No More Learning

XXXIII

Yet on a frosty winter day
The journey in a sledge doth please,
No senseless fashionable lay
Glides with a more luxurious ease;
For our Automedons are fire
And our swift troikas never tire;
The verst posts catch the vacant eye
And like a palisade flit by. (72)
The Larinas unwisely went,
From apprehension of the cost,
By their own horses, not the post--
So Tania to her heart's content
Could taste the pleasures of the road.
Seven days and nights the travellers plod.

[Note 72: This somewhat musty joke has appeared in more than one
national costume. Most Englishmen, if we were to replace
verst-posts with milestones and substitute a graveyard for
a palisade, would instantly recognize its Yankee extraction.
In Russia however its origin is as ancient at least as the
reign of Catherine the Second. The witticism ran thus: A
courier sent by Prince Potemkin to the Empress drove so
fast that his sword, projecting from the vehicle, rattled
against the verst-posts as if against a palisade! ]

XXXIV

But they draw near. Before them, lo!
White Moscow raises her old spires,
Whose countless golden crosses glow
As with innumerable fires. (73)
Ah! brethren, what was my delight
When I yon semicircle bright
Of churches, gardens, belfries high
Descried before me suddenly!
Moscow, how oft in evil days,
Condemned to exile dire by fate,
On thee I used to meditate!
Moscow! How much is in the phrase
For every loyal Russian breast!
How much is in that word expressed!

[Note 73: The aspect of Moscow, especially as seen from the Sparrow
Hills, a low range bordering the river Moskva at a short distance
from the city, is unique and splendid. It possesses several domes
completely plated with gold and some twelve hundred spires most of
which are surmounted by a golden cross. At the time of sunset they
seem literally tipped with flame. It was from this memorable spot
that Napoleon and the Grand Army first obtained a glimpse at the
city of the Tsars. There are three hundred and seventy churches in
Moscow. The Kremlin itself is however by far the most interesting
object to the stranger. ]

XXXV

Lo! compassed by his grove of oaks,
Petrovski Palace! Gloomily
His recent glory he invokes.
Here, drunk with his late victory,
Napoleon tarried till it please
Moscow approach on bended knees,
Time-honoured Kremlin's keys present.
Not so! My Moscow never went
To seek him out with bended head.
No gift she bears, no feast proclaims,
But lights incendiary flames
For the impatient chief instead.
From hence engrossed in thought profound
He on the conflagration frowned. (74)

[Note 74: Napoleon on his arrival in Moscow on the 14th September
took up his quarters in the Kremlin, but on the 16th had to
remove to the Petrovski Palace or Castle on account of the
conflagration which broke out in all quarters of the city.