The Rambles of a Rat

CHAPTER XV

FIRST VIEW OF ST. PETERSBURG

“Cronstadt! Cronstadt!” I heard the shout from the deck one evening when the sun was going down, and his red disk seemed resting on the heaving waters, while to the east the strong fortifications stood clearly defined against the sky, bathed in his glowing light. Being quite alone in the cabin, for every human being was on deck, I was taking my survey of the place from the open port-hole before me.

It was a very gay scene upon which I looked. Not even on the Thames, our own river, have I seen a greater variety of craft. Steam-boats, and sailing-boats, schooners, cutters, brigs and gondolas, – paddled along the water, or spread snowy wings to the breeze. I gazed upon them, and upon the formidable batteries, bristling with guns, which defend the “water-gate of St. Petersburg” as Cronstadt has been called, till the shadows of night fell around, and I could without risk of observation, join Whiskerandos in the hold.

He was in company with another rat, of rather a foreign appearance.

“My friend Dwishtswatshiksky here,” said he, “tells me that we shall soon arrive at the capital of Russia.”

“I am very glad to hear it!” cried I; “I long to be again on shore. If we had any means of landing here, I should not care if I stopped short of St. Petersburg.” I had not forgotten the pies.

“You would doubtless, little brother, from natural association, like to visit Rat Island,” said the stranger with the unpronounceable name.

“Rat Island!” exclaimed Whiskerandos and I at the same moment.

“That fortified island opposite to Cronstadt, lying across the bay upon which the place stands, and giving to its waters the appearance of a lake, was called Ratusare, or Rat’s Island in the days of old.”

“Not the only Rat’s Island in the world,” observed Whiskerandos; “we have one off the coast of Devon.”

“And doubtless it still bears that name,” said the Russian rat, with a graceful wave of his whiskers. “But things, alas! were altered here when the warriors of Peter the Great drove the Swedes from this island in 1703. The vanquished left behind them nothing but a great kettle, which in default of other trophy the Russians reared in triumph on a pole; so the name of the place has been changed since that time, and Rat Island is called Kettle Island.”

“It is fortunate for us, sir rat,” said I, (I did not venture to attempt to call him by his name,) “it is fortunate for us that before landing in a strange country, we have met with a friend so intelligent and well-informed as you appear to be.”

He made me so many polite assurances of the gratification which he felt in making my acquaintance, the pleasure which it would give him to conduct us to the house in which he usually quartered in the city, and the pride which he would feel in showing us everything which he could hope would interest us, that we blunt English rats felt almost abashed at his excessive courtesy. He only followed the manners of his country, where the poorest labourer is quite overwhelming in his politeness.

Dwishtswatshiksky (we soon shortened his name to Wisky) was as good as his word. We kept close while the passengers landed at a magnificent quay at St. Petersburg; while the rapid tread of feet, loud voices, shouts and hurried movements, were heard above, not a rat ventured forth from his hiding-place. Alas! with every precaution, when we mustered before landing, our numbers were sadly diminished, though of rat pies we had heard no more. In darkness we a second time made a suspension bridge of the rope which bound the vessel to the shore, and with delight I found myself again upon land, a free denizen of earth, no longer cooped up in the narrow, dangerous prison of a vessel.

Wisky led the way, closely followed by Whiskerandos. They moved on so fast that I was in danger of losing sight of my guides, so apt was I to linger on my way to look at the wonders around me. It is a beautiful city, St. Petersburg; at least so it seemed to me in the moonlight. With its streets of palaces, its lively green roofs, sky-blue cupolas dotted with stars, gilt spires, columns, statues, and obelisks, it is a place not soon to be forgotten. If I might venture to suggest a fault, it is that all looks too perfectly new. Antiquity gives added interest to beauty, – at least such is the opinion of a rat. That which looks as if it had risen but yesterday, appears as though it might fall to-morrow.

