Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals Part 22

"It was summer; the temperature was delightful, about like our October.

The showers were frequent, there was no dust and no sultry air.

"There must be a great deal of nice mechanical work required in St.

Petersburg, for on the Nevsky Perspective, the princ.i.p.al street, there were a great many shops in which graduating and measuring instruments of very nice workmans.h.i.+p were for sale. Especially I noticed the excellence of the thermometers, and I naturally stopped to read them. Figures are a common language, but it was clear that I was in another planet; I could not read the thermometers! I judged that the weather was warm enough for the thermometer to be at 68. I read, say, 16. And then I remembered that the Russians do not put their freezing point at 32, as we do, and I was obliged to go through a troublesome calculation before I could tell how warm it was.

"But I came to a still stranger experience. I dated my letters August 3, and went to my banker's, before I sealed them, to see if there were letters for me. The banker's little calendar was hanging by his desk, and the day of the month was on exhibition, in large figures. I read, July 22! This was distressing! Was I like Alice in Wonderland? Did time go backward? Surely, I had dated August 3. Could I be in error twelve days? And then I perceived that twelve days was just the difference of old and new calendars.

"How many times I had taught students that the Russians still counted their time by the 'old style,' but had never learned it myself! And so I was obliged to teach myself new lessons in science. The earth turns on its axis just the same in Russia as in Boston, but you don't get out of the sunlight at the Boston sunset hour.

"When the thermometer stands at 32 in St. Petersburg, it does not freeze as it does in Boston. On the contrary, it is very warm in St.

Petersburg, for it means what 104 does in Boston. And if you leave London on the 22d of July, and are five days on the way to St.

Petersburg, a week after you get there it is still the 22d of July! And we complain that the day is too short!

"Another peculiarity. We strolled over the city all day; we came back to our hotel tired; we took our tea; we talked over the day; we wrote to our friends; we planned for the next day; we were ready to retire. We walked to the window--the sun was striking on all the chimney tops. It doesn't seem to be right even for the lark to go to sleep while the sun s.h.i.+nes. We looked at our watches; but the watches said nine o'clock, and we went off to our beds in daytime; and we awoke after the first nap to perceive that the sun still shone into the room.

"Like all careful aunts, I was unwilling that my nephew should be out alone at night. He was desirous of doing the right thing, but urged that at home, as a little boy, he was always allowed to be out until dark, and he asked if he could stay out until dark! Alas for the poor lad!

There was no dark at all! I could not consent for him to be out all night, and the twilight was not over. You may read and read that the summer day at St. Petersburg is twenty hours long, but until you see that the sun scarcely sets, you cannot take it in.

"I wondered whether the laboring man worked eight or ten hours under my window; it seemed to me that he was sawing wood the whole twenty-four!

"W. came in one night after a stroll, and described a beautiful square which he had come upon accidentally. I listened with great interest, and said, 'I must go there in the morning; what is the name of it?'--'I don't know,' he replied.--'Why didn't you read the sign?' I asked.--'I can't read,' was the reply.--'Oh, no; but why didn't you ask some one?'--'I can't speak,' he answered. Neither reading nor speaking, we had to learn St. Petersburg by our observation, and it is the best way.

Most travellers read too much.

"There are learned inst.i.tutions in St. Petersburg: universities, libraries, picture-galleries, and museums; but the first inst.i.tution with which I became acquainted was the drosky. The drosky is a very, very small phaeton. It has the driver's seat in front, and a very narrow seat behind him. One person can have room enough on this second seat, but it usually carries two. Invariably the drosky is lined with dark-blue cloth, and the drosky-driver wears a dark-blue wrapper, coming to the feet, girded around the waist by a crimson sash. He also wears a bell-shaped hat, turned up at the side. You are a little in doubt, if you see him at first separated from his drosky, whether he is a market-woman or a serving-man, the dress being very much like a morning wrapper. But he is rarely six feet away from his carriage, and usually he is upon it, sound asleep!

