Although Moscow has risen with wonderful celerity from the ashes of 1812, yet aU traces of that fearful conflagration have not entirely disappeared. In different parts of the city there are still to be seen houses with the windows and doors burnt away, and overgrown with grass, and in the church of the "Protection of Mary" several chapels lay still in 1837 in dust and desolation, as they had been left by the French in 1812.
One of the most extensive ruins of this kind is the palace of the family of off, situated on a hill opposite the Kremlin, rearing itself above the neighbouring houses, and presenting to the eyes of a traveller a most imposing mass. The family is one of the many that date their wealth and honours from the time of Catherine. They possessed at one time several palaces here, but to maintain them in order much money was wanting, and as money gradually slipjied through their fingers, the greater number of the palaces were sold, and even then there was not money enough left to repair one, after it had been plundered by the French. This palace, as it has many pendants in Moscow, and is marked by many of the characteristics of social life peculiar to that city, may deserve some further mention.
Viewed from a distance it is one of the proudest of palaces ; when we examine it more closely, we perceive a showy exterior of decoration, veiling- ruin and decay. The entrance to the courtyard is through a great portal guarded by two huge lions ; but the portal is made of brick, and the lions, hollow plaster figures, have long since fallen to pieces. Lions made of such frail materials, and in just such miserable condition, are very often found as door-keepers before the palaces of Moscow^ ; proofs of the unsolid spirit of the place ; of the outward show of greatness, where the substance is wholly wanting. Nothing can be more unsettled than the lives of some of the nobles ; they wander through all the steppes of Russia, go far into the interior, and vanish for a time on their estates ; then build a house in Moscow, and set up plaster lions before the door ; they are soon weary of this, sell the whole colony, and take up their abode in St. Petersburg. Thus it is that nothing really beautiful and solid is ever erected.
The courtyards of the off palace might be called in the highest degree disorderly ; inasmuch as weeds are every where springing up between the paving-stones, and broken carriage-wheels, mouldering barrels, and other rubbish are lying bout ; but it is advisable to be sparing witli superlatives, and begin with the positive "disorderly," in kitchen, cellar, and chamber, in order to have words in reserve to bestow on what ia quite unbearable.
As for kitchens in Russia, we may as well take occasion to recommend travellers in general, not to be too curious in their inquiries after the places in which the dishes set before them are prepared, but to eat with what appetite they may, and ask no questions. Judged by the standard of a Dutch or English, or in some measure even of a German kitchen, that of the off palace is undeniably an uninviting, dirty hole. In so far it fulfils the business of a kitchen, as the sight of it is calculated to take away one's hunger in the most perfect manner. In the other rooms I found large chandeliers half broken, Ipng covered with dust on the floor, and oil paintings pell-mell with broken pots. Established temples of disorder, lumber-rooms as they are called, are necessary in every house, and contribute to the general tidiness of a mansion, but whole suites of lumber-rooms, are pecuhar to a Muscovite household.
I next ascended with the house-steward to the roof, to enjoy the fine prospect which I thought it must offer. All the upper chambers were in the same deplorable condition, to which the French had reduced them, with the addition of the rubbish added by the tooth of time. The house is indeed once more roofed, and also provided with balustrades^ pillars, balconies, and such things, " dla krassotib'' (for beauty) as my guide expressed it. But every one knows how very fragile a thing Russian beauty is, and how very soon that which is meant for ornament (like the unnatural rouge on a woman's cheek) has exactly a contrary effect. The architectural decorations (this word is peculiarly suited to the Russian style of building) are, again, in a most melancholy state of decay. The balustrade is fallen away from the terrace, the pillars are no longer perpendicular, and the plaster urns are hanging over the walls ready to be lim-lcd by the first hl^rli wlml into the street below.