“Would you believe it,” said Wisky, “a great part of this splendid city is built upon piles! The foundation alone of yonder great church cost a million of rubles! There is a constant fight going on here between water and the efforts of man. To look at the fine buildings around us, you would say that man had secured the victory. He has thrown over the river a variety of bridges, stone, suspension, and pontoon, that can be taken to pieces at pleasure, to connect the numerous islands together, and has raised the most stately edifices on a trembling bog! But the water is not conquered after all! I have known houses burst asunder from the foundations giving way. I have seen a palace separated from the very steps that led up to its door. And in spring, when the snow melts which has been collecting for months, the horses can scarcely flounder along through the rivers of mud in the streets!”

“Does the water ever rise very high?” inquired Whiskerandos. This was no idle question on his part; he made it as a practical rat, who knew what it was to live in a cellar, and had no desire to be drowned.

“Ah, my dear brother!” replied the Russian rat, “many stories are still told of the fearful inundation which happened in 1824. Impelled by a furious west wind, the waters then rose to a fearful height, streamed through the streets, floated the carriages, made boats of the carts, nay, lifted some wooden houses right from the ground, and sent them floating about, with all their inhabitants in them, like so many men-of-war! Horses were drowned, and so, alas! were rats in terrible numbers. The trees in the squares were crowded with men, clinging to them like bees when they cluster! It is said that thousands of poor human beings perished, and that the inundation cost the city more than a hundred millions of rubles!”

“Well, St. Petersburg is a splendid place!” cried I; “but after all, the merry banks of the Thames, and dear dingy old London for me!”

CHAPTER XVI

A RUSSIAN KITCHEN

Under the guidance of Wisky we took up our abode in a Russian house. House did I call it! – if ever there was a palace this was one. We established ourselves in the kitchen; a warm, comfortable place we found it, where we had much opportunity for observation, both of the denizens of the place and their various occupations.

“It seems to me, Wisky,” said I, on the night following that of our arrival, “that there is no end to the number of servants that pass in and out of this dwelling! Who is that fellow in the blue cloth caftan, fastened under his left arm with three silver buttons, and girded round the waist with a coloured silk scarf? His fine bushy beard seems to match the fur with which his high four-cornered cap is trimmed.”

“That is the Tartar coachman,” replied Wisky; “a dashing fellow is he, and a bold driver through the crowded streets of the city. The pretty youths yonder are the postilions. Young and small they must be, to suit the taste of a Russian noble. The worse for them, poor boys, as they are less able to endure the bitter cold of a winter’s night, when, if they drop asleep on their horses, they are never likely to awake any more!”

“And are their masters actually cruel enough,” I exclaimed, “to expose them to such suffering and risk?”

“My much esteemed brother,” replied the Russian rat, “doubtless your clear mind has already come to the conclusion that selfishness is inherent in the human race. A young noble is at a ball; must he quit its bright enchantments, and the society of the fair whom he admires, because a bearded coachman is freezing without? A beauteous lady, wrapped in ermine and velvet, is weeping in the theatre over the woes of some imaginary heroine; would you have her dry her tearful eyes, and leave the scene of touching interest and elegant excitement, because icicles are hanging from the locks of her little postilion, and his head is gradually sinking on his breast, as the fatal sleep steals over him? Selfish! – yes, all human beings are selfish!”

“There are exceptions to that rule,” thought I, for I remembered the stories which I had heard in the cabin; and I also recollected the conduct of their narrator, Captain Blake, towards the starving little thief in London.

“I have been trying,” said Whiskerandos, “to count the servants in this house; but no sooner do I think that my task is done, than in comes some new one, speaking some different language, wearing some different costume, and puts all my calculations to fault.”

“It would puzzle even one possessing the talents of my brother to count the number of the servants here,” replied Wisky. “Why, even I, who, before my visit to England, spent months amongst the household, can scarcely number them now. To begin with the inmates of a higher rank, who never appear in the kitchen, there are the French governess and the German tutor, to polish up the minds of the children, and the family physician to look after their health. Then there are the superintendent of accounts, the secretary, the dworezki – he who has charge of the whole establishment, the valets of the lord, the valets of the lady, the overseer of the children, the footmen, the buffetshik or butler, the table-decker, the head groom, the coachman and postilions of the lord, the coachman and postilions of the lady, – ”

“What!” cried Whiskerandos, “are their carriages so small that they will not hold two, or are the grandees afraid of quarrelling, that husband and wife cannot travel together!”

