Mosca

“ In Face as in Subtle, in Volpone as in Mosca, the qualities which delight us are virtues misapplied: it is not their cunning, their avarice, or their lust, it is their courage, their genius, and their wit in which we take no ignoble or irrational pleasure. And indeed it would be strange and incongruous if a great satirist who was also a great poet had erred so grossly as not to aim at this result, or had fallen so grievously short of his aim as not to vindicate the dignity of his design. ”

“ Patron! VOLP: Nay, now, My ruins shall not come alone; your match I'll hinder sure: my substance shall not glue you, Nor screw you into a family. MOS: Why, patron! VOLP: I am Volpone, and this is my knave; [POINTING TO MOSCA.] This [TO VOLT.] , his own knave; This [TO CORB.] , avarice's fool; This [TO CORV.] , a chimera of wittol, fool, and knave: And, reverend fathers, since we all can hope Nought but a sentence, let's not now dispair it. You hear me brief. CORV: May it please your fatherhoods— COM: Silence. 1 AVOC: The knot is now undone by miracle. 2 AVOC: Nothing can be more clear. ”

“ It was the Kremlin which they here beheld, the sacred centre of the Russian empire, the ancient dwelling-place and citadel of the czars.
A wild cry of wonder and triumph burst from the soldiers who had first reached the summit of the hill. "Moscow! Moscow!" they shouted, their imaginations strongly excited by the magnificent spectacle. This cry lent wings to those behind them. In crowding hosts the eager soldiers rushed up the long slope, all ranks mingling in their burning desire to gaze upon that great city which was the goal of their far-extended march. ”

“ With the change to winter temperature a great quiet comes over the town, wheeled traffic is stopped, sledges glide over the frozen roads, and from the windless sky the great snowflakes can ever be seen idly and slowly floating in their long and leisurely descent to earth. A reddened sun appears for a short time each day in a leaden sky, and Moscow lives, is more active, more itself, than when the light of summer decks its walls and pinnacles in holiday garb. But at whatever season studied, Moscow will reveal traces of the past ”

“ It is called The Hill of Salvation, because on its summit the inhabitants, at sight of their holy city, cross and prostrate themselves. Our scouts soon gained the top of this hill. It was two o'clock: the sun caused this great city to glisten with a thousand colors. Struck with astonishment at the sight, they paused, exclaiming, "Moscow! Moscow!" Every one quickened his pace; the troops hurried on in disorder; and the whole army, clapping their hands, repeated with transport, "Moscow! Moscow!" just as sailors shout "Land! land!" ”

“ The city is in too strong a contrast to the forced founding of St. Petersburg. There the hand of man is all in evidence; nothing is refreshing. A great prison fortress of granite blocks surrounded by huts and barracks. Moscow is a product of nature, founded with enthusiasm by its dwellers in response to the open invitation of nature, and adored even with devotion. Even the stranger feels this, even though there is nothing to which he is unaccustomed except the devotion and tenderness of a people to whom he is bound by not a single tie of common association. ”

“ Moscow is a sight, a city of magnificent, ponderous buildings & ancient, richly coloured walls, towers and statutary, a place of barbaric splendour, with every attention to material and pleasure. The baths are magnificent. ”

“ As the river Moskva was a highway for traffic between Suzdal, Vladimir and the Volga in the east, with Smolensk in the west and Kief in the south, the villages on its banks were important. The hill on which the Kremlin stands appeared to Yuri a point of vantage, and, as it was near the boundary of his territory, he there constructed a fortress and also built, or rebuilt or enlarged, the church which served for the inhabitants of the village of Kutchkovo hard by, and for those of other villages in the neighbourhood. ”

“ But the most beautiful view of the whole complex is from the far bank of the Moskva, where the high wall, with its countless towers and cupolas, seems like the birth of an Oriental dream-fantasy. It shines and lightens in all colors, looks into the air, and speaks kindly greetings to all below; one could simply sit and clap one's hands for joy. But to the Russian this little jewel-box is by no means a plaything. On the contrary, he very respectfully bares his head and ceases not to cross himself. For "above Moscow is only the Kremlin, and above the Kremlin is only heaven." ”

