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THE 
 
 SERF-SISTERS: 
 
 THE EUSSIA 0-F TO-DAY. 
 
 BY JOHNHAKWOOD, 
 
 ATJTHOB OP 
 "STAMBOTJL, AND THE SEA OE GEMS," ETC. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 GEO. ROUTLEDGE & CO., FARRINGDON STREET. 
 NEW YORK: 18, BEEKMAN STREET. 
 
 1855. 
 [The Author of this Work reserves the right of translating it.'] 
 
IOAN STACK 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 SAVILL AND EDWARDS, PRINTERS, 
 CHANDOS STREET. 
 
THE SERF-SISTERS; 
 
 OR, 
 
 THE RUSSIA OF TO-DAY. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 EASTER DAY in St. Petersburg, Easter Day of the year 
 Eighteen Hundred and Fifty-four.1 Crowds of people, the 
 natives of every country of Asia and Eastern Europe, jostling 
 each other in the broad streets, and trampling down the slushy 
 snow. The spring had been as unlike that of Thomson's 
 " Seasons" as even a Russian spring could well be ; and hail 
 and sleet, and chilly rain, borne by hurricanes of wind that 
 came howling unchecked from the steppes of Siberia and the 
 icy plains of the North Pole, had swept through the wide 
 thoroughfares, and battered the gilded domes of the city of the 
 Czar. But on Easter Day there broke forth from the dull veil 
 of grey cloud which still covered the sky, bright gleams of 
 welcome sunshine, which shone upon the moving multitude 
 who swarmed upon the muddy trottoirs, or plodded along 
 through the half-thawed and miry snow. Every nation, every 
 province belonging to Russia or bordering upon her colossal 
 dominions, had its representatives that day in the avenues of 
 the huge metropolis, whose granite palaces occupied the sites 
 where, two centuries before, had stood the wooden huts of a 
 few Istrian fishermen, and where the bittern and the crane 
 had dwelt unmolested in their silent morass. There were 
 Tartars with black bonnets of Astracan fur, wadded pelisses, 
 and wide boots; dwarfish Einlanders, sturdy sons of the 
 Baltic countries ; quaint Chinese, whose long narrow Mongo- 
 lian eyes, black and sleepy, but intensely cunning, might have 
 caused them to be taken for Russians, had not their silky pig- 
 tails and orange-yellow complexions proclaimed them children 
 
2 THE SERF-SISTERS; OR, 
 
 of the flowery land ; tiny Laps, and fierce-looking fellows from 
 the Ukraine, whose great-grandfathers had perhaps been 
 Zaporogues, and who no more resembled the Muscovites than 
 a wolf resembles a sheep-dog ; chibouque-puffing Turks ; Kurds 
 whose necks seemed overweighted by the unconscionable 
 turbans they wore ; Persians in lambs'-wool caps and gaudy 
 shawls ; shivering natives of Hindostan ; Circassians whose 
 sparkling steel armour and crested helmets gave them the air 
 of enchanted knights just awakened from a magic sleep which 
 had lasted since the days of chivalry ; white-petticoated Greeks ; 
 Cossacks in sheepskin jackets ; Thibetians, Poles, Georgians, 
 Germans, Magyars, half-starved Istrians, dusky Mongols, 
 barbarous Samoides, and natives of Western Europe, together 
 with soldiers and Muscovite mujiJcs, were blended in a motley 
 mass, whose shifting hues were as various as those which a bed 
 of tulips might furnish. A few sledges, drawn by steeds 
 bedecked with crimson tassels, crawled slowly along the shady 
 side of the streets, where the snow was firmest, while countless 
 droskies and other carriages, from the humble telega to the 
 superb " carosse de cerSmonie" of an ambassador, ploughed 
 painfully through the half-melted and begrimed masses which 
 were exposed to the rays of the sun. 
 
 The half-bantering, half- angry objurgations of the istvoskt- 
 niks, addressed to the sauntering foot passengers who opposed a 
 living rampart to the progress of their vehicles, blended with 
 the shrill cries of the sellers of painted Easter eggs and palm 
 branches covered with gold or silver leaf. The hum of the 
 multitude, an ocean murmur in which were mingled a hundred 
 varying languages, swelled upon the breeze like the diapason 
 of a mighty organ ; the jingling of the bells of the sledges rang 
 out sharply and merrily, and every now and then a hush of 
 expectation seemed to come over the throng, and even the 
 voice of the palm -seller was still. 
 
