Library of the Worlds Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 5 | Page 7

remarked, nor
heather, nor sand. Solitary grazing cows or horses awoke one at times
to the presumption that there might be human beings in the
neighborhood. Moscow, seen from above, looks like a field of young
wheat: the soldiers are green, the cupolas green, and I do not doubt that
the eggs on the table before me were laid by green hens.
You will want to know how I come to be here. I also have already
asked myself this question, and the answer I received was that change
is the soul of life. The truth of this profound saying becomes especially
obvious after having lived for ten weeks in a sunny room of a hotel,
with the look-out on pavements. The charms of moving become rather
blunted if they occur repeatedly within a short period; I therefore
determined to forego them, handed over all paper to----, gave Engel my
keys, declared that I would put up in a week at Stenbock's house, and
drove to the Moscow station. This was yesterday at noon, and this
morning, at eight o'clock, I alighted here at the Hôtel de France. First of
all I shall pay a visit to a charming acquaintance of former times, who
lives in the country, about twenty versts from here; to-morrow evening
I shall be here again; Wednesday and Thursday shall visit the Kremlin
and so forth; and Friday or Saturday sleep in the beds which Engel will
meantime buy. Slow harnessing and fast driving lie in the character of
this people. I ordered the carriage two hours ago: to every call which I
have been uttering for each successive ten minutes of an hour and a half,
the answer is, "Immediately," given with imperturbably friendly
composure; but there the matter rests. You know my exemplary
patience in waiting, but everything has its limits; afterwards there will
be wild galloping, so that on these bad roads horse and carriage break
down, and at last we reach the place on foot. I have meanwhile drunk
three glasses of tea and annihilated several eggs; the efforts at getting

warm have also so perfectly succeeded that I feel the need of fresh air. I
should, out of sheer impatience, commence shaving if I had a glass.
This city is very straggling, and very foreign-looking, with its
green-roofed churches and innumerable cupolas; quite different from
Amsterdam, but both the most original cities I know. No German guard
has a conception of the luggage people drag with them into the railway
carriage; not a Russian goes without two real pillows in white
pillow-cases, children in baskets, and masses of eatables of every kind.
Out of politeness they bowed me into a sleeping car, where I was worse
off than in my seat. Altogether, it is astonishing to me to see the fuss
made here about a journey.
Moscow, June 8th.
This city is really, as a city, the handsomest and most original existing:
the environs are cheerful, not pretty, not ugly; but the view from the top
of the Kremlin on this panorama of green-roofed houses, gardens,
churches, spires of the strangest possible form and color, mostly green,
or red or bright blue, generally crowned at the top with a gigantic
golden onion, and mostly five or more on one church,--there are
certainly a thousand steeples!--anything more strangely beautiful than
all this lit up by the slanting rays of the setting sun it is impossible to
see. The weather has cleared up again, and I should stay here a few
days longer if there were not rumors of a great battle in Italy, which
may perhaps bring diplomatic work in its train, so I will be off there
and get back to my post. The house in which I am writing is, curiously
enough, one of the few that survived 1812; old, thick walls, like those
at Schönhausen, Oriental architecture, big Moorish rooms.
June 28th, Evening.
After a three hours' drive through the gardens in an open carriage, and a
view of all its beauties in detail, I am drinking tea, with a prospect of
the golden evening sky and green woods. At the Emperor's they want to
be en famille the last evening, as I can perfectly well understand; and I,
as a convalescent, have sought retirement, and have indeed done quite
enough to-day for my first outing. I am smoking my cigar in peace, and
drinking excellent tea, and see, through the smoke of both, a sunset of

really rare beauty. I send you the inclosed jasmine as a proof that it
really grows and blossoms here in the open air. On the other hand, I
must own that I have been shown the common chestnut in shrub-form
as a rare growth, which in winter is wrapped up; otherwise, there are
very