>>4594221I could not forget the Empress Catherine's journey to the Crimea and the facades of villages set up at intervals on boards and painted canvas, a quarter of a league away from the road, to let the triumphant sovereign believe that the desert had been populated during her reign. The Russian mind is still obsessed with such notions: everyone disguises what is bad and shows what is good before the master's eyes. There is a permanent conspiracy of smiles plotting against truth for the greater contentment of mind of the one who is supposed to want and act to the advantage of all.
In Russia, the government rules everything and vitalizes nothing. The inhabitants of this vast Empire, though not calm, are dumb. Death hovers over every head and strikes at random -- it is enough to make one doubt divine justice. Mankind there has two coffins: the cradle and the tomb. Mothers must weep for their children at birth as much as at death.