 The plotniks and butsniks, the mounted and foot police, 
 were actively employed in clearing a lane through the centre 
 of the crowd, and laying about them with their clubs and 
 double-thonged whips, as fiercely as the irresponsible janissa- 
 ries of a despotic government are usually wont to do. It was 
 marvellous to see with what spaniel-like patience the " black 
 people," or peasants and artisans, endured the violent blows 
 which the butsniks dealt with their tough cudgels to such of 
 the loiterers as hesitated or delayed to clear the way at their 
 
THE BTTSSIA OF TO-DAY. 3 
 
 abrupt bidding. Hard buffets and savage curses were libe- 
 rally bestowed upon the unlucky intruders on the space 
 which was thus summarily cleared, and more than one person 
 was felled like an ox by some more brutal policeman, and car- 
 ried away senseless to the nearest quass cellar or brandy shop ; 
 but no murmur was heard, and neither sufferer nor sympa- 
 thiser ventured on remonstrance or complaint. Men were 
 lashed like hounds, but no hand was clenched to resist, no ven- 
 geance sparkled in the eye, no word of menace trembled 
 on the lip ; women were kicked and beaten, but scarcely a 
 smothered cry gave utterance to their pain ; while even chil- 
 dren received cuffs with Spartan stoicism. Amid the cheerful 
 voices of the young girls singing Slavonian carols for the fes- 
 tival, rose up, fit music for Eussia, the sound of the blows of 
 the stick and the suppressed moans of the feebler victims, a 
 demon chorus of punishment and anguish, the chosen psean of 
 a czar. But the lofty bearskins of the guards were at length 
 seen towering above the heads of the throng, and the martial 
 music rang out, as a column of stalwart grenadiers, picked 
 from every province of the colossal empire which produces 
 tall men, poured like a torrent down the Prospekts. Halting 
 at the word of command, the soldiers formed a double line on 
 each side of the open space in the middle of the street, and 
 their shining bayonets and massive accoutrements seemed to 
 oppose an impassable barrier between the expected monarch 
 and his people. Clarions and drums send forth a flood of war- 
 like melody that floats away through the crisp air, cymbals 
 clang with a wild barbaric sound, bridles jingle, steel scab- 
 bards ring on stirrup-irons, sabres glitter, and chargers toss 
 their proud heads, and sweep around their streaming manes, 
 as the cavalry escort goes by. On they go, schako and helmet 
 and bonnet of fur, the polished breastplate of the cuirassier, 
 the green coat and brazen casque of the dragoon, the rich 
 bravery of the hussar, the gay trappings of the lancer, the 
 taper spear and quaint garb of the Don Cossack. And on this 
 occasion were mingled in the procession warriors from distant 
 lands, as strange in St. Petersburg as they would have been 
 in Paris. There were Bashkir horsemen, clad in the skins of 
 wild animals, with bows slung at their backs, quivers of arrows 
 at their saddle-bows, and curved scimitars dangling from their 
 belts. There were Mussulman Tartars, and Pagans from 
 Caucasus and Siberia. But at last the policemen forgot to 
 
4 THE SERF-SISTERS ; OE, 
 
 strike, and the gazers strove on tiptoe to gain a better view 
 between the bearskin caps of the troops, and an awe-struck 
 whisper ran along the line of spectators, " Our dear papa Czar 
 is coming!" "He is coming, our little father! I shall see 
 him once more before I die," said an old peasant with a grey 
 beard that reached to his girdle, as he strained his bleared 
 eyes to look between the schakos of the guardsmen. " He is 
 coming! hush, baby! hush, my little pigeon! thou must 
 not cry !" whispered a young mother to her unconscious child. 
 Preceded by cuirassiers, who carried their carbines ready to 
 fire at the first summons, followed by hussars in costly pelisses 
 slashed with gold, and between two rows of armed giants, rode 
 on in full uniform the epauletted high priest of Russia, the 
 pontiff in jack -boots, the sacred emperor. His vast stature 
 towered above the adoring multitude like that of a Titan 
 amongst pigmies, and his far-reaching gaze stretched over a 
 sea of bared heads and cowering forms as Mahometans and 
 idolaters, side by side with Jews and Christians, crouched 
 humbly before the glance of their master. For all those he saw 
 were his, a fragment, a tithe, a sample, of his boundless pos- 
 sessions. Before, around, behind him, were men of every 
 creed and clime, children of every province, from the birch- 
 covered Baltic coast to sunny Georgia ; but all belonged to 
 him they, their wives, their children, their property, and 
 their lives. No poultry in a barn-yard, no cattle in a meadow, 
 no sheep in a fold, were ever yet more thoroughly at the mercy 
 and exposed to the caprice of their owner and his hirelings 
 than those thousands of thinking, feeling men and women, 
 who bowed before the Czar on Easter Day, were at his mercy 
 and under his control. And the unreasoning part of the 
 creation have an advantage, in England at least, which the 
 subjects of "the Emperor with the Mild Eyes" lack sorely. 
 There is no Society for the Prevention of Cruelty on Nick's 
 Farm ! Very various, however, was the character of the emo- 
 tion which the presence of the Emperor Nicholas caused in 
 the bosoms of his slaves. For while the Muscovite of the 
 Husso-Greek Church eyed his military pope with the same 
 affection which a hound entertains for his master, and with a 
 fervour of respect approaching as nearly to worship as the 
 feeling with which a Neapolitan regards his patron saint, it 
 was evident to a close observer that the love of the crowd was 
 but partial, though the fear was universal. The Polish Ca- 
 
