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

THE LOVELACE OF THE KREMLIN.83

the cloister are little observed. One of the friend? of the prince, yesterday exhibited before me, to the whole legion of libertines, the rosary of a novice., that he said she had forgotten and left that very morning in his chamber. Another made a trophy of a Book of Prayers, which he stated had belonged to one of the sisters who was reputed among the most

holy of the community of; and the audience

warmly applauded.

I shall not go on. Each had his scandalous anecdote to relate, and all excited loud peals of laughter. Gaiety, ever increasing, soon became drunken riot under the influence of the wine of Aï, which overflowed in goblets, whose size was more capable of satisfying Muscovite intemperance than our old-fashioned champagne-glasses. In the midst of the

general disorder, the young Prince and myself

alone preserved our reason, — he, because he can outdrink everybody, I, because I cannot drink at all, and had therefore abstained from attempting.

In the midst of the uproar, the Lovelace of the Kremlin rose with a solemn air, and, with the authority which his fortune, his name, his handsome face, and yet more, his superior mental capacity give him, he commanded silence, and to my great surprise obtained it. I could have fancied I was reading the poetical description of a tempest appeased by the voice of some pagan god. The young god proposed to the friends whom the gravity of his aspect had thus suddenly calmed, to indite a petition, addressed to the proper authorities, humbly remonstrating, in the name of the courtesans of Moscow, that the ancient religious institutions of nunneries so completely inter-E 6