him so often the ground upon which they both now stand. He stares stolidly at the Prospekt, ignoring not only the Theatre, but the vast structures containing the Direction of Theatres and Prisons, the Censor's Office, Theatrical School, and other government offices in the background; the new building for shops and apartments, where ancient Russian forms have been adapted to modern street purposes; and even the wonderfully rich Imperial Public Library, begun in 1794, to contain the books brought from Warsaw, with its Corinthian peristyle interspersed with bronze statues of ancient sages, on the garden side,--all of which stand upon the scene of his former garden parties, as the name of the avenue beyond the plain end of the Library on the Prospekt--Great Garden Street--reminds us. Not far away is the site of the tunnel dug under the Prospekt by the revolutionists, which, however, was fortunately discovered in time to prevent the destruction of one of the fairest parts of the city, and its most valuable buildings. With the next block we enter upon the liveliest, the most characteristic portion of the Nevsky Prospekt, in that scant fraction over a mile which is left to us above the Anitchkoff Bridge.
Here stands the vast bazaar known as the Gostinny Dvor,--"Guests' Court,"--a name which dates from the epoch when a wealthy merchant engaged in foreign trade, and owning his own ships, was distinguished from the lesser sort by the title of "Guest," which we find in the ancient epic songs of Russia. Its frontage of seven hundred feet on the Prospekt, and one thousand and fifty on Great Garden and the next parallel street, prepare us to believe that it may really contain more than five hundred shops in the two stories, the lower surrounded by a vaulted arcade supporting an open gallery, which is invaluable for decorative purposes at Easter and on imperial festival days. Erected in 1735, very much in its present shape, the one common throughout the country, on what had been an impassable morass a short time before, and where the ground still quakes at dawn, it may not contain the largest and best shops in town, and its merchants certainly are not "guests" in the ancient acceptation of the word; but we may claim, nevertheless, that it presents a compendium of most purchasable articles extant, from samovari, furs, and military goods, to books, sacred images, and Moscow imitations of Parisian novelties at remarkably low prices, as well as the originals.
The nooks and spaces of the arcade, especially at the corners and centre, are occupied by booths of cheap wares. The sacred image, indispensable to a Russian shop, is painted on the vaulted ceiling; the shrine lamp flickers in the open air, thus serving many aproned, homespun and sheepskin clad dealers. The throng of promenaders here is always varied and interesting. The practiced eye distinguishes infinite shades of difference in wealth, social standing, and other conditions. The lady in the velvet shuba, lined with sable or black fox, her soft velvet cap edged with costly otter, her head wrapped in a fleecy knitted shawl of goat's-down from the steppes of Orenburg, or pointed hood--the bashlyk--of woven goat's-down from the Caucasus, has driven hither in her sledge or carriage, and has alighted to gratify the curiosity of her sons. We know at a glance whether the lads belong in the aristocratic Pages' Corps, on Great Garden Street, hard by, in the University, the Law School, the Lyceum, or the Gymnasium, and we can make a shrewd guess at their future professions by their faces as well as by their uniforms. The lady who comes to meet us in sleeved pelisse, wadded with eider-down, and the one in a short jacket have arrived, and must return, on foot; they could not drive far in the open air, so thinly clad.
At Christmas-tide there is a great augmentation in the queer "Vyazemsky" and other cakes, the peasant laces, sweet Vyborg cracknels, fruit pastils, and other popular goods, on which these petty open-air dealers appear to thrive, both in health and purse. The spacious area between the bazaar and the sidewalk of the Nevsky is filled with Christmas-trees, beautifully unadorned, or ruined with misplaced gaudiness, brought in, in the majority of cases, by Finns from the surrounding country. Again, in the week preceding Palm Sunday, the Verbnaya Yarmaraka, or Pussy Willow Fair, takes place here. Nominally, it is held for the purpose of providing the public with twigs of that aesthetic plant (the only one which shows a vestige of life at that season), which are used as palms, from the Emperor's palace to the poorest church in the land. In reality, it is a most amusing fair for toys and cheap goods suitable for Easter eggs; gay paper roses, wherewith to adorn the Easter cake; and that combination of sour and sweet cream and other forbidden delicacies, the paskha, with which the long, severe fast is to be broken, after midnight matins on Easter. Here are plump little red Finland parrots, green and red finches, and other song-birds, which kindly people buy and set free, after a pretty custom. The board and canvas booths, the sites for which are drawn by lot by soldiers' widows, and sold or used as suits their convenience, are locked at night by dropping the canvas flap, and are never guarded; while the hint that thefts may be committed, or that watching is necessary, is repelled with indignation by the stall-keepers.