“ Moscow should have remained the Russian capital. With an admirable climate, at once keen enough to keep the human frame in its vigour, and with the warm summer of the south, to supply all the vegetable products of Europe; its position commanding the finest provinces of Western Asia, Russia would have been mistress of the Black Sea a century earlier, had probably been in possession of Asia Minor, and have fixed a Viceroy in the city of the Sultans. ”

“ But we are now on the border between the East and the West, between Asia and Europe, between barbarism in its best estate and civilization. Take a map of the world and see where Moscow stands! What vast, uncultured, desolate regions lie at the east of it, and still further on, what empires and peoples that make up the bulk of the human race! Out of the barbarism of that eastern portion of the earth’s plane, Russia is emerging, and Moscow is her frontier town ”

“ You see the hut of a peasant side by side with the palace of a nobleman; a stable rises close against a church and there is a carpenter's shop, with its half-dozen workmen, abutting close against an immense factory where hundreds of hands are employed. Moscow is a city of contrasts; princes and beggars almost jostle each other in the streets; the houses of rich and poor are in juxtapostion, and it is only a few short steps from the palace of the Kremlin, with its treasures of gold and jewels, to the abodes of most abject poverty. ”

“ This mixture of urban magnificence and rural simplicity produces an extraordinary, fantastic effect, which must please the traveller who is in search of something new. The churches are so numerous in this city that a popular saying runs: "Moscow with its forty times forty churches." Moscow is supposed to contain 420,000 inhabitants, and commerce must be on a large scale, because in a single quarter, whose name I have forgotten, there are six thousand shops. In the quarter called the Kremlin there stands the fortress of the same name, the old palace of the czars. ”

“ Dirty snow was in the hollows, and there were long, straight roads drawn with a ruler as they are in Australia, with little bare trees at regular intervals on either side, and then again dark fir woods and rain everywhere. Soon we had passed the frontier and were in Russia, and I felt I could not rush through without one glimpse of it, so I stayed one little week in Moscow, and I shall always be glad I did, though there, for the first time in my life, I was in a country where my nationality did not count, and it was not a pleasant feeling. But Moscow is the city of a dream. ”

“ Visitors to Moscow in Lent are seldom shown this really interesting sight, much more humanly interesting than the Kremlin, the churches and museums. For Russia can boast of very little antiquity in her civilisation or her buildings. Much more interesting than her little past is her present.
At the fair all is Russian—even the oranges and lemons come from the groves of South Russia and the Caucasus. One gets another glimpse of the Russian 107harmony, the harmony of which the winter, the forests, the church, the peasants, the beggars are integral parts. ”

“ Geography, and by this I mean location as well as resources, has not only kept Moscow on a level with her rival, but guarantees without gainsay to raise her far above the city of Peter in the future. The ecnonomic progress of the present and even more so of the Russia of to-morrow lies not in the region of Petersburg but in the center and south, that is nearer Moscow. The industrial areas from Poland to the southeast through Tula, Ekaterinoslav to the mines of the lower Don, the largest coal-producing fields of Europe; the Baku oil fields; the Caspian and lower Volga fisheries ”

“ Probably Moscow does not charm so strongly by reason of any particular building or style as by the great diversity of its houses and churches, both in design and colouring. More especially in those quarters where the wooden log-houses still linger in their gardens, and where the frame-houses are all made gay with white, cream, blue-gray, yellow and pink body colour, and the roofs of dark green or still darker crimson; there Moscow seems to belong to another world. ”

“ Blue heavens, golden cupolas, green towers, red houses, pealing bells above, sleigh-bells on the streets, praying muzhiks before images of the saints, beautiful women in costly furs—when I wish to reconstruct from my recollections the picture of Moscow, these are the elements which at first mingle, charming, chaotic, like the colors in Caucasian gold-enamel. ”

