University of Virginia Library

35. CHAPTER XXXV
"ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN'' IN RUSSIA—1892-1894

STILL another department which interested me was that known as the "Ministry of Public Enlightenment,'' its head being Count Delyanoff. He was certainly a man of culture; but the title of his department was a misnomer, for its duty was clearly to prevent enlightenment in the public at large. The Russian theory is, evidently, that a certain small number should be educated up to a certain point for the discharge of their special duties; but that, beyond this, anything like the general education of the people is to be discouraged; hence the Russian peasant is the most ignorant and helpless in Christendom.

There was evidently a disposition among very many of the most ardent Russians to make a merit of this imperfect civilization, and to cultivate hatred for any people whom they clearly saw possessing anything better: hence it came that, just as so many Frenchmen hate Great Britain, and so many in the backward, slipshod regions of our country hate New England, it was quite the fashion among large classes of Russians to hate everything German, and especially to detest the Baltic provinces.

One evening during my stay a young Russian at a social gathering of military and other officials voiced this feeling by saying, "I hope the time will soon come when we shall have cleared out all these Germans from the Russian service; they are the curse of the country.'' Thereupon a young American present, who was especially noted

for his plain speaking, immediately answered, "How are you going to do it? I notice that, as a rule, you rarely give a position which really involves high responsibility to a Russian; you generally give it to a German. When the Emperor goes to the manœuvers, does he dare trust his immediate surroundings to a Russian? Never; he intrusts them to General Richter, who is a Baltic-Province German. And when his Majesty is here in town does he dare trust his personal safety to a Russian? Not at all; he relies on Von Wahl, prefect of St. Petersburg, another German.'' And so this plain-spoken American youth went on with a full catalogue of leading Baltic-Province Germans in positions of the highest responsibility, finally saying, "You know as well as I that if the salvation of the Emperor depended on any one of you, and you should catch sight of a pretty woman, you would instantly forget your sovereign and run after her.''

Richter and Von Wahl I knew, and they were certainly men whom one could respect,—thoughtful, earnest, devoted to duty. Whenever one saw the Emperor at a review, Richter was close at hand; whenever their Majesties were at the opera, or in any public place, there was Von Wahl with his eyes fastened upon them.

The young American might now add that when a man was needed to defend Port Arthur another German was chosen—Stoessel, whose heroism the whole world is now applauding, as it once applauded Todleben, the general of German birth who carried off the Russian laurels of the Crimean War.

One Russian official for whom there seemed to be deep and wide respect was Count Woronzoff-Daschkoff; and I think that our irrepressible American would have made an exception in his favor. Calling upon him one day regarding the distribution of American relief to famine-stricken peasants, I was much impressed by his straightforward honesty: he was generally credited with stopping the time-honored pilfering and plundering at the Winter Palace.

One of the most interesting of all the Russians I met was General Annenkoff. His brother-in-law, Struve, Russian minister at Washington, having given me a letter to him, our relations became somewhat close. He had greatly distinguished himself by building the trans-Caucasian railway, but his main feat had been the annexation of Bokhara. The story, as told me by a member of his family, is curious. While superintending his great force of men and pushing on the laying of the rails through the desert, his attention was suddenly called to some horsemen in the distance, riding toward him with all their might. On their arrival their leader was discovered to be a son of the Ameer of Bokhara. That potentate having just died, the other sons were trying to make their way to the throne by cutting each other's throats, but this one had thought it wise to flee to the Russians for safety. Annenkoff saw the point at once: with a large body of his cavalry he started immediately for Bokhara, his guest by his side; pushed his way through all obstacles; seated the young prince on the throne; and so made him a Russian satrap. I shall speak later of the visit of this prince to St. Petersburg. It was evident that Annenkoff, during my stay, was not in favor. It was said that he had been intrusted with large irrigation-works in order to give employment to peasants during the famine, and that he had not managed them well; but it was clear that this was not the main difficulty: he was evidently thought too progressive and liberal, and in that seething caldron of intrigue which centers at the Winter Palace his ambitions had come to grief.

