especially if he is making a bargain-will take as many as fifteen or sixteen cups; remaining, in fact, with his tea-pot and his urn before him (the real Chinese urn, by the bye) through an entire afternoon. Whether or not all classes of the community felt the influence of the Mongols equally, I am unable to say. The merchants may have adopted their peculiar customs either during the subjection of Russia to the Golden Horde, or as a result of their frequent journeyings to Mongolia and the frontiers of China. However that may be, the upper classes, since Peter's time, have gradually been adopting the civilization first of Germany, then of France, and latterly of England; whereas the merchants, as a body, appear to have remained stationary.

66

Those customs of the merchants that I have already mentioned are, however, as nothing compared with the prejudices which exist among them on the subject of marriage. Among the highest classes there may be state or family reasons which excuse, if they do not justify, the mariage d'intérêt; and yet, in Russia, it is only among these that a marriage of inclination ever takes place. "Many of our countrymen," says one of the young countesses in Gore ot Ouma, "without thinking any previous warning necessary, improvise relations for us in the shops of our marchandes de mode." "Poor fellows!" replies the hero of the piece, they must bear the reproaches of those who imitate milliners, for having preferred the originals to the copies!" Now, without accepting either of these sarcasms as expressing the literal truth, it may be said that there is a substra tum of fact beneath each; and, on the whole, it is creditable to Russia that an independent man like Tchatski—a true, though perhaps, a rare type-should now and then exist, to be even suspected of the eccentricity sneeringly attributed to him by the woman of fashion. Certainly the merchants are never accused of any such forgetfulness of matrimonial etiquette, for they sell their daughters and buy their sonsin-law, as if they were so much merchandise. I do not say that marriages of love are by any means frequent among

the nobles; but among the merchants they never take place at all.

Ordinarily matrimonial unions in the middle classes are arranged by an intermediary, called a svakha, who will find a bride or bridegroom, as may be required; and it is not considered at all necessary or desirable that the young people should be acquainted with one another before their marriage. In a play represented at the Little Theatre in Moscow at the time of the coronation, under the title of "A Russian Wedding of the Olden Time," and which was chiefly remarkable for the richness and variety of the costumes, the bride's face is concealed from the bridegroom until the performance of the marriage ceremony. This is, indeed, the foundation of the whole piece, which turns upon the despair of a young man at being forced by his parents to marry a girl he has never seen, and his joy on discovering, at the last moment, that his betrothed and his inamorata are one and the same person.

It would not interest the reader if I were to give the plots of some of the merchant-comedies that I have seen, as their great merit consists in the humour with which the manners and peculiar verbal expression of the class are reproduced. One of the best of the kind is M. Ostroffski's Svoi Ludi, &c. In this piece there is a merchant's daughter, who, wishing to get married, of course desires to unite herself to what, in England, we should familiarly call "a swell." When a young merchant appears, and asks for her hand, she views him with silent contempt, until, at last, he makes a passionate appeal, and, as an extreme proof of his devotion, exclaims, "I will do anything for you! Tell me to go to a German tailor's and get a fashionable coat" (he wears a caftan), "tell me even to shave off my beard, and I will do it!" "I only ask for one proof of affection," says the young lady. "What is it?" demands the swain. "Learn to speak French!"

Besides the comedies which exhibit the vices of officialism and the effect of the official system on the independent man,

and those which deal with the absurdities of the merchants, there are some others of larger scope, among which the most remarkable we know is Gogol's " Marriage." In this comedy we have a fine study of the bachelor as a character. A single man of confirmed bachelor habits wishes to get a wife. He does not understand the French language himself, but, of course, insists on marrying a young lady who speaks French. This, however, is merely a detail. The main idea of the piece, and a highly philosophical one it is, is this, that a bachelor of a certain age must necessarily dread to alter his mode of life to suit that of another person. The chief character of the comedy, who is considered " a good match," after considering the qualifications of a number of marriagable young ladies, who are all anxious to secure him, selects one; but no sooner has he given his word than he repents. He is afraid of the total change that must take place in his habits after he is married. It is not a love-match, for he is a middle-aged man and something more. He reflects; but the bride is coming down stairs in her wedding costume, and there is no time for consideration. The handle of the door moves, and it appears impossible to escape; but the window is open. He leaps into the street, and is saved. You hear him call out to a droshky-driver, "Isvostchik! isvostchik!"

peared for ever, and the curtain falls.