“ Every winter, great numbers of merchants come to Moscow from Germany and Poland, who purchase furs of all kinds, which are indeed exceedingly beautiful. Among these furs, are the skins of foxes, wolves, martins, sables, ermines, and many others, from Scythia and the alpine regions, many days journey to the north of Moscow. Many of these are likewise carried for sale to Novogorod [7] , a city towards the frontiers of Germany, eight days journey west from Moscow. The government of that city is democratic, and only pays a stipulated yearly tribute to the grand duke. ”

“ But above all, Moscow, the holy mother of the land, is the centre of Russian history and tradition, to which all the inhabitants of the empire devote their love and veneration. Every Russian entertains all his life long the desire to visit one day the great city, to see the towers of its holy churches, and to pray on the tombs of the patron saints of Russia. “Mother Moscow” has already suffered and given her blood for Russia, as all the Russian people are ready to do for her.
There is not in Europe any nobility which possesses such large fortunes, (?) ”

“ Moscow!” went up from the whole army as they gazed on the gilded cupolas and magnificent buildings of that famous city, brilliantly lit up by the afternoon sun. Twenty miles in circumference, dazzling with the green of its copper domes and its minarets of yellow stone, the towers and walls of the famous Kremlin rising above its palaces and gardens, it seemed like some fabled city of the Arabian Nights. With renewed enthusiasm the troops rushed towards it, while whole regiments of Poles fell on their knees, thanking God for delivering this stronghold of their oppressors into their hands. ”

“ When one looks for the first time upon the roofs of the Muscovite city as it lies [Pg 291] under the glare of the warm summer sun, the scene is both fascinating and confusing. The general aspect is far more picturesque at Moscow than at the capital on the Neva, because the city is here located upon undulating and in some parts even hilly ground; besides which St. Petersburg is decidedly European, while Moscow is Tartar in its very atmosphere. The first is the visible growth of modern ideas ”

“ It was towards the evening of the second day of their departure from Tver, that they approached the Phoenix-like, the resuscitated, holy, and ancient city of Moscow.
The rays of the setting sun shed a glittering lustre on the innumerable gilded domes, steeples and spires, of its churches, shooting upwards from amid the dark masses of habitations, like trees of gold in a forest of enchantment. Each tower being surmounted by the emblem of Christian faith, resplendent with gold, and connected by golden chains, which shone more brightly as they waved in the breeze. ”

“ Moscow lay four hundred miles away, and the country between was bleak and almost uninhabited. Even to-day the traveller on leaving St. Petersburg finds himself in a desert. The great plain over which he passes spreads away in every direction, not a steeple, not a tree, not a man or beast, visible upon its bare expanse. There is no [Pg 157] pasturage nor farming land. Fruits and vegetables can scarcely be grown; corn must be brought from a distance. ”

“ Thirteen years later a second invasion of the Tartars resulted in the fall of Vladimir and the subjection of southern and eastern Russia to Mongol rule. Livonians, Swedes and Danes attacked Novgorod, but were repulsed. Pressed on these sides the Russians could extend only towards the inhospitable north. In these times and with this environment Moscow was founded, and nursed; became a rallying point for the Slav race; grew strong and rich; and, by the genius of its rulers, dominated Russia. ”

“ The Grand Duchess Hélène had announced herself at Moscow for Easter. Her niece was allowed to accompany her, and saw Eastern magnificence and architecture for the first time there. On the 4th of May 1864 she writes from Moscow:—“We are in Moscow, that old patriotic town, with its houses of one or two stories, green roofs, and four hundred churches, which are all aglow with the brightest colours. The dimensions of the streets are so enormous that one does not know where the street ends and the open space begins. ”

“ The first thing that impressed the youths was the undulating character of the ground on which Moscow is built, in pleasing contrast to the dead level of St. Petersburg. The streets are rarely straight for any great distance, and were it not for the inequalities one would not be able to see very far ahead of him at any time. But every few minutes a pretty view is afforded from the crest of one ridge to another ”