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

152 RESEMBLANCE OF RUSSIANS TO CHINESE.

I am perhaps not sufficiently grateful for the attentions which these people affect to lavish upon strangers who are at all known ; but I cannot help seeing below the surface, and I feel, in spite of myself, that all their eagerness demonstrates less benevolence than it betrays inquietude.

They wish, in accordance with the judicious precept of Monomaque, that the foreigner should leave their country contented.* It is not that the real country cares what is said or thought of it; it is simply that certain influential families are possessed with the puerile desire of reviving the European reputation of Russia.

If I look farther, I perceive under the veil with which they seek to cloke every object, a love of mystery for its own sake. Here reserve is the order of the day, just as imprudence is in Paris. In Russia, secrecy presides over eveiy thing ; a silence that is superfluous insures the silence that is necessary; in short, the people are Chinese disguised; they do not like to avow their aversion to foreign observation, but if they dared to brave the reproach of barbarism as the true Chinese do, access to Petersburg would be as difficult for us as is the access to Pekin.

My reasons for wearying of Russian hospitality will be now seen. Of all species of constraint, the most insupportable to me is that of which I have not the right to complain. The gratitude I feel for the attentions of which I am here the object, is like that of a soldier's — made to serve by compulsion. As a traveller who specially piques himself on his independence, I feel that I am passing under the yoke ; they trouble themselves unceasingly to discipline my * See the motto in the title-page.