fl 
 
 Descriptive 
 l^eading 
 
 IllastPated 
 
 12 liaotepft Slides 
 
 WILDAM H. RAU 
 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 I1S90 
 
A 
 
 DESCRIPTIVE READING 
 
 ON 
 
 RUSSIA 
 
 ILLUSTRATED BY TWELVE LANTERN n ^''^^^^^ ^ v- <k 
 SLIDES 
 
 ^00 ^i 
 
 WILLIAM H. RAU 
 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 1890 
 
Copyright, i8go, by William H. Rati. 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 1. The Winter Palace, St. Petersburgh. 
 
 2. Church of the Trinity, St. Petersburgh. 
 
 3. Statue of Peter the Great, St. Petersburgh. 
 
 4. St. Isaac's Cathedral, St. Petersburgh. 
 
 5. The Church Vladimir, St. Petersburgh. 
 
 6. Moscow and the Kremlin, 
 
 7. Church of the Savior, Moscow. 
 
 8. The Great Bell, Moscow. 
 
 9. The Tower Ivan, Moscow. 
 
 10. Interior of the Church of the Redeemer, Moscow, 
 
 11. Greek Chapel, Southern Russia. 
 
 12. A Peasant Family. 
 
RUSSIA. 
 
 Whether the traveler comes from the East or the 
 West or the Southward, unless he goes by sea, he 
 must approach the Capital of Russia by crossing- 
 hundreds of miles of dismal forests, bleak plains, and 
 swamps which offer few traces of human habitation 
 or industry. Hour after hour he gazes upon plains 
 that stretch away, level, monotonous and without 
 character ; from time to time he traverses a forest of 
 pine varied with silver birch. At very rare intervals 
 he sees a village composed of a score of cottages 
 built of logs and surrounded by poorly tilled fields ; 
 and near the village is a level crossing, where as the 
 train passes, strings of primitive, four-wheeled carts 
 are waiting in the rough road to continue their route. 
 
 In comparison with this monotonous outlook St. 
 Petersburgh seems like an oasis in the desert, and 
 our enthusiasm knows no bounds as the train makes 
 a wide curve and brings the spires and domes of the 
 capital into sight. The history of St. Petersburgh is 
 a romance. One of the Polish poets wrote : "Human 
 hands built Rome ; divine hands created Venice ; 
 but he who sees St. Petersburgh will say, * This town 
 is the work of the devil.' " It is indeed the most 
 conspicuous triumph of human industry and patience 
 in existence. 
 
 Ivan the Terrible conceived the idea of erecting a 
 city on the Gulf of Finland, but it remained for Peter 
 the Great, the most enterprising and progressive of all 
 
 (857) 
 
858 RUSSIA. 
 
 the Russian Czars, to carry it into effect. He selected 
 the most available site near the mouth of the Neva 
 River, and called a vast army into service to subdue 
 the swamps. Every year forty thousand workmen 
 were drafted from different parts of his dominions to 
 dig and fill, hew stones, make bricks, a.id build walls ; 
 and he stood by as their master builder, superintend- 
 ing everything, and directing all details. Every boat 
 upon the Neva or the Gulf of Finland, and every cart 
 upon the highway, had to bring to St. Petersburgh a 
 certain amount of building material annually as a 
 tax ; and every noble and property-owner in the em- 
 pire had to contribute something toward the con- 
 struction of the palaces. All thieves in prison, all exiles 
 in Siberia, were sent to St. Petersburgh to labor, and 
 there was not a man, woman or child in all the 
 dominion, but did something toward carrying out the 
 Czar's great plan. 
 
 In this age, a monarch without technical knowledge, 
 with none but rude tools and poor materials and no 
 skilled workmen, who should undertake to erect a 
 city of palaces in a marsh, would be considered 
 insane ; but with Titanic energy and boundless enthu- 
 siasm Peter commenced and continued the work. 
 His instruments were constantly breaking in his 
 hands, his workmen died by the thousand, his walls 
 crumbled and his foundations sank in the mud ; yet 
 he toiled on with a persistence and a courage that has 
 never been surpassed ; recognizing his mistakes soon 
 enough to correct them ; never allowing a word of 
 despondency to escape himself, or permitting an ex- 
 pression of discouragement from others, and as a 
 monument of his indomitable will and energy we 
 
RUSSIA. 859 
 
 liave to-day this city of palaces — glorious St. Peters- 
 burgh. 
 
