They were naturally a kind people; but let one example show how
serfage can transmute kindness. It is a rule, well known in Russia, that
when an accident occurs, interference is to be left to the police. Hence
you would see a man lying in a fit, and the bystanders giving no aid,
but waiting for the authorities. Some years ago, as all the world
remembers, a theatre took fire in St. Petersburg, and crowds of people
were burned or stifled. The whole story is not so well known. The
theatre was but a great temporary wooden shed--such as is run up every
year at the holidays, in the public squares. When the fire burst forth,
crowds of peasants hurried to the spot; but though they heard the
shrieks of the dying, separated from them only by a thin planking, only
one man in that multitude dared cut through and rescue some of the
sufferers.
The serfs, when standing for great ideas, would die rather than yield.
Napoleon I learned this at Eylau; Napoleon III learned it at Sebastopol;
yet in daily life they were slavish beyond belief.
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