“Surely, Sir Wisky,” exclaimed I, “you must have come to the end of your list!”

“Pardon me, little brother, not yet. There are the attendants on the boys and on the tutor, the porter, the head cook and the under cook, the baker, brewer, the waiting-maids and wardrobe-keeper of the lady, the waiting-maid who attends the French governess, the nurses that take care of the children, and the nurses that once took care of the children, the kapell-meister or head musician, and all the men of his band!”

“Well!” cried I, much amused, “at any rate a Russian noble must be well served. If he calls for his shoes, I suppose that half-a-dozen servants start off in a race to fetch them, and knock their heads together in their eagerness to get them!”

A valet at this moment entered the kitchen, where, secure in our hiding-place, we were watching all that passed.

“Where’s Ivan?” said he, “where’s Ivan?” The coachman, who was playing at draughts with the head groom, looked up for an instant, then silently made his move.

“My lady’s a-fainting, and my lord’s calling for water! Where’s Ivan, I say? ’tis his business to fetch it.”

“There’s Ivan,” said the cook, pointing contemptuously to a sandy-haired figure fast asleep under the table.

“Get up, ye lazy fellow!” exclaimed the valet; “my lady’s fainting, my lord’s calling for water; take a glass of it on a silver salver directly.”

Ivan got up slowly, yawned, stretched himself, rubbed his eyes; then, taking a tumbler off the dresser, he leisurely filled it with water.

“And where am I to get the silver salver?” said he.

“That’s in keeping of Matwei the buffetshik,” observed the table-decker.

“And where is Matwei to be found?”

“Here you, Vatka,” pursued the valet, turning to another attendant, who was busy over his basin of kwas, “go you to Matwei and tell him that we want a silver salver on which to carry a tumbler, for my lady’s fainting up stairs, and my lord is calling for water.”

A loud ring from above was heard, as if to enforce the order. “Sei tshas! sei tshas! – directly, directly!” called out Vatka; but he nevertheless finished his kwas, and wiped his mouth before he went to Matwei the butler to procure the silver salver on which Ivan the footman would carry the tumbler of water which Paul the valet had been ordered to bring.

Before all was ready another messenger came to tell Ilia the bearded coachman to put to the horses, for the lady was ready for her drive. It was evident that she had managed to recover from her fainting fit without the aid of the glass of water, – a happy thing for one who had the misfortune to keep fifty or sixty servants.

Wisky laughed at my look of surprise. “I believe that one pair of hands,” said he, “often serve better than a dozen. The Russian proverb says that ‘directly’ means to-morrow morning, and ‘this minute’ this day week.”

With quiet night came our feasting-time, and when the kitchen was deserted by the crowds of servants, Whiskerandos, Wisky, and I, crept softly out of our hole, provided with pretty sharp appetites for our meal.

“I am curious to taste that liquor which you call kwas,” said I; “Vatka seemed to relish it exceedingly.”

“Relish it, brother! I should think so!” exclaimed Wisky. “Kwas is to a Russian what water is to a fish; rich or poor could hardly bear existence without it.”

“Not bad at all,” said I, dipping my whiskers carefully into a bowl that had been set aside by the cook.

“Mind you don’t tumble in, old fellow!” cried Whiskerandos, “and be drowned in kwas as I have heard that a duke once was drowned in wine.”

“And what may this kwas be made of?” inquired I, after another approving sip.

“I ought to know, little brother,” replied Wisky, “for many and many a time have I seen it brewed. A pailful of water is poured into an earthen jar, into which are shaken two pounds of barley-meal, half a pound of salt, and a pound and a half of honey. The whole is then placed in an oven with a moderate fire, and constantly stirred. It is left for a time to settle, and in the morning the clear liquor is poured off. In a week it is in the highest perfection.”

“I wonder that kwas is not made in England,” observed I; “but honey is not so plentiful there.”

“Sugar would make a good substitute, I should think,” said Wisky; “the beverage would not then be an expensive one. But here is our beloved Whiskerandos busy with his shtshee, the dish of all dishes in this country, that which nothing, I believe, could ever drive from the table or the heart of a Russian. When in a foreign land, it is said, it is not the remembrance of native hills or plains, or the tender delights of home, that draws tears into an exile’s eyes, but the loss of his beloved shtshee, the favourite dish of his childhood.”