"The trunks having gone to St. Petersburg in advance of ourselves, our first duty was to get possession of them. They were at the custom-house, across the city. My nephew and I jumped upon a drosky--we could not say that we were really _in_ the drosky, for the seat was too short. The drosky-driver started off his horse over the cobble-stones at a terrible rate. I could not keep my seat, and I clung to W. He shouted, 'Don't hold by me; I shall be out the next minute!' What could be done? I was sure I shouldn't stay on half a minute. Blessings on the red sash of the drosky-man--I caught at that! He drove faster and faster, and I clung tighter and tighter, but alarmed at two immense dangers: first, that I should stop his breath by dragging the girdle so tightly; and, next, that when it became unendurable to him, he would loosen it in front.

"I could not perceive that he was aware of my existence at all! He had only one object in life,--to carry us across the city to our place of destination, and to get his copecks in return.

"In a few days I learned to like the jolly vehicles very much. They are so numerous that you may pick one up on any street, whenever you are tired of walking.

"My princ.i.p.al object in visiting St. Petersburg was the astronomical observatory at Pulkova, some twelve miles distant.

"I had letters to the director, Otto von Struve, but our consul declared that I must also have one from him, for Struve was a very great man. I, of course, accepted it.

"We made the journey by rail and coach, but it would be better to drive the whole way.

"Most observatories are temples of silence, and quiet reigns. As we drove into the grounds at Pulkova, a small crowd of children of all ages, and servants of all degrees, came out to meet us. They did not come out to do us honor, but to gaze at us. I could not understand it until I learned that the director of the observatory has a large number of aids, and they, with all their families, live in large houses, connected with the central building by covered ways.

"All about the grounds, too, were small observatories,--little temples,--in which young men were practising for observations on the transit of Venus. These little buildings, I afterwards learned, were to be taken down and transported, instruments and all, to the coast of Asia.

"The director of the observatory is Otto Struve--his father, Wilhelm Struve, preceded him in this office. Properly, the director is Herr Von Struve; but the old Russian custom is still in use, and the servants call him Wilhelm-vitch; that is, 'the son of William.'

"When I bought a photograph of the present emperor, Alexander, I saw that he was called Nicholas-vitch.

"Herr Struve received us courteously, and an a.s.sistant was called to show us the instruments. All observatories are much alike; therefore I will not describe this, except in its peculiarities. One of these was the presence of small, light, portable rooms, i.e., baseless boxes, which rolled over the instruments to protect them; two sides were of wood, and two sides of green silk curtains, which could, of course, be turned aside when the boxes, or little rooms, were rolled over the apparatus. Being covered in this way, the heavy shutters can be left open for weeks at a time.

"Everything was on a large scale--the rooms were immense.

"The director has three a.s.sistants who are called 'elder astronomers,'

and two who are called 'adjunct astronomers.' Each of these has a servant devoted to him. I asked one of the elder astronomers if he had rooms in the observatory, and he answered, 'Yes, my rooms are 94 ft. by 50.'

"They seem to be amused at the size of their lodgings, for Mr. Struve, when he told me of his apartments, gave me at once the dimensions,--200 ft. by 100 ft.

"The room in which we dined with the family of Herr Struve was immense.

I spoke of it, and he said, 'We cannot open our windows in the winter,--the winters are so severe,--and so we must have good air without it.' Their drawing-room was also very large; the chairs (innumerable, it seemed to me) stood stiffly around the walls of the room. The floor was painted and highly varnished, and flower-pots were at the numerous windows on little stands. It was scrupulously neat everywhere.

"There was very little ceremony at dinner; we had the delicious wild strawberries of the country in great profusion; and the talk, the best part of the dinner, was in German, Russian, and English.

"Madame Struve spoke German, Russian, and French, and complained that she could not speak English. She said that she had spent three weeks with an English lady, and that she must be very stupid not to speak English.

"I noticed that in one of the rooms, which was not so very immense, there was a circular table, a small centre-carpet, and chairs around the table; I have been told that 'in society' in Russia, the ladies sit in a circle, and the gentlemen walk around and talk consecutively with the ladies,--kindly giving to each a share of their attention.

"They a.s.sured me that the winters were charming, the sleighing constant, and the social gatherings cheery; but think of four hours, only, of daylight in the depth of the winter. Their dread was the spring and the autumn, when the mud is deep.

