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

238NIGHT-SCENE IN THE NOIÌTH.

the same marquis. The foreigners remained seated, like every body else, before the prince and the emperor, answered them with their backs turned, and continued eating.

This exhibition of English politeness shows that the Emperor of Russia has greater plainness of manners than have many of the owners of private houses.

I had scarcely expected to find at this ball a pleasure altogether foreign to the persons and objects around. I allude to the impressions which the great phenomena of nature have always produced in me. The temperature of the day had risen to 50 degrees, and notwithstanding the freshness of the evening, the atmosphere of the palace during the fete was suffocating. On rising from table I took refuge in the embrasure of an open window. There, completely abstracted from all that passed around, I was suddenly struck with admiration at beholding one of those effects of light which we see only in the north, during the magic brightness of a polar night. It was half-past twelve o'clock, and the nights having yet scarcely begun to lengthen, the dawn of day appeared already in the direction of Archangel. The wind had fallen : numerous belts of black and motionless clouds divided the firmament into zones, each of which was irradiated with a light so brilliant, that it appeared like a polished plate of silver; its lustre was reflected on the Neva, to whose vast and un-rippled surface it gave the appearance of a lake of milk or of mother-of-pearl. The greater part of Petersburg, with its quays and its spires, was, under this light, revealed before my eyes; it was a perfect