He has disap

Native comedies are not played at the large theatres in Russia, any more than in other European countries, where the opera has half extinguished the drama. In Moscow they are represented at what is called the Little Theatre; in St. Petersburg at the Tsirk, or the Alexander Theatre.

Of course, in Russia, where everything is translated, they translate comedies and vaudevilles from the French. One night, as I was going into the Little Theatre in Moscow, I found that Molière's "MICAHTPOП" was to be played. Another time it was the well-known vaudeville, "A. ."the French A. F. These Russian characters, which are for the most part Greek, have, to a stranger, quite a burlesque

66

effect, when for the first time he sees them on a play-bill. Sheridan," for instance, with a rho for an r, and a delta for a d, looks exceedingly strange. "The School for Scandal," I must add, is one of the stock pieces of the Russian stage; and I have, in a previous chapter, mentioned an article on Sheridan and his writings, which appeared in one of the Russian reviews in 1854.

Perhaps Russia will some day be celebrated for comedies; but I fancy that, in its leap from semi-barbarism to civilization, it is skipping tragedy altogether, which, as a general rule, appears to be an anterior product. Soumorokoff may have had great poetic genius, but he was an imitator, and in the present day he is not acted.

Before dismissing the subject of the Russian stage, I must mention that many of the rich Russian proprietors have theatres on their estates, a few of which are well appointed in all respects. As the manager is proprietor not only of the theatre, but also of the actors and actresses, he is never troubled with refusals to appear in such and such a part or with such and such a performer; his tenors have never suspicious sore throats, and his dancers enjoy wonderful health. Good chorus and ballet-masters are engaged at these private theatres, and occasionally an accomplished artist is produced. Madame Zeitto, the prima-donna of the Nijni-Novgorod operatic troupe, was a serf belonging to the estate of M. S-, at whose theatre she had been "formed." She received a large salary, and paid only the usual "obrok" (ten or twelve roubles a year) to her seigneur. But the estate passing into other hands, the successful soprano was recalled from Nijni; and it was only by paying a considerable sum to her new proprietor that the merchants of the town could obtain permission for her to remain at the theatre, of which she was the greatest ornament. Now that the provincial towns are gaining importance, and the capital is becoming every day more easy of access (as well as for other reasons), these private theatres are fortunately falling into neglect. "Think of the hoary

dotard," says the hero of Griboiedoff's comedy, "who, for the sake of a ballet of his own invention, tore all the children on his estate from the arms of their despairing fathers and mothers. His loves and zephyrs had made him indifferent to the rest of the world. It is true all Moscow flocked to admire his ballet, but that did not procure from his creditors a longer delay, and his loves and zephyrs were brought to the hainmer. Such are the men whose

grey hair we are called upon to reverence."

A

CHAPTER IX.

THE MOSCOW OPERA-HOUSE.

By a curious combination of circumstances, I find myself in possession of a number of facts connected with the Russian stage, and especially with the new Opera-house at Moscow, which have never been published out of Russia, and which, even there, are not very generally known. I was fortunate enough to be in Moscow when the new theatre was opened, and to receive-that is to say, to obtain -through the courtesy of the British Ambassador, an invitation to the "gala spectacle," on which occasion the house was filled with the most brilliant audience it is ever likely to contain. It must, indeed, have been a "gala spectacle" for M. Cavos, the architect, who, to continue the list of my advantages, favoured me with every information that could be desired respecting the construction and dimensions of his theatrical masterpiece. Then a few months afterwards, at the beginning of the winter of 1856, the hundredth anniversary of the establishment of Government theatres in Russia was celebrated. A piece called "1756 and 1856" (of which the subject is sufficiently explained by the title) was produced at the "Little Theatre," and one of the Moscow journals published an original history of the Russian stage. After that, happening to