There is always a popular toy of the hour. One year it consisted of highly colored, beautifully made bottle-imps, which were loudly cried as Amerikanskiya zhiteli,--inhabitants of America. We inquired the reason for their name.
"They are made in the exact image of the Americans," explained the peasant vendor, offering a pale blue imp, with a long, red tongue and a phenomenal tail, for our admiration.
"We are inhabitants of America. Is the likeness very strong?" we asked.
The crowd tittered softly; the man looked frightened; but finding that no dire fate threatened, he was soon vociferating again, with a roguish grin:--
"Kupiti, kupi-i-iti! Prevoskhodniya Amerikanskiya zhiteli! Sa-a-miya nastoyashtschiya!"--Buy, buy, splendid natives of America! the most genuine sort!
Far behind this Gostinny Dvor extends a complex mass of other curious "courts" and markets, all worthy of a visit for the popular types which they afford of the lower classes. Among them all none is more steadily and diversely interesting, at all seasons of the year, than the Syennaya Ploshtschad,--the Haymarket,--so called from its use in days long gone by. Here, in the Fish Market, is the great repository for the frozen food which is so necessary in a land where the church exacts a sum total of over four months' fasting out of the twelve. Here the fish lie piled like cordwood, or overflow from casks, for economical buyers. Merchants' wives, with heads enveloped in colored kerchiefs, in the olden style, well tucked in at the neck of their salopi, or sleeved fur coats, prowl in search of bargains. Here sit the fishermen from the distant Murman coast, from Arkhangel, with weather-beaten but intelligent faces, in their quaint skull-caps of reindeer hide, and baggy, shapeless garments of mysterious skins, presiding over the wares which they have risked their lives to catch in the stormy Arctic seas, during the long days of the brief summer-time; codfish dried and curled into gray unrecognizableness; yellow caviar which resists the teeth like tiny balls of gutta-percha,--not the delicious gray "pearl" caviar of the sturgeon,--and other marine food which is never seen on the rich man's table.
But we must return to the Nevsky Prospekt. Nestling at the foot of the City Hall, at the entrance of the broad street between it and the Gostinny Dvor, on the Nevsky, stands a tiny chapel, which is as thriving as the bazaar, in its own way, and as striking a compendium of some features in Russian architecture and life. Outside hangs a large image of the "Saviour-not-made-with-hands,"--the Russian name for the sacred imprint on St. Veronica's handkerchief,--which is the most popular of all the representations of Christ in ikoni. Before it burns the usual "unquenchable lamp," filled with the obligatory pure olive-oil. Beneath it stands a table bearing a large bowl of consecrated water. On hot summer days the thirsty wayfarer takes a sip, using the ancient Russian kovsh, or short-handled ladle, which lies beside it, crosses himself, and drops a small offering on the dish piled with copper coins near by, making change for himself if he has not the exact sum which he wishes to give.
Inside, many ikoni decorate the walls. The pale flames of their shrine-lamps are supplemented by masses of candles in the huge standing candlesticks of silver. A black-robed monk from the monastery is engaged, almost without cessation, in intoning prayers of various sorts, before one or another of the images. The little chapel is thronged; there is barely room for respectfully flourished crosses, such as the peasant loves, often only for the more circumscribed sign current among the upper classes, and none at all for the favorite "ground reverences." The approach to the door is lined with two files of monks and nuns: monks in high klobuki, like rimless chimney-pot hats, draped with black woolen veils, which are always becoming; tchernitzi,