READERS of War and Peace have been known to wonder
why the atmosphere of Moscow is so subtly differentiated from that of St. Petersburg. Some clues are supplied in this book, as we learn how the stupendous rococo palaces of the younger city grew up in the time of those emperors and empresses whose reigns have been subjected to almost total submersion by the fame of their predecessor Peter, their successor Catharine the Great. Mr. Marsden chooses to describe only a small section of Russian life—" to skim the pink and showy icing off a basically stodgy and unsalubrious confection." Certainly the result is not in the least stodgy. We see Peter visiting Western Europe, dancing in Germany and mistaking the ribs of his partners' corsets for bones, learning the trades of shipwright and engraver in Holland, and doing L350 worth of damage in the house let to him by Evelyn, whose butler pardonably informed the master, " Here is a houseful of people and right nasty." Thousands of unwilling workers perished in the marshes before the blue and orange and lilac buildings, so suitable for the snowy atmosphere, emerged. After Peter's death there was a short break in the continuity of the city's history, when his immediate successors went back to Moscow, and the populace took this opportunity of leaving the hated city, only to be brought back by compulsive measures. Anne's reign saw redoubled splendour—no one was allowed to visit the court twice in the same clothes—and the same barbarity: witness her revenge, which culminated in a palace and bridal bed made of ice, on which an unfortunate couple were made to pass the night, clad only in night-caps of ice. Elizabeth and her architect Rastrelli had, perhaps, the greatest influence on the appearance of the city, but he was prevented from making it entirely baroque by the death of Elizabeth and the use of Cameron, Catharine's Scotch architect, who had a great feeling for classicism. This is an admirable book.
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