 1. Tlie Winter Palace, St. Petersburgh. — Fore- 
 most among the colossal structures of the Russian 
 capital is the Winter Palace, which is one of the finest 
 buildings in the world. This enormous pile was be- 
 gun in 1732, finished in 1762 ; it was partly destroyed 
 hy fire in 1837, but was rebuilt from the original draw- 
 ings in 1839. It is a broad rectangular block, about 
 eighty feet high, with a frontage of 455 feet, and a 
 breadth of 350 feet. It contains seventeen hundred 
 rooms, and in the olden times as many as six thousand 
 people have been sheltered and fed under 'its roof 
 The outside of the palace is neither pleasing nor 
 commendable ; the sticco surface of its facades being 
 washed with a terra-cotta color, picked out with a 
 lighter tone of yellow. The iron roof is painted red. 
 Its only claim to merit is its immensity, which, ac- 
 cording to the Russian idea, is a very considerable 
 claim. The palace has been occupied during the 
 winter by all the czars till the present one, who will 
 not live there, but keeps it for ceremonials only, while 
 he resides in a much smaller and less imposing house 
 which he occupied as crown prince. 
 
 The main entrance to the palace opens from the 
 banks of the river Neva into a magnificent vestibule of 
 marble with wide stairways reaching to the several halls 
 and imperial reception rooms above. The stairway is 
 adorned by groups of statuary, and the long vestibule, 
 200 feet by 60, presents an array of ideal figures in 
 marble, and statues of the heroes of Russian history. 
 The throne room is a magnificent apartment of marble, 
 
86o RUSSIA. 
 
 so large that the entire White House at Washington . 
 might be erected within its walls. 
 
 The entire palace is divided into long lines of 
 dining-rooms, reception rooms and art galleries of 
 great beauty and gorgeous decoration. The amount 
 of gilding to be seen passes all comparison. 
 
 2. (Inircli ot the Trinity, St. Petersbur§rh. — Chief 
 among the architectural attractions of the city are the 
 churches, of which there are a great number Our 
 first visit shall be to the Church of the Holy Trinity. 
 The building is in the form of a Greek Cross, like all 
 the Russian churches, each of the grand entrances 
 being approached by broad flights of steps. Each 
 portico has massive pillars crowned with capitals of 
 bronze. Over the centre of the cross rises the chief 
 or central dome, the cupola of dark blue color, be- 
 spangled with stars. At the crest is a miniature 
 dome, an exact copy of the great one beneath, sur- 
 mounted by a golden cross. Four domes, exact 
 duplicates of the larger one, are placed over the four 
 arms of the cross, and complete a most harmonious 
 and beautiful piece of architecture. 
 
 Let us enter the church, in which service is being 
 celebrated. All within is richness and obscurity. 
 The walls, the roof, the ceiling of the dome and the 
 sanctuary are adorned with a wealth of all kinds of 
 ornament, that glitters in the dim, mysterious light. 
 In front of the golden doors of the sanctuary a space 
 is railed off by means of a wooden balustrade, around 
 which the worshipers are gathered thickly ; spread- 
 ing out on all sides, so that the vast church is full, 
 with the exception of a space for circulation on the 
 
RUSSIA. 86l 
 
 outer edge of the congregation. There are no seats ; 
 the worshipers stand up bareheaded, — a crowd con- 
 sisting, almost entirely of men, mostly of the lower 
 orders, clad in rusty clothes, with tall boots, red or 
 white shirts embroidered with red or blue thread, the 
 collar buttoned at one side of the neck, or fastened 
 with a silv^er brooch, and over the shirt a long black 
 or russet coat, with skirts plaited closely round the 
 waist. Meanwhile the incense rises thick in the air, 
 tinging the luminous obscurity with clouds of blue 
 smoke ; the worshipers follow the service without 
 books, crossing themselves and bowing incessantly, 
 and from time to time kneeling on the marble floor, 
 striking the ground wirti the brow ; all simply, camly, 
 fervently, without ostentation or concern about mere 
 formality. 
 