Another Russian who interested me was Glalkin Wraskoy. He was devoted, night and day, to improving the Russian prison system. That there was much need of such work was certain; but the fact that this personage in government employ was so devoted to improvements, and had called together in Russia a convention of men interested in the amelioration of prison systems, led me to think that the Russian Government is not so utterly and

wilfully cruel in its prison arrangements as the Western world has been led to think.

Another interesting Russian was Count Orloff Davidoff; and on my meeting him, just after his return from the Chicago Exposition, at General Annenkoff's table, he entertained me with his experiences. On my asking him what was the most amusing thing he had seen in America, he answered that it was a "sacred concert,'' on Sunday, at a church in Colorado Springs, in which the music of Strauss's waltzes and Offenbach's comic songs were leading features, the audience taking them all very solemnly.

In the literary direction I found Prince John Galitzin's readings from French dramas delightful. As to historical studies, the most interesting man I found was Professor Demetrieff, who was brought to my house by Pobedonostzeff. I had been reading Billbassoff's "Life of the Empress Catherine''; and, on my asking some questions regarding it, the professor said that at the death of the Empress, her son, the Emperor Paul, intrusted the examination of her papers to Rostopchine, who, on going through them, found a casket containing letters and the like, which she had evidently considered especially precious, and among these a letter from Orloff, giving the details of the murder of her husband, Peter III, at Ropscha. The letter, in substance, stated that Orloff and his associates, having attempted to seize Peter, who was evidently on his way to St. Petersburg to imprison the Empress Catherine,—if not to put her to death,—the Emperor had resisted; and that finally, in the struggle, he had been killed. Professor Demetrieff then said that the Emperor Paul showed these papers to his sons Alexander and Nicholas, who afterward succeeded him on the throne, and expressed his devout thankfulness that the killing of Peter III was not intentional, and therefore that their grandmother was not a murderess.

This reminds me that, at my first visit to St. Petersburg, I often passed, during my walks, the old palace of Paul, and that there was one series of windows carefully

barred: these belonging to the rooms in which the Emperor Paul himself was assassinated in order to protect the life of his son Alexander and of the family generally.

Another Russian, Prince Serge Wolkonsky, was certainly the most versatile man I have ever known: a playwright, an actor, an essayist, an orator, a lecturer, and admirable in each of these capacities. At a dinner given me, just before my departure from St. Petersburg, by the Russians who had taken part in the Chicago Exposition, I was somewhat troubled by the fact that the speeches of the various officials were in Russian, and that, as I so imperfectly understood them, I could not know what line to take when my own speech came; but presently the chairman, Minister Delyanoff, called upon young Prince Serge, who came forward very modestly and, in admirable English, gave a summary of the whole series of Russian speeches for my benefit, concluding with an excellent speech of his own. His speeches and addresses at Chicago were really remarkable; and, when he revisited America, his lectures on Russian literature at Cornell University, at Washington, and elsewhere, were worthy of the Collège de France. This young man could speak fluently and idiomatically, not only his own language, but English, French, German, Italian, and I know not how many other tongues.

To meet scientific men of note my wont was to visit the Latin Quarter; and there, at the house of Professor Woeikoff of St. Petersburg University, I met, at various times, a considerable body of those best worth knowing. One of those who made an especially strong impression upon me was Admiral Makharoff. Recently has come news of his death while commanding the Russian fleet at Port Arthur—his flag-ship, with nearly all on board, sunk by a torpedo. At court, in the university quarter, and later at Washington, I met him often, and rated him among the half-dozen best Russians I ever knew. Having won fame as a vigorous and skilful commander in the Turkish war, he was devoting himself to the scientific side of his profession. He had made a success

of his colossal ice-breaker in various northern waters, and was now giving his main thoughts to the mapping out, on an immense scale, of all the oceans, as regards winds and currents. As explained by him, with quiet enthusiasm, it seemed likely to be one of the greatest triumphs of the inductive method since Lord Bacon. With Senator Semenoff and Prince Gregory Galitzin I had very interesting talks on their Asiatic travels, and was greatly impressed by the simplicity and strength of Mendeléieff, who is certainly to-day one of two or three foremost living authorities in chemistry. Although men of science, unless they hold high official positions, are not to be seen at court, I was glad to find that there were some Russian nobles who appreciated them; and an admirable example of this was once shown at my own house. It was at a dinner, when there was present a young Russian of very high lineage; and I was in great doubt as to the question of precedence, this being a matter of grave import under the circumstances. At last my wife went to the nobleman himself and asked him frankly regarding it. His answer did him credit: he said, "I should be ashamed to take precedence here of a man like Mendeléieff, who is an honor to Russia in the eyes of the whole world; and I earnestly hope that he may be given the first place.''

