John Knox Stallybrass

“ Now I knew, from his conversation with the secretary, which way that question tended; and, feeling that it was dangerous, I resolved to parry it.
“Your Excellency has already informed me,” I said, “that you know more about us than we do ourselves: you surely need not apply to me for such a paltry piece of information; about a matter, too, relating not to England, about which you know so much from your agents, but to Copenhagen, which lies under your Excellency’s own eyes.”
“If you know Sir Henry Wynn, why did you apply to me for a passport this morning, instead of going to him at once?” ”

“ The passport system in Russia is a relic of Oriental barbarism; a badge of slavery; a sign that the Russians can call neither body nor soul their own, but must have them ticketed and labelled with their owner’s name. “Alexander II., Autocrat of all the Russias, passport No. 5471.” It was all very well for our ancestor Gurth the swineherd and the slave to endure; but free-born men, living in a free country, will never bend their necks to wear a collar. ”

“ He was the man, to whom Nicholas is reported to have said, in one of his saddened moods, “There is only one honest man in Russia:” and, while the favourite was bowing his acknowledgment of the supposed compliment, never for a moment doubting, that he, the immaculate Orlov, was the “one honest man,” whose presence the clear-sighted autocrat recognised and rejoiced in, Nicholas dispelled the illusion by quietly adding—“and that is myself.” Yet I knew very well that no one had greater influence over Nicholas; and that, next to the Czar himself, no one had so much power in Russia. ”

“ You cannot change your residence, even if you were going to live next door, without first sending your passport to the police-office.
To an Englishman, accustomed to move as freely as the air he breathes, without any one daring to ask his business, under fear of being sent about his own business, the passport system is one of the greatest nuisances in existence. ”

“ I was out of danger, but by no means out of the way of annoyance. I was put under police surveillance; and my passport was withheld for many days. Day after day I had to dance attendance on the Foreign Office, and the Secret Police Office; I was driven backward and forward, like a shuttlecock, from the one to the other.
At the Foreign Office, I was examined by a gentleman who was an adept at the task. It would be useless to record all the questions and answers which passed between us; but the conclusion of my interview with him is worthy of detailed recital.
“Were you ever in Russia before?” ”

“ The passport is another sort of ticket-of-leave, and the system is one equally associated with villany and corruption and much public inconvenience. To submit to the ignominy of carrying a label about you, certifying who you are, as if you word were not enough; to be obliged to show this ticket to every little pettifogging functionary, who may choose to demand it; to be liable to a cross-examination by said functionary on every little minutia every time he happens to have a grudge against you, or fancies that you have not bribed him liberally enough ”

“ An Englishman, coming to Russia, which the press of his country is every day crying down as the most despotic and restrictive country in the world, actually forgets his passport! A very likely story, indeed! I know why you have no passport!—you could not get one, sir,—you are too well known to our agents. ”

“ And I did. I spent the day in examining the famous fortifications of Cronstadt, which Sir Charles Napier was to have taken in a week, but which, I believe (though not a military man) , the united forces of England and France could not have captured in a year. In the afternoon, I was at the pier in good time for the last steamer to St. Petersburg. I put down the small bribe again instead of the passport, but, to my dismay, the clerk would not receive it.
“You must show me your passport,” he growled.
“But is it not usual for gentlemen to lay down a coin instead of the passport?” ”

“ It was with inexpressible satisfaction and relief that I stepped again on deck, and received the congratulations of the captain and my fellow-passengers, to whom I told my story by way of apology for detaining them beyond the proper time. So far I had triumphed; but I had overheard enough to make me dubious of the final result. “The private mark of suspicion!”—those terribly mysterious words kept haunting me all the way to Cronstadt. How much might they imply? ”

“ We were to stay some hours at Copenhagen on our way, and I resolved to spend those hours in an attempt to procure a posthumous passport there.
Unfortunately it was six o’clock in the morning when we landed at Copenhagen, and the captain of our steamer distinctly forewarned us all that he would start precisely at ten. I had only four hours to work in—and so early in the morning, too! I hired the first car I saw, and, promising the driver a double fare, ordered him to gallop off to the English embassy. I had become acquainted with the Secretary of Legation during a former visit to Copenhagen ”

“ Yes, indeed. You Englishmen fancy that we know nothing about you. The fact is, we know more about you than you do yourselves: we have our agents in England, who know more of your affairs than you imagine. ”

“ An Englishman can scarcely form an idea of the petty annoyances to which a foreigner is subjected on his arrival at St. Petersburg. He is first required to give, in writing, a long and circumstantial declaration on a variety of subjects: he has then to undergo a personal examination at the bureau of the secret police ”

“ MY ADVENTURES WITH A PASSPORT IN RUSSIA.
PART. I. SHOWING HOW I GOT IT.
It is one of the hardest things in the world to form a just estimate of a foreign country. We seldom see other nations fully, and still more rarely judge impartially of what we do see: such is the temptation to under-rate and over-rate, according to our own special tendency. ”

“ The fault is our own; we disqualify ourselves from admiring what is really good, by comparing it with what is good in a different order of things. We might have known that the animal was a mule; and, when we have once cheerfully recognised that fact, we may see that even the mule has beauties and good qualities of its own. ”

“ Interpreter,” continued the president, addressing an Englishman, or pseudo-Englishman, beside him, “ask the captain of the steamer” (who was standing behind) “if he knows any other Englishman of that name; but mind you put the question in a whisper, that the man may not overhear you.”
The mysterious whisper took place, while I had considerable difficulty in maintaining due control over my risible faculties; and at length the interpreter said aloud, in Russ, that the captain knew no other Englishman of that name, and had never heard it before he saw me on board. ”

“ When we remember the contradictory representations we daily hear and read of the countries in our own immediate neighbourhood, modesty may well restrain us from pronouncing any dogmatic opinion on those which are physically, intellectually, and morally, more remote. ”

“ After some more passes between us, in which I twitted him again, and more than once, about his universal knowledge—and this time not merely because I was amused at his official sensitiveness, but because I thought that that was the way in which I could the soonest bring the interview to a close—the ambassador gave up the cross-examination—as if owning himself foiled for once by the simplicity of a true story.
“I can make nothing of the fellow,” he said in Russ, turning to the secretary: “what to do?”
“I don’t see what you can do but visé the passport ”

“ One of its most striking developments is to be seen in the jealousy with which all foreigners are regarded. The Russians cannot get rid of the impression that you must have some sinister end in view in visiting their country. ”

“ That is about the only thing one can do without a passport in Russia. The result of it all was, that I surrendered myself to the worthy Minister of Justice (or injustice) , and was actually conveyed to St. Petersburg under the care of that very pair of eyes which had looked so suspicious on board the steamer. I afterwards discovered that those prying eyes had never lost sight of me throughout the day; they had dogged me from fort to fort, from inn to inn, from street to street, and were never taken off from their guard over my innocent head till they had seen me safe and sound in St. ”