 3. Statue of Peter the Oreat, St. Petersburg-h. — 
 
 The worshipers come in and go out as they please, 
 and after a time we leave the Church of the Holy 
 Trinity and make our way toward St. Isaac's Cathe- 
 dral. Before reaching it we pass one of the most 
 remarkable monuments in the world. On a huge 
 block of granite, forty-two feet long, thirty-four feet 
 broad, and twenty-one feet high, is erected an eques- 
 trian statue of Peter the Great, modelled and cast by 
 a Frenchman, Etrenne Maurice Falconet. The em- 
 peror once stood upon this rock on the shore of the 
 Gulf of Finland, and witnessed a victory by his 
 infant fleet over a superior force of Swedes. It is 
 estimated that the mass weighs 3,200,000 pounds. 
 To remove it to the capital a solid road-bed was first 
 built, and then, after four months of hard labor, under 
 
862 RUSSIA. 
 
 the direction' of skillful engineers, the rock was raised 
 so that heavy plates of brass could be placed under it. 
 These plates rested upon hundreds of cannon balls, 
 five inches in diameter, and they ran in grooves in 
 other plates of metal which were laid upon the road. 
 Then, by the use of windlasses worked by a force of 
 fourteen hundred men, the rock was slowly moved 
 toward the city. When the bank of the River Neva 
 was reached, the rock was placed upon an enormous 
 raft, buoyed up by air chambers, and floated down to 
 the city. The removal required seven months of 
 labor to accomplish. The rock was placed in the 
 park in front of the palace of the Holy Synod. The 
 emperor is represented as checking his fiery horse on 
 the edge of the precipice, and pointing over the bay to 
 -he battle. The statue is balanced on the hind legs 
 of the horse, and is considered one of the most remark- 
 able pieces of bronze art in existence. 
 
 4. St. Isaac's Cathedral, St. I*etersburgli. — Leav- 
 ing the monument of the founder of the city, we turn 
 toward St. Isaac's Cathedral, a splendid structure of 
 the most costly materials, and an example of the 
 purest architecture. The exterior is severely plain ; 
 so plain that one whose eyes have become accustomed 
 to the elaborate ornamentation of the Gothic cathe- 
 drals on the continent, has to study it awhile to com- 
 prehend its beauty. It is one of the finest and richest 
 specimens of the pure Greek in the world, and the 
 longer and oftener one looks at it, the greater do its 
 glories appear. Each portico has massive pillars of 
 polished granite sixty feet high, with a diameter of 
 seven and a half feet ; the finest assemblage of granite 
 
RUSSIA. 863 
 
 monoliths in the world, all from the same quarry in 
 Finland. Over the peristyles, and at twice their 
 height, rises the central dome 296 feet, supported by 
 thirty pillars, which, although gigantic in size, look 
 small compared with those below. The dome is cov- 
 ered with copper overlaid with gold bullion. The 
 value of the gold upon this roof is nearly a million 
 roubles, and it glitters in the sun with dazzling bril- 
 liancy. This dome, reaching far above everything 
 else, is the most conspicuous object in the city, and 
 can be seen for miles around the country like a 
 golden mountain. 
 
 Passing through the great bronze doors, forty-four 
 feet wide by thirty-six feet high, we enter the interior 
 of the church. Hardly anywhere else in the world 
 can be found such an assemblage of rare stones. 
 There are pillars of malachite, columns of lapsis- 
 lazuli, friezes and wainscoting of both materials, 
 whose proportions exceed anything that has hitherto 
 been done in these beautiful stones ; a great part of 
 the floor is of jasper. The walls, the roof, the ceiling, 
 the sanctuary, and the various chapels are adorned 
 with paintings, mosaics, metal work, colossal garlands 
 of golden angels, and wealth of all kinds of ornament, 
 that glitter magnificently in the dim light of the 
 interior. 
 
 5. The Cliurcli Vladimir, St. Petersburjjrli. — Leav- 
 ing the cathedral we make our way to the Church 
 Vladimir, which differs in form in having one of the 
 arms prolonged to form a sort of vestibule. This 
 allows of an additional cupola, which is similar in 
 shape to the central dome ; while those at the four 
 
864 RUSSIA, 
 
 corners are more Oriental in effect, and suggest the 
 mosques of Asia. 
 
 All the churches in St. Petersburgh contain rich 
 offerings of silver, gold and precious stones ; there 
 are diamonds enough to make every distressed family 
 in the empire comfortable, and to build school- 
 houses in every town ; there is gilding enough and 
 vessels of silver and gold enough to clothe all the 
 naked and feed all the hungry in Russia; but the 
 veneration of the people is so great that the beggars 
 who sit before the doors of the churches, give half 
 the alms they receive to enrich the overflowing treas- 
 uries of the priests. 
 
