skins, the musk of dressed leather, the blacking of boots, cabbage, which is the principal food of the peasants, coffee, tea, liqueurs, and brandy, all thickened the atmosphere. The whole was poison : but what could I do ? it was my last resource. I hoped, also, that after being cleared of its guests, swept and washed, the bad odours of the apartment would dissipate. I therefore insisted on the feldjäger clearly explaining my proposal to the keeper of the coffee-house.

" I shall lose by it," replied the man.

" I will pay you what you please ; provided you also find somewhere a lodging for my valet and my courier."

The bargain was concluded; and here I am, quite proud of having taken by storm, in a dirty public-ho\ise, a room for which I have to pay more than the price of the finest apartment in the Hotel des Princes, at Paris. It is only in Russia, in a country where the whims of men supposed to be powerful, know no obstacle, that one is able to convert, in a moment, the public hall of a coffee-house into a sleeping-apartment.

My feldjäger undertook to make the drinkers retire: they rose without offering the least objection, were