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

ABJECT STATE OF THE PEOPLE. 17

love of command; on these passions I stumble every time I return to the endeavour of analysing the moral life of the inhabitants of Russia. Russia thinks and lives as a soldier ! A soldier, to whatever country he may belong, is scarcely a citizen ; and here less than any where can he be called one; he is rather a prisoner for life, condemned to look after other prisoners.

It should be observed that the word prison signifies something more here than it does elsewhere. When one thinks on all the subterranean cruelties concealed from our pity by the discipline of silence, in a land where every man performs an apprenticeship to discretion, it makes one tremble. He who would conceive a hatred for reserve should come here. Every little check in conversation, every change of expression, every inflexion of voice, teaches me the danger of confidence and candour.

The very appearance of the houses brings to my mind the unhappy condition of human existence in this land.

If I cross the threshold of the palace of some great nobleman, and see there a disgusting and ill-disguised uncleanliness reigning amidst an ostentatious display of luxury; if I, so to speak, inhale vermin, even under the roof of opulence, — my mind will not stop at that which is presented merely by the senses ; it wanders further, and sees all the filth and corruption which must poison the dungeons of a country where even the rich do not shrink from loathsome contact. When I suffer from the dampness of my chamber, I think of the unfortunate beings exposed to that of the sub-marine dungeons of Kronstadt, the fortress