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When the palace was completed, in 1757, it did not differ materially from its present appearance, as a painting in the Winter Palace shows, except that its colonnade, now inclosed for the Imperial Chancellery and offices, then abutted directly on the Fontanka.
This particular river derived its name from the fact that it was trained to carry water and feed the fountains in Peter the Great's favorite Summer Garden, of which only one now remains. At the close of the last century, and even later, persons out of favor at Court, or nobles who had committed misdemeanors, were banished to the southern shores of the Fontanka, as to a foreign land.
But the early summer is the season when the Fontanka is to be seen in its most characteristic state.
The house to which we drove was, we discovered, a large one facing the Fontanka Canal, one of the best quarters of the town, and on descending I asked the liveried dvornick for Madame Zurloff, the name which the "Red Priest" had written. "You mean the Princess Zurloff," remarked the man through his red beard. "Whom shall I say desires to see her?"
Late Friday afternoon, while I was walking on the Nevski, a company of mounted police and a large number of Cossacks dashed by on the way to disperse a procession that was coming towards me. When I came up to the Fontanka Bridge I noticed the crowd was gathered about the Cossacks; it patted the horses and cheered their riders, while the police were nowhere in sight.
By and by, being tired of Moscow, we removed to the stately northern Capital, Petersburg, where I had a handsome mansion on the Fontanka Canal, and was on more than one occasion admitted to an audience with the Empress of Russia, the mighty Czarina Catherine; a fine, bold, strapping woman, with a great taste for Politics, Diamonds, the Fine Arts, and affairs of Gallantry.
We moved back into the street behind the Fontanka, and here I saw a wonderful sight. Some one had lighted a large bonfire in the middle of the street and the flames tossed higher and higher into the air, bringing down the stars in flights of gold, flinging up the snow until it seemed to radiate in lines and circles of white light high over the very roofs of the houses.
To make any effect in Russia England needed not only men and money but a hundred years' experience of the country. That same experience was possessed by the Germans alone of all the Western peoples and they have not neglected to use it. I went by tram to the Fontanka, and the streets seemed absolutely quiet. That strange shining Nevski of the night before was a dream.
That this last precaution is not superfluous is shown by the iron flood-mark set into the wall of the Anitchkoff Palace, on the southern shore of the Fontanka, as on so many other public buildings in the city, with "1824" appended, the date of one celebrated and disastrous inundation which attained in some places the height of thirteen feet and seven inches.
So, about half-past one, I started off for Bohun's office on the Fontanka. I've said somewhere before, I think, that Bohun's work was in connection with the noble but uphill task of enlightening the Russian public as to the righteousness of the war, the British character, and the Anglo-Russian alliance.
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