 One sees few women among the worshipers in the 
 churches, which is exactly the reverse of what is the 
 case in Roman Catholic countries. This is explained 
 by the fact that the women are detained at their 
 homes, while every man in town, no matter what his 
 engagements are, be he laborer or drosky driver, 
 merchant or banker, never fails to enter the church 
 and say a prayer or two every day. 
 
 The service is all chanting, all harmony ; no melody. 
 There are often solos for the tenor or bass voices, 
 which are finely rendered, but they are always in a 
 monotone. The deep tones of the men mingling 
 with treble of the boys, produces a sweet harmony, 
 unlike any other ; modern, and yet suggestive of 
 antique Orientalism, and inclining in its terminal 
 notes towards the wailing tones of all so-called bar- 
 baric music. The effect is weird and thrilling. 
 
 6. Moscow and tho Kremlin. — With regret we 
 leave palatial St. Petersburgh, but with delight turn our 
 
RUSSIA. 865 
 
 footsteps toward Holy Moscow. When the project 
 of building a railroad between the two cities was 
 under discussion, there was an active rivalry among 
 the towns that lay along the route as to which should 
 have the benefit of the improvement ; for the road 
 could not pass through all of them without having as 
 many coils as a serpent. The Minister of Public 
 Works, worn out with the problem of satisfying all 
 the princes and nobles whose property interests were 
 involved, went to the Czar and laid the case before 
 him, asking for orders. " Give me the map," ex- 
 claimed his majesty. The map was brought, and 
 taking a ruler that lay on his table, he drew a direct 
 line from St. Petersburgh to Moscow. Then, return- 
 ing the map, he said, " Build the line thus, no matter 
 whom it helps or hurts ;" and it was so constructed, 
 the longest piece of straight track in the world ; 
 there being but few small curves and very slight 
 grades the entire distance. The cars run slowly and 
 cautiously, making not more than fifteen or eighteen 
 miles an hour, and stopping frequently at section- 
 houses, and sometimes at bridges, for the Russian 
 engineers know there is danger everywhere, and if a 
 fatal accident occurs they are punished without mercy. 
 
 The first sight of Moscow from the car window, is 
 neither impressive nor pleasing ; but to the eyes of 
 the Russian it is beautiful, noble, and sacred. There 
 is scarcely a foot of ground that is not historic and 
 holy, for Moscow is more than a thousand years old 
 as it stands, and there was another city on this site, 
 whose origin is lost in the mists of fables. 
 
 Moscow is truly the mirror of Russia — a city of 
 violent contrasts, a mixture of Europe and Asia. 
 
866 RUSSIA. 
 
 The Kremlin, the mightiest citadel in the world, with 
 its frowning battlements, covered with the rust and 
 lichens of centuries, is the focus from which every- 
 thing radiates, and around it clusters a forest of 
 golden domes and spires, from an ocean of green and 
 blue-roofed houses, grotesque cupolas and minarets, 
 all forming a. bewildering mass of Oriental and bar- 
 baric splendor which is unequalled. 
 
 7 riiurch of tlie Savior. Mo^^cow. — One of the 
 
 finest churches in the world stands in Moscow, — the 
 Church of the Savior, — erected to commemorate the 
 overthrow of Napoleon. The foundations were laid 
 in 1815, but the interior was not completed till 1882, 
 the entire structure costing forty millions of dollars. 
 It is impressively simple in design, and built of white 
 marble, all of 'the materials being imported from 
 Italy. The interior is grand and beautiful, finished 
 in rare Siberian stones, malachite, lapis lazuli, jasper, 
 and porphyry. The entire floor is of jasper, while 
 the ceilings and walls are covered with mosaic. The 
 building covers 73,000 square feet, and the top of the 
 cross that surmounts the dome is 340 feet from the 
 ground. The central dome is gilded, and ^1,200,000 
 worth of bullion was used to do the work. The 
 amount of gold bullion in the interior, for the 
 mosaics and the decoration of the altar, was ;^ 1,300, - 
 000. The interior is lighted with 38,000 wax candles, 
 resting in 1240 chandeliers; the Russians will not 
 use gas in their churches. The immense sums ex- 
 pended upon this church were acquired by the volun- 
 tary offerings of a poverty-stricken people, who are 
 without schools or even the comforts of life, but have 
 over 500 other churches within sight of the dome. 
 
