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

168 FASHIONABLE LIFE IN ST. PETERSBURG.

The Eussians enjoy but very little of the country which they have created at the gate of their city. The women pass the summer at the Islands, and the winter at Petersburg. They rise late, spend the day at their toilets, the evening in visits, and the night at play. To forget themselves, to lose themselves in a round of excitement, such is the apparent end of their existence.

The summer of the Islands commences in the middle of June and lasts till the end of August. During these two months there is not generally (though with the exception of the present year) more than a week of hot weather. The evenings are damp, the night atmosphere clear, but cloudy above, the days grey and misty. Life would here become insnpportably dull and melancholy to the individual who should allow himself to reflect. In Russia, to converse is to conspire, to think is to revolt: thought is not merely a crime, it is a misfortune also.

Man thinks only with a view of ameliorating his lot and that of his fellows, but when he can do nothing and change nothing, thought does but prey upon and envenom the mind, for lack of other employment. This is the reason why, in the Eussian world of fashion, people of all ages join in the dance.

As soon as the summer is over, a rain, fine as the points of needles, falls for weeks without any cessation. In two days the birch trees of the isles may be seen 6tript of their leaves, the houses of their flowers and their inhabitants, and the roads and bridges crowded with carriages, drowskas, and carts engaged in the removal of furniture, all the different kinds of which