1. New York (Cont.)

Americans, as could be observed even in a cursory observation, are fairly religious. To satisfy their religious feeling they on Sundays at once halt the wheel of their apparently endless worldly bustle and go to temples with such zeal as cannot be envied. To be present on Sunday at worship and hear the morning and evening sermon is considered one of the highest pleasures. What an important interest the day the Sunday sermons constitute here can be judged even from the fact that secular newspapers on Monday editions open a special section “from the church pulpit,” where the sermons delivered the previous day are reviewed with large extracts from the best. The Bible is their handbook, and in bookstores, which in New York by their beauty and abundance scarcely if at all fall short of even London shops, in the first place and in the most elegant, luxurious, and infinitely varied forms and bindings you invariably see the “Holy Bible,” as it is commonly called here. Perhaps a keen sense of religiosity explains also the striking fact that the name “God” is surrounded by some inaccessible holiness, and improper use of this word is considered a great impropriety, so that ordinary conversational language has struck it from its vocabulary. At the same time, in the religious life of Americans one can observe to the highest degree strange – from our perspective – traits. Thus, one adult eighteen-year-old girl – a Christian (!) – invited my good friend to her baptism; another very well-educated girl of the same age, in a conversation on religious matters that arose by chance, informed me to my great astonishment that her father is Episcopalian, her mother is Methodist, but she herself does not yet belong to any denomination and will choose one upon reaching 18, and now considers herself simply a Christian Universalist. The temple, as an outward expression of religious feeling in the service of God, is also not surrounded by the respect required by our understanding, and in newspaper advertisements one can often read announcements that such-and-such church of such-and-such community is to be sold at auction for debts, or such-and-such magnificent temple is rented by such-and-such theatrical entrepreneur, who is supposed to begin a series of dramatic or operatic performances in it. And in regard to the Sunday day strict Puritanism is not always observed. Theaters are usually closed on this day, but in some of them so-called “Sacred concerts” are given according to the posters. Seduced by this name, I went to one of the nearest theaters (converted from a former church), but – in its actual content the concert had not a single feature corresponding to its name, and it consisted entirely of loose and scandalous songs and musical pieces. For all that, Yankees pride themselves on their Christianity and in this respect consider themselves a new chosen people, a new Israel. To my no little surprise I encountered such a thought even in a newspaper account of one Sunday sermon. The venerable preacher, reviewing the historical destinies of mankind, stops at the striking resemblance of the history of Israel to the history of the American people. Europe was for him a land of Egyptian slavery; the ocean – the Red Sea, which had to be crossed to be freed from that slavery; England’s claims on him – this is the pursuit of Pharaoh with his army; the struggle with the Indians – this is the struggle with the wicked Canaanites, etc., and so forth. If one looks at the public life of Americans, then it seems even apart from this sermon one can come to the conviction that Yankees – a new Israel, only not in the biblical sense, but in the sense which is connected with the name of the present representatives of the ancient chosen people in Europe. Such Jewish commercialism, such speculator frenzy, such a gulf of deceit and knavery as a European can meet here at every step, is hard to find anywhere in Europe; and the plundering of state and public funds is conducted here on such colossal scales that for our domestic lovers of state and zemstvo fund contents this can only be – alas – an unattainable ideal – even if only because these funds in our country are for the most part empty. In New York, for example, quite recently one man who oversaw the construction of large public buildings managed to deceive the public for an enormous sum of 20 million dollars! As for petty knavery and swindling, this is – a common phenomenon, and so usual that it does not even constitute disgrace. “If you,” one of my acquaintances here, a Russian who had spent three years in New York, told me, “catch someone red-handed in the plundering directed at your pocket or deceiving you, do not think the accused will be embarrassed! Not at all: the bold Yankee will simply grin and, patronizingly slapping you on the shoulder, will slyly remark – that means you too are a gentleman – a sharp one!” – True Israel!..

The city, which was otherwise constantly animated, day by day grew more and more animated, preparing for the “Merry Christmas,” as the Christmas holiday is called here. Amid these merry preparations of a happy or rather complacent people, like a thunderbolt it struck us Russians – a terrible piece of news brought to us of a new horrible attempt (outside Moscow) on the life of the Crown-bearing Head of the Russian people… It was shameful to look at the light and at people when Americans, outraged by this horrible trampling of not only divine laws but the laws and requirements of simple humanity, turning to us Russians, asked in indignation: “What is this that is happening with you?” Our only consolation and justification was that Providence once again miraculously averted the evil deed and once again saved the Monarch. On the following Sunday in the local Russian church a thanksgiving service was appointed for the miraculous deliverance of our Sovereign Emperor from terrible danger, and for this reason all Russians living here gathered at the service, with official representatives at their head. Such a gathering of people in the church happens, according to the testimony of those serving in it, once or twice a year, no more. The Slavic liturgy with decent singing of two cantors poured comfort into the suffering soul of the praying sons of the distant homeland tormented by evil deeds. The theme of the Simonov Cherubic hymn, improvised, as is known, under the heavy impression of the great patriotic disaster – the taking of Moscow by the French – with its appeal to “the laying aside of all earthly care,” painfully moved the heart, pointing to the terrible state of our homeland, its capture by the dark band of evildoers… After the thanksgiving service and the concluding many-year prayer, hardly anyone among the people, upon leaving the church, did not think a heavy thought: when at last will the sound judgment of the people awake from its criminal lethargy and uproot from the foundation not just that which “disgraces,” but that which destroys Russian land?..