There were also various interesting women in St. Petersburg society, the reception afternoons of two of them being especially attractive: they were, indeed, in the nature of the French salons under the old régime.

One of these ladies—the Princess Wolkonsky—seemed to interest all men not absorbed in futilities; and the result was that one heard at her house the best men in St. Petersburg discussing the most interesting questions.

The other was the Austrian ambassadress, Countess Wolkenstein, whom I had slightly known, years before, as Countess Schleinitz, wife of the minister of the royal household at Berlin. On her afternoons one heard the best talk by the most interesting men; and it was at

the salons of these two ladies that there took place the conversations which I have recorded in my "History of the Warfare of Science,'' showing the development of a legend regarding the miraculous cure of the Archbishop of St. Petersburg by Father Ivan of Cronstadt.

Another place which especially attracted me was the house of General Ignatieff, formerly ambassador at Constantinople, where, on account of his alleged want of scruples in bringing on the war with Russia, he received the nickname "Mentir Pasha.'' His wife was the daughter of Koutousoff, the main Russian opponent of Napoleon in 1812; and her accounts of Russia in her earlier days and of her life in Constantinople were at times fascinating.

I remember meeting at her house, on one occasion, the Princess Ourousoff, who told me that the Emperor Alexander had said to her, "I wish that every one could see Sardou's play `Thermidor' and discover what revolution really is''; and that she had answered, "Revolutions are prepared long before they break out.'' That struck me as a very salutary bit of philosophy, which every Russian monarch would do well to ponder.

The young Princess Radzivill was also especially attractive. In one of her rooms hung a portrait of Balzac, taken just after death, and it was most striking. This led her to give me very interesting accounts of her aunt, Madame de Hanska, to whom Balzac wrote his famous letters, and whom he finally married. I met at her house another lady of high degree, to whom my original introduction had been somewhat curious. Dropping in one afternoon at the house of Henry Howard, the British first secretary, I met in the crowd a large lady, simply dressed, whom I had never seen before. Being presented to her, and not happening to catch her name, I still talked on, and found that she had traveled, first in Australia, then in California, thence across our continent to New York; and her accounts of what she had seen interested me greatly. But some little time afterward I met her

again at the house of Princess Radzivill, and then found that she was the English Duchess of Buckingham. One day I had been talking with the Princess and her guest on the treasures of the Imperial Library, and especially the wonderful collection of autographs, among them the copy-book of Louis XIV when a child, which showed the pains taken to make him understand, even in his boyhood, that he was an irresponsible autocrat. On one of its pages the line to be copied ran as follows:
L'hommage est du aux Roys, ils font ce qu'il leur plaist.—LOUIS.
Under this the budding monarch had written the same words six times, with childish care to keep the strokes straight and the spaces regular. My account of this having led the princess to ask me to take her and her friend to the library and to show them some of these things, I gladly agreed, wrote the director, secured an appointment for a certain afternoon, and when the time came called for the ladies. But a curious contretemps arose. I had met, the day before, two bright American ladies, and on their asking me about the things best worth seeing, I had especially recommended them to visit the Imperial Library. On arriving at the door with the princess and the duchess, I was surprised to find that no preparations had been made to meet us,—in fact, that our coming seemed to be a matter of surprise; and a considerable time elapsed before the director and other officials came to us. Then I learned what the difficulty was. The two American ladies, in perfectly good faith, had visited the library a few hours before; and, on their saying that the American minister had recommended them to come, it had been taken for granted at once that they were the princess and the duchess, and they had been shown everything with almost regal honors, the officials never discovering the mistake until our arrival.

The American colony at St. Petersburg was very small. Interesting compatriots came from time to time on various

errands, and I was glad to see them; but one whose visits were most heartily welcomed was a former consul, Mr. Prince, an original, shrewd "down-easter,'' and his reminiscences of some of my predecessors were full of interest to me.