RUSSIA. 867 
 
 8. The Great Bell, Moscow. — Who has not heard 
 of the mighty Kremlin, the great fortress that has 
 stood for a thousand years, and sheltered for so many 
 centuries the throne and the treasures of the Russian 
 empire? It is the fortress that protects the holy 
 city ; not only the legal residence of the Czar, but 
 the Vatican of the Russian Church. It stands upon 
 an eminence, a city within a city, surrounded on 
 three sides by the Volga, and enclosed within a wall 
 that is nearly a mile and a half long. 
 
 The group of buildings within the walls consists of 
 the ancient palace of the Czar, the treasury, the pal- 
 ace of the Holy Synod, two monasteries, the great 
 tower of Ivan, the Church of the Assumption, in 
 which the Czars must be crowned, the Church of the 
 Annunciation, in which they must be baptised and 
 married, and the Church of St. Michael, in which, 
 until the last century, their royal bones were laid. 
 There are barracks for soldiers, dormitories for 
 priests, and several buildings of minor importance — 
 a gorgeous cluster of magnificence and decay, every 
 foot of ground having its history, every wall and 
 window its romance, and every room its tragedy. 
 
 The first objects to be seen when entering the 
 Kremlin are the great tower of Ivan and the great 
 bell of Moscow. The Czar Kolokol, as the bell is 
 called, was cast in the fourteenth century by the 
 Czar Boris Gudenoff, as a measure of atonement for 
 the innocent blood through which he waded to the 
 throne. Boris erected a scaffolding to support it, 
 and it is said to have been rung in his time, but the 
 hangings gave way in 1684 and the bell fell to the 
 ground and was broken. The Empress Anne had it 
 
868 RUSSIA. 
 
 recast in 1733. During a fire in the Kremlin in 1737, 
 the bell was in the midst of the flames, and became 
 so heated that when streams of water were thrown 
 upon it a great crack opened. Under the Czar 
 Nicholas it was removed to its present position and 
 elevated to the pedestal on which it now stands. 
 Durmg the removal the cracked piece fell out and 
 has never been restored. The bell is two feet thick 
 and 67 feet in circumference, and weighs 444,000 
 pounds. The broken piece is seven feet high and its 
 weight is II tons. The interior of the bell is fitted 
 up as a chapel, and mass is occasionally said there. 
 
 9. The Tower Ivan, Moscow. — From the great 
 bell we turn to the Tower Ivan. Tradition points to 
 a very remote origin, but history asserts that the 
 tower was commenced about 1590, and was completed 
 in 1600, and it is now supposed that its name was 
 derived solely from the fact that the name of its 
 architect was Ivan. The tower is 325 feet in height, 
 and consists of five stories, four of these being 
 octagonal and the last cylindrical. The gilded 
 cupola and cross that surmount the structure were 
 set up in 18 12, to replace the cross that the French 
 removed under the impression that it was of great 
 value. The basement is occupied by a chapel dedi- 
 cated to St. Nicholas, the patron of all maidens about 
 to marry, and one meets many of them there, par- 
 ticularly on Saturday, when they go to say their 
 prayers before the ceremony, for Sunday is the 
 popular day for weddings. Within the tower, above 
 the chapel, is the famous chime of bells, thirty-four 
 in number, the smaller ones being cast of solid silver. 
 
RUSSIA. 869 
 
 The largest bell weighs 64 tons and the smallest only 
 a few hundred pounds. They are without doubt the 
 finest set of bells in the world, but are seldom rung 
 except upon Easter morning and when the Czar is in 
 the city. Every visitor to Moscow should mount the 
 450 steps leading to the gallery under the cupola, for 
 the view from the summit is one of the most striking 
 and unique in Europe. 
 
 10. Interior of the Cliiircli of the Redeemer, 
 Moscow. — Everywhere in Russia we notice the ex- 
 treme piety of the people, the multitude of sacred 
 pictures, and the incessant crossings and genuflection ; 
 but nowhere are the manifestations of religious feel- 
 ing more conspicuous than in the streets of Moscow. 
 The exceptionally sacred character of the the city 
 and especially of the Kremlin, attract a constant 
 succession of pilgrims, men and women, who prostrate 
 themselves before its churches, and go round to the 
 various shrines kissing image after image and relio 
 after relic. 
 
