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

RUSSIAN CRIMES AND CRUELTIES.93

Among this obedient people, the influence of social institutions is so great in every class—ideas and habits so rule over characters, that the fiercest excesses of vengeance still appear ruled by a certain degree of discipline. Murder is designed and executed in an orderly manner; no rage, no emotion, no words : a calm is preserved more terrible than the delirium of hate. They struggle with, overthrow, trample, and destroy each other, with the steady regularity of machines turning upon their pivots. This physical impassibility in the midst of scenes the most violent, this monstrous audacity in the conception and calmness in the execution, this silent passion and speechless fanaticism seem, if one might so express it, the innocence of crime. A certain order, contrary to nature, presides in this strange country over the most monstrous excesses; tyranny and revolt march in step, and perform their movements in unison.

As everything is in sympathetic accord, the immense extent of the territory does not prevent things bein£>` executed from one end of Russia to the other, with a punctuality, and a simultaneous correspondence, which is magical. If ever they should succeed in creating a real revolution among the Russian people, massacre would be performed with the regularity that marks the evolutions of a regiment. Villages would change into barracks, and organised murder would stalk forth armed from the cottages, form in line, and advance in order; in short, the Russians would prepare for pillage from Smolensk to Irkutsk, as they march to the parade in Petersburg. From so much uniformity, there results between the natural dispositions and the social habits of the people,