One especially dwells in my mind. It had reference to a former senator of the United States who, about the year 1840, was sent to Russia as minister. There were various evidences in the archives of the legation that sobriety was not this gentleman's especial virtue, and among them very many copies of notes in which the minister, through the secretary of legation, excused himself from keeping engagements at the Foreign Office on the ground of "sudden indisposition.''

Mr. Prince told me that one day this minister's valet, who was an Irishman, came to the consulate and said: "Oi 'll not stay wid his igsillincy anny longer; Oi 've done wid him.''

"What 's the trouble now?' said Mr. Prince.

"Well,'' said the man, "this morning Oi thought it was toime to get his igsillincy out of bed, for he had been dhrunk about a week and in bed most of the toime; and so Oi went to him, and says Oi, gentle-loike, `Would your igsillincy have a cup of coffee?' whin he rose up and shtruck me in the face. On that Oi took him by the collar, lifted him out of bed, took him acrass the room, showed him his ugly face in the glass, and Oi said to him, says Oi, `Is thim the eyes of an invoy extraorr-rrdinarry and ministher plinipotentiarry?' ''

Among interesting reminders of my predecessors was a letter in the archives, written about the year 1832 by Mr. Buchanan, afterward senator, minister in London, Secretary of State, and President of the United States. It was a friendly missive to an official personage in our country, and went on somewhat as follows: "I feel almost ashamed to tell you that your letters to me, mine to you, and, indeed, everything that has come and gone between us by mail, has been read by other eyes than ours. This

was true of your last letter to me, and, without doubt, it will be true of this letter. Can you imagine it? Think of the moral turpitude of a creature employed to break open private letters and to read them! Can you imagine work more degrading? What a dirty dog he must be! how despicable, indeed, he must seem to himself!'' And so Mr. Buchanan went on until he wound up as follows: "Not only does this person read private letters, but he is a forger: he forges seals, and I regret to say that his imitation of the eagle on our legation seal is a very sorry bird.'' Whether this dose had any salutary effect on the official concerned I never learned.

The troubles of an American representative at St. Petersburg are many, and they generally begin with the search for an apartment. It is very difficult indeed in that capital to find a properly furnished suite of rooms for a minister, and since the American representative has been made an ambassador this difficulty is greater than ever. In my own case, by especial luck and large outlay, I was able to surmount it; but many others had not been so fortunate, and the result had generally been that, whereas nearly every other power owned or held on long lease a house or apartment for its representative,—simple, decent, dignified, and known to the entire city,—the American representative had lived wherever circumstances compelled him:—sometimes on the ground-floor and sometimes in a sky-parlor, with the natural result that Russians could hardly regard the American Legation as on the same footing with that of other countries.

As I write, word comes that the present ambassador has been unable to find suitable quarters save at a rent higher than his entire salary; that the proprietors have combined, and agreed to stand by each other in holding their apartments at an enormous figure, their understanding being that Americans are rich and can be made to pay any price demanded. Nothing can be more short-sighted than the policy of our government in this respect, and I shall touch upon it again.

The diplomatic questions between the United States and Russia were many and troublesome; for, in addition to that regarding the Behring Sea fisheries, there were required additional interpretations of the Buchanan treaty as to the rights of Americans to hold real estate and to do business in Russia; arrangements for the participation of Russians in the Chicago Exposition; the protection of various American citizens of Russian birth, and especially of Israelites who had returned to Russia; care for the great American life-insurance interests in the empire; the adjustment of questions arising out of Russian religious relations with Alaska and the islands of the Northern Pacific; and last, but not least, the completion of the extradition treaty between the two nations by the incorporation of safeguards which would prevent its use against purely political offenders.

