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

SONGS OF THE RUSSIAN GYPSIES.97

rìson. It is owing to this that there are some ages and some countries in which people have become great men with very little difficulty. The Czar Peter appeared in one of those epochs and countries: not but that he also had extraordinary energy of character, but his minute mind limited his views.

I leave to-morrow for Nijni. Were I to prolong my stay in Moscow, I should not see this fair/which is drawing to a close. I shall not conclude the present chapter until after my return this evening from Pctrowski, where I am going to hear the Russian gypsies.

I have been selecting a room in the hotel, which I shall continue to keep during my absence at Nijni: having made it a hiding-place for my papers: for I dare not venture on the road to Kazan with all that 1 have written since I left Petersburg; and I know no one here to whom I should like to confide these dangerous chapters. Exactness in the recital of facts, independence in the judgments funned, truth, in short, is more suspicious than anything else in Russia: it is truth which peoples Siberia, not, however, to the exclusion of robbery and murder, an association which frightfully aggravates the fate of political offenders.

I have returned from Pctrowski, where I saw the dancing-saloon, which is beautifid; it is called, I believe, the Vauxhall. Before the opening of the ball, which appeared to me a dull affair, I was taken to hear the Russian gypsies. Their wild and impassioned song has some distant resemblance to that of the Spanish gitanos. The melodies of the north are

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