"Everything in the observatory which could be was built of wood. They have the fir, which is very indestructible; it is supposed to show no mark of change in two hundred years.

"Wood is so susceptible of ornamentation that the pretty villages of Russia--and there are some that look like New England villages--struck us very pleasantly, after the stone and brick villages of England.

"I try, when I am abroad, to see in what they are superior to us,--not in what they are inferior.

"Our great idea is, of course, freedom and self-government; probably in that we are ahead of the rest of the world, although we are certainly not so much in advance as we suppose; but we are sufficiently inflated with our own greatness to let that subject take care of itself when we travel. We travel to learn; and I have never been in any country where they did not do something better than we do it, think some thoughts better than we think, catch some inspiration from heights above our own--as in the art of Italy, the learning of England, and the philosophy of Germany.

"Let us take the scientific position of Russia. When, half a century ago, John Quincy Adams proposed the establishment of an astronomical observatory, at a cost of $100,000, it was ridiculed by the newspapers, considered Utopian, and dismissed from the public mind. When our government, a few years since, voted an appropriation of $50,000 for a telescope for the National Observatory, it was considered magnificent.

Yet, a quarter of a century since (1838), Russia founded an astronomical observatory. The government spent $200,000 on instruments, $1,500,000 on buildings, and annually appropriated $38,000 for salaries of observers.

I naturally thought that a million and a half dollars, and Oriental ideas, combined, would make the observatory a showy place; I expected that the observatory would be surmounted by a gilded dome, and that 'pearly gates' would open as I approached. There is not even a dome!

"The central observation-room is a cylinder, and its doors swing back on hinges. Wherever it is possible, wood is used, instead of stone or brick. I could not detect, in the whole structure, anything like carving, gilding, or painting, for mere show. It was all for science; and its ornamentations were adapted to its uses, and came at their demand.

"In our country, the man of science leads an isolated life. If he has capabilities of administration, our government does not yet believe in them.

"The director of the observatory at Pulkova has the military rank of general, and he is privy councillor to the czar. Every subordinate has also his military position--he is a soldier.

"What would you think of it, if the director of any observatory were one of the President's cabinet at Was.h.i.+ngton, in virtue of his position?

Struve's position is that of a member of the President's cabinet.

"Here is another difference: Ours is a democratic country. We recognize no caste; we are born 'free and equal.' We honor labor; work is enn.o.bling. These expressions we are all accustomed to use. Do we live up to them? Many a rich man, many a man in fine social position, has married a school-teacher; but I never heard it spoken of as a source of pride in the alliance until I went to despotic Russia. Struve told me, as he would have told of any other honor which had been his, that his wife, as a girl, had taught school in St. Petersburg. And then Madame Struve joined in the conversation, and told me how much the subject of woman's education still held her interest.

"St. Petersburg is about the size of Philadelphia. Struve said, 'There are thousands of women studying science in St. Petersburg.' How many thousand women do you suppose are studying science in the whole State of New York? I doubt if there are five hundred.

"Then again, as to language. It is rare, even among the common people, to meet one who speaks one language only. If you can speak no Russian, try your poor French, your poor German, or your good English. You may be sure that the shopkeeper will answer in one or another, and even the drosky-driver picks up a little of some one of them.

"Of late, the Russian government has founded a medical school for women, giving them advantages which are given to men, and the same rank when they graduate; the czar himself contributed largely to the fund.

"One wonders, in a country so rich as ours, that so few men and women gratify their tastes by founding scholars.h.i.+ps and aids for the tuition of girls--it must be such a pleasant way of spending money.

"Then as regards religion. I am never in a country where the Catholic or Greek church is dominant, but I see with admiration the zeal of its followers. I may pity their delusions, but I must admire their devotion.

If you look around in one of our churches upon the congregation, five-sixths are women, and in some towns nineteen-twentieths; and if you form a judgment from that fact, you would suppose that religion was entirely a 'woman's right.' In a Catholic church or Greek church, the men are not only as numerous as the women, but they are as intense in their wors.h.i.+p. Well-dressed men, with good heads, will prostrate themselves before the image of the Holy Virgin as many times, and as devoutly, as the beggar-woman.