Alter a fast-day breakfast, a walk on the Admiralty-place, to which people instinctively resort, is a most dismal affair. It is all scattered over with ruins of temporary houses and booths, the ground paved with nutshells and orange-peel. The wooden horses of the roundabout stand idle, the gaily decorated ships and swings lie shattered and heaped together like wood for burning, the smooth mirrors of the ice mountains are broken up with iron bars, and the poor merry-andrew, the Bajazzo, what has become of him ? he that for days together seemed inexhaustible in fun and jest ? It is melancholy to see how rational he looks as he pants and perspires under the burden of planks, the sad remains of his fool's palace. The thousand voices that stunned us but the day before are silent, or only employed in reckoning their gains or settling with their merchants. All are stretching, yawning, and shuddering at the joylessness of the long seven weeks before them.
The gi-eater part of the public amusements, especially balls and plays, are strictly prohibited. Assemblies and soirees, without dancing or masking, take place of the tumultuous ball, and as cow's milk is changed into almond milk, butter into oil, and flesh into fish, so plays become pubHc declamations and improvisations, operas change into concerts ; and the theatre, which must not act plays, is open for tableaux vivants. The seven fasting weeks to the gay world are one long night, in which only the modest stars and moon faintly gleam, till all at once, like Apollo with his steeds of light, the blight sun of Easter breaks forth in full splendour. In the butter-week the dresses of the belles at a St. Petersburg party are glittering with a profusion of jewels ; for the fasts, the brilliant diamond is too glaring ; the single row of pearls in the hair, here and there the modest turquoise peeping forth like a violet or forget-me-not, and coral ornaments for the arms and throat, are alone seen at the reunions, where conversation and song have displaced the waltz and polonaise.
The fasting weeks are the golden harvests of the musical artists ; every evening some new singer or -violinist is announced with recommendations from Vienna or Paris, and sometimes one will undertake alone to amuse the St. Petersburg public, which would before have tasked the art of a hundred high priests of Thalia. The best of the fast-time a^musements are the tableaux vivants, which are given with great taste and magnificence, and I cannot understand why these representations should be confined to this one season.
The monotony of the fasts is now and then broken by the feast of some saint, which may fall in this time. Happy the saint thus celebrated ; he may reckon upon numerous adorers ; and happy the child whose birthday occurs at this time. He may be sure it will be kept till his eightieth year with great joy and festivity ; first by his parents, then by his brothers and sisters, by blood and marriage, and afterwards by his children and grandchildren. Family festivals are deemed innocent things, quite suitable to the seriousness of a fast, and therefore people try to make them as splendid as possible.
♦ In no country are so many diamonds and other prccious stones displayed as in Russia. Not only every Russian lady of rank has lier jewel casket, in whicb, besides those ready set, she has a quantity of loose diamonds and pearls, to be arranged accordmg to fancy at different times and places, but even the little girls have their caskets, containing dozens of rings, earrings, bracelets, &c., with which they are constantly decorated. How necessary they esteem them I learnt from the example of a newly married couple, whose whole capital was FOOO rubles ; of which 3000 were spent tor jewels and ornaments, and the other three for beds, tables, and other furniture.