“Leave a little for me!” I cried eagerly to Whiskerandos, who had nearly finished, by dint of steady perseverance, a portion which had been left in a plate. “Why,” I added, as I tasted the liquid, “this seems to me simply cabbage soup!”

“Whatever my brother may think of it,” observed Wisky, dipping his whiskers into the nearly empty plate, “he is now tasting that which forms the principal article of food of forty millions of human beings! Better live without bread than without shtshee.”

“And the ingredients?” said I, for I always delighted to pick up any scrap of information interesting to a rat.

“There are almost as many ways of making shtshee as of cooking potatoes. I have seen six or seven cabbages chopped up small, half a pound of butter, a handful of salt, and two pounds of minced mutton added, the whole mixed up with a can or two of kwas. But it is now time, brothers, for us to sally forth. I must do the honours of this our city, and show my illustrious guests whatever I may deem worthy of their observation.”

CHAPTER XVII

A RAMBLE OVER ST. PETERSBURG

“What a nation of painters Russia must be!” exclaimed I, as we quietly moved through the silent streets. Every shop had a picture before it, expressive of the occupation of its owner. Here was a tempting board covered with representations of every loaf and roll that a painter’s fancy could devise; there a tallow-chandler did his best to make candles appear picturesque. Even from the second and third floors hung portraits of fiddles, and flutes, boots, shoes, caps, bonnets, and bears’ grease, and on one board a sad likeness of a rat in a trap made us quicken our steps as we passed it.

We moved through a deserted market. Here whole lanes are devoted to the sale of a single kind of article. There is the stocking row, the shoe row, the hat row, at which it appeared that a whole nation might have provided covering for head and for feet.

“I wish, dear brother,” said Wisky, “that your visit had been in the season of winter. I could then have led you to a market which strangers must indeed have surveyed with surprise. You would then have seen beasts, fishes, and fowls, all frozen so hard that the hatchet is required to divide them. You would have passed through rows of dead sheep standing upon their feet, motionless oxen that seemed ready to low, whole flocks of white hares appearing actually in motion, reindeer and elks on whose mighty horns the pigeons fearlessly perch!”

“The cold must then be fearful in winter,” said I.

“Oh! the houses are kept so warm with stoves that there but little suffering is known. But woe to the men who loiter in the streets when they are paved with ice and glistening with snow! The passengers run for their lives, with the sharp wind rushing after them, as a cat after a mouse! Men cover even their faces with fur; but should an unlucky nose peep out from the warm shelter, the bitter frost often bites it on a sudden. “Father – father! thy nose!” thus will one stranger salute another as he passes; and if not speedily rubbed with snow, the nose of the poor passenger is lost! Men’s very eyes are sometimes frozen up, and they have no resource but to beg admission at the first door to which they can grope, to unthaw their glued lashes at a stove!”

“All this is very curious,” observed I, “but still I have little desire to witness it. The long winter must be dreary indeed!”

“The Russians are lively fellows,” observed Wisky, “and instead of grumbling at dark skies and piercing blasts, they make merry where others would murmur. When winter must perforce be their companion, they oblige the grim old giant to add to their amusements. You should see the gay sledges as they dash at full speed over the frozen surface of the River Neva! and the ice-mountains which the people raise, and down which they glide swift as lightning, laughing, shouting, and singing! I have seen snow piled up to the very roof of a house; and down its steep slope, merely seated on a mat, a large merry party glide gaily to the ground. But,” he cried, suddenly interrupting himself, “have a care where you tread, my brother, or you will be down into that ice-pit! Never was there such a place as St. Petersburg for these, – no large house is deemed complete without one. If Russians cannot be without abundance of ice in winter, they show that they will not be without it during their brief hot summer, – the quantities consumed could scarcely be believed!”

Whiskerandos, who had been lingering behind us, in a tempting quarter of the market, now scampered up and joined us. We were passing at the time a large building, and I could not avoid looking up in wonder at its strange columns. Of these there were no fewer than a hundred, and the capital of each was formed by three cannon, with their round open mouths yawning down into the street.