 Of the many beautiful churches in Moscow we 
 shall look at the interior of but one, the Church of 
 the Redeemer. The beautiful inlaid floor of polished 
 marble of various colors, thefine paintings that adorn 
 the wall, and the shining surface of the sanctuary, all 
 contribute to the rich and splendid effect found in the 
 Russian churches. But amid so much magnificence, 
 let us pause to ask what effect the religion has upon 
 the morals of the people. Seemingly very little. 
 The upper classes, the court and the nobility, 
 are notoriously profligate, corrupt and dishonest. 
 The officials of the Russian empire have been noted 
 
Syo RUSSIA. 
 
 for taking bribes as far back as tradition runs; while 
 the merchants use sharp practice wherever possible. 
 Among the peasants the conditions are about the 
 same. Drunkenness, dishonesty and all forms of 
 depravity are the rule, not the exception. It is 
 asserted that the priests never reprove drunkenness, 
 and that they discourage the organization of temper- 
 ance societies, receiving a liberal and regular subsidy 
 from the manufacturer of the spirits for permitting 
 the natural appetite of the peasant for stimulants to go 
 unrestrained. 
 
 1 1. Greek Cliapel, Southern Russia. — There are 
 churches enough throughout the empire, for in everv 
 collection of cabins rises a splendid temple with a 
 gilded dome and spire, sheltering a mass of precious 
 vestments, candle-sticks and altar plate of solid silver, 
 and usually an altar of malachite or soine other 
 precious stone. One always finds, even in the most 
 poverty-stricken and desolate villages, Icons, as the 
 pictures of the Savior are called, covered with 
 shields of gold and ornamented with valuable jewels. 
 The vestments of the priest cost more than all the 
 r st of clothing in the village, and the contributions 
 for the support of the church are usually equal to, if 
 not greater than, a third of the combined incomes of 
 the people. Of the scanty earnings of the peasant 
 one-third goes to the Church and another third to the 
 Crown, and both exactions are paid without the slight- 
 est resistence. The peasant is only glad that the 
 priest and tax gatherer do not take all. To him the 
 interior of the church, gilded from floor to dome, -and 
 de< orated with ornaments of silver and gold is a repre- 
 
RUSSIA. 871 
 
 sentation of the heaven the priests teach him is await- 
 ing those who say their prayers, fast on fast days, and 
 obey the Czar. He is always loyal to the Church 
 and the State. The uneducated peasant is never a 
 Nihilist, never an atheist, but pays his taxes and his 
 tithes without murmuring, and expects no more than 
 his father got, which was nothing. The only recom- 
 pense he has is to creep into some gaudy chapel, bow 
 his head to the floor in front of the picture of his 
 favorite saint, and lets his listless mind enjoy the 
 visions of Paradise that float over it. 
 
 12. A Peasant Family. — Let us look closely at 
 one of these peasant families. How these people live 
 is a mystery to all who have not investigated the sub- 
 ject. The ordinary traveler sees only their little 
 gardens, where is grown a scanty allowance of 
 potatoes, corn, turnips, and cabbage. They eat when 
 they are hungry, generally cabbage soup, which is 
 ahvays simmering on the fire ; the men are drunk as 
 often as they can get vodka, and at night they curl 
 themselves up somewhere on the floor in a warm 
 place to sleep. In the cabins one seldom finds a bed 
 or a table or a chair, and very few dishes. They 
 have no comforts v/hatever, and not even the 
 necessaries of life; the church takes place of them all. 
 
 The peasant is essentially a religious being. He 
 believes in only two things, the Church and the Czar. 
 One represents the powers above, and the other the 
 powers below ; but at the same time he regards 
 religion as a series of ceremonies of a magical rather 
 than a spiritual significance. He is dull, stupid, and 
 submissive, and is profoundly ignorant of everything 
 
872 RUSSIA. 
 
 that is beyond the sight of his own eyes or the 
 hearing of his own ears. He seldom goes beyond 
 the confines of his native parish unless he is con- 
 scripted into the army, and then he seldom returns. 
 He thinks that all the world are like himself and his 
 relatives, and is satisfied with his lot because he 
 cannot conceive of existence under any other cir- 
 cumstances. And indeed, he seems to be happy 
 only under two conditions, when he is drunk on 
 vodka and when he is saying his prayers before his 
 favorite saint.