Especial attention to Israelite cases was also required. Some of these excited my deep sympathy; and, having made a very careful study of the subject, I wrote to Secretary Gresham a despatch upon it in obedience to his special request. It was the longest despatch I have ever written; and, in my apology to the secretary for its length I stated that it was prepared with no expectation that he would find time to read it, but with the idea that it might be of use at the State Department for reference. In due time I received a very kind answer stating that he had read every word of it, and thanked me most heartily for—it. The whole subject is exceedingly difficult; but it is clear that Russia has made, and is making, a fearful mistake in her way of dealing with it. There are more Israelites in Russia than in all the remainder of the world; and they are crowded together, under most exasperating regulations, in a narrow district just inside her western frontier, mainly extending through what was formerly Poland, with the result that fanaticism—Christian on one side and Jewish on the other—has developed enormously. The Talmudic rabbis are there at their worst; and the consequences are evil, not only for Russia, but

for our own country. The immigration which comes to us from these regions is among the very worst that we receive from any part of the world. It is, in fact, an immigration of the unfittest; and, although noble efforts have been made by patriotic Israelites in the United States to meet the difficulty, the results have been far from satisfactory.

There were, of course, the usual adventurous Americans in political difficulties, enterprising Americans in business difficulties, and pretended Americans attempting to secure immunity under the Stars and Stripes. The same ingenious efforts to prostitute American citizenship which I had seen during my former stay in Germany were just as constant in Russia. It was the same old story. Emigrants from the Russian Empire, most of them extremely undesirable, had gone to the United States; stayed just long enough to secure naturalization,—had, indeed, in some cases secured it fraudulently before they had stayed the full time; and then, having returned to Russia, were trying to exercise the rights and evade the duties of both countries.

Many of these cases were exceedingly vexatious; and so, indeed, were some which were better founded. The great difficulty of a representative of the United States in Russia is, first, that the law of the empire is so complicated that,—to use the words of King James regarding Bacon's "Novum Organum,''—"Like the Peace of God, it passeth all understanding.'' It is made up of codes in part obsolete or obsolescent; ukases and counter-ukases; imperial directions and counter-directions; ministerial orders and counter-orders; police regulations and counter-regulations; with no end of suspensions, modifications, and exceptions.

The second difficulty is the fact that the Buchanan treaty of 1832, which guaranteed, apparently, everything desirable to American citizens sojourning in the empire, has been gradually construed away until its tattered remnants are practically worthless. As the world has

discovered, Russia's strong point is not adherence to her treaty promises.

In this respect there is a great difference between Russia and Germany. With the latter we have made careful treaties, the laws are well known, and the American representative feels solid ground beneath his feet; but in Russia there is practically nothing of the kind, and the representative must rely on the main principles of international law, common sense, and his own powers of persuasion.

A peculiar duty during my last stay in St. Petersburg was to watch the approach of cholera, especially on the Persian frontier. Admirable precautions had been taken for securing telegraphic information; and every day I received notices from the Foreign Office as a result, which I communicated to Washington. For ages Russia had relied on fetishes of various kinds to preserve her from great epidemics; but at last her leading officials had come to realize the necessity of applying modern science to the problem, and they did this well. In the city "sanitary columns'' were established, made up of small squads of officials representing the medical and engineering professions and the police; these visited every nook and corner of the town, and, having extraordinary powers for the emergency, compelled even the most dirty people to keep their premises clean. Excellent hospitals and laboratories were established, and of these I learned much from a former Cornell student who held an important position in one of them. Coming to town three or four times a week from my summer cottage in Finland, I was struck by the precautions on the Finnish and other railways: notices of what was to be done to prevent cholera and to meet it were posted, in six different languages; disinfectants were made easily accessible; the seats and hangings in the railway-cars were covered with leather cloth frequently washed with disinfectants; and to the main trains a hospital-car was attached, while a temporary hospital, well equipped, was established at each main

station. In spite of this, the number of cholera patients at St. Petersburg in the middle of July rose to a very high figure, and the number of deaths each day from cholera was about one hundred.

Of these victims the most eminent was Tschaikovsky, the composer, a man of genius and a most charming character, to whom Mr. Andrew Carnegie had introduced me at New York. One evening at a dinner-party he poured out a goblet of water from a decanter on the table, drank it down, and next day was dead from Asiatic cholera. But, with this exception, the patients were, so far as I learned, almost entirely from the peasant class. Although boiled water was supplied for drinking purposes, and some public-spirited individuals went so far as to set out samovars and the means of supplying hot tea to peasant workmen, the answer of one of the muzhiks, when told that he ought to drink boiled water, indicated the peasant view: "If God had wished us to drink hot water, he would have heated the Neva.''