“This,” said our guide, following the direction of my eyes, “is the Spass Preobrashenskoi Sabor; a church greatly adorned with the spoils of nations vanquished by Russia.”

“Well,” said Whiskerandos, who in the course of his adventurous life had both seen cannon and learnt their use, “perhaps those big instruments of war are just as well up there, where they are seen, and not heard or felt. Man is the only creature, I fancy, who, not content with what powers of destruction nature has given him, cuts down trees from the forest, digs iron from the mine, sets the furnace glowing, and the engine working, to fashion means of killing his brothers in a wholesale manner.”

“Yonder,” said Wisky, pointing with his nose, “are the father of the Russian fleet and the grandmother of the houses of St. Petersburg.”

“Let’s see them by all means!” I exclaimed; “I have viewed plenty of Russian ships and Russian houses, and I have a lively curiosity to see the father and the grandmother of so famous a family!”

Wisky rapidly led the way to a hut, into which with little difficulty we entered, for locks and bars do not keep out rats, nor surly porters refuse them admission.

“Is this the father of the Russian fleet!” exclaimed Whiskerandos rather contemptuously, running, audacious rat that he was, along the edge of a boat about thirty feet long. “Is Russia a child, that she should amuse herself with a toy, and keep a big boat under a roof where there is no water to float it, as if it were some delicate jewel!”

“On no jewel in the Emperor’s crown,” replied Wisky, “would a Russian look with the same interest as on that poor boat. Peter the Great helped to fashion it himself! He found his country without a navy, and he gave her one; he laboured himself as a common ship-wright: and now, as a mighty oak springs from a single acorn, in that one boat his people view with reverence “The father of the Russian fleet.”

“And where is the grandmother of the houses?” inquired I.

“That is hard by,” replied Wisky. “It is nothing but a small wooden cottage which Peter built for himself by the Neva, before a single street stretched across the dreary bog upon which he founded this city of palaces!”

And so we rambled on, light-hearted rats that we were, picking up scraps here and there, and exchanging observations, till a faint blush in the eastern sky warned us that it was time to go home. Before we reached the house already criers were abroad in the streets, screaming, “Boots from Casan!” – “Pictures from Moscow!” – “Flowers, fine flowers!” as they wandered on, carrying their wares on their heads. Fierce-looking fellows, with long shaggy hair and beards, wrapped up in skins were passing about, exchanging good-natured greetings, strangely in contrast with their appearance. “Good-day, brother! how goes it? what is your pleasure? how can I serve you?” Smiling, bowing, baring their rough heads to each other, these poor Russians appeared the very pictures of politeness shrouded in sheepskin. But remembering that even amongst the most civilized nations of the world, rats are considered as quite beyond the pale of courtesy, and that the most good-natured Musjik in this city would have thought nothing of hitting one of us over with his shoe, we thought it better to retreat while our skins were whole, and regain our comfortable quarters in the kitchen.

CHAPTER XVIII

HOW WE WERE TRANSPORTED

It was my intention, as well as that of Whiskerandos, after hearing of the cheerfulness of a Russian winter, and the comfort preserved in the houses, to remain to witness the ice-mountains, the frozen Neva, and, above all, the wonderful market which Wisky had described to us on that night.

Our intentions, however, were frustrated, and our projects of amusement defeated by an incident which suddenly altered the whole course of our affairs.

Whiskerandos, who was of a very bold and independent disposition, cared not to place himself constantly under the guidance of his Russian companion. He made forays by himself into the streets, moon or no moon, it was all one to him. He brought us back accounts of many singular adventures, – how he had been seen by a dog, chased by a cat, and nearly run over by a drosky, the name given to the vehicles which in St. Petersburg take the place of our London cabs.

“Have a care, brother, have a care! Even the brave may dare too much, and the fortunate venture once too often!” with such exclamations as these our courteous Russian rat would listen to the tales of such hair-breadth escapes.

The effect of his words upon me was to render me cautious, – timid perhaps you will call it. The only motives which usually roused me to encounter danger, were hunger, or overpowering curiosity. I liked to see all, hear all, and know all, and picked up scraps of general information with the same relish that I would have picked up scraps of cheese.