THE EUSSIA OF TO-DAY. 5 
 
 tholic gazed, and there rankled in his breast the memory of his 
 trampled nationality and his insulted altars ; the Lutheran of 
 the Baltic, or of the German colonies near Odessa, trembled 
 for his freedom of conscience ; the Moslem felt that the direst 
 foe of Islam was before him ; the Pagan regarded the Czar as 
 a pitiless Moloch, the impersonification of a destroying spirit ; 
 and the wild Kaskolnik, the dissenter of Russia, whose strange 
 heresies had often been chastised with sword and fire, scowled 
 as he bowed his head before the object of his loathing and his 
 dread, the archruler whom he considered in his secret heart as 
 a triumphant and impious fiend. It was easy to see that fear, 
 not love, was the cement which kept in cohesion the differing 
 materials of which the edifice of Russian grandeur has always 
 been composed* Wrest the scourge from the slave-driver, and 
 the human cattle that are led to the pasture and the shambles, 
 from Lapland to Bessarabia, and from Kamschatka to the 
 Silesian frontier, will be free. 
 
 The Emperor passed by, gravely acknowledging the saluta- 
 tions of the throng ; and, pursued by a murmur of blessings, 
 vanished from their view. Carriages and horsemen, gold-laced 
 liveries and caracoling escorts, the dignitaries of the state, the 
 nobles of the court, the Czarina and the imperial family, 
 succeeded each other in the procession. Pennons fluttered, 
 lances gleamed, steeds curvetted beneath their richly-clad 
 riders, pale beauties gazed languidly from the windows of their 
 emblazoned carriages, high officials displayed on their padded 
 breasts a collection of orders that resembled a jeweller's stock 
 in trade, the young Grand Dukes, as embryo czars, attracted 
 plaudits and admiration. Cannon roared, drums rolled deeply 
 and sternly ; the bells of the great church of St. Isaac mingled 
 their metallic clangour with the jingle which a hundred steeples 
 gave forth ; and above trumpet blast and cannon salvo, rose up 
 the shouts of the people : " Hurrah for the Emperor ! Bless- 
 ings on our little father the Emperor! Hurrah for Sinope!" 
 And the grenadiers formed into column again and marched 
 away, while the butsniks re-entered their watch-boxes, the 
 mounted gendarmes trotted off, and the multitude began to 
 disperse. A young Englishman, who had stood for some time 
 an observant spectator among the crowd, now wrapped his 
 cloak around him and strode rapidly away, turning down one 
 of the avenues which branch off from the wide Prospekts, and 
 directing his course towards a part of the city the most remote 
 
6 THE SEEF-SISTEKS ; OE, 
 
 from the more aristocratic quarters, and in the vicinity of the 
 Great Market. The Englishman was a man of perhaps seven- 
 and-twenty, with handsome features and a well-built frame, 
 which, however, gave promise rather of activity than of 
 strength. His high forehead and dark eyes gave a somewhat 
 pensive character to the upper part of his face, but the smile 
 which seemed habitual to his lips, and which displayed a 
 perfect set of very white strong teeth, as well as the vivacity 
 of his movements, evinced that the thoughtfulness of his dis- 
 position was by no means tinged with melancholy. His 
 experience of Hussia had evidently rendered him anything 
 but an admirer of the institutions of that model empire, for he 
 Tittered, as he strode along, various remarks which neither the 
 Invalide Russe nor the Northern See were likely to reprint. 
 " A precious sight this Easter show!" muttered the English- 
 man, as he elbowed his way through a number of fur-capped 
 and caftaned burghers, who were reconducting their wives and 
 daughters from the spectacle. " It reminds me more of the 
 ' Happy Family' than anything else. The raven answers to 
 the Russians of the pure breed, talking, cunning, impudent, 
 secretive and greedy ; the owl may be the Moslem, the kite 
 
 the Cossack, the guinea-pig the Chinese " But here the 
 
 nomenclature of the various tributaries, neighbours, and 
 vassals of the Czar was cut short by a yell raised first by a 
 few children, and afterwards taken up by some drunken young 
 fellows who came reeling out of a brandy-shop hard by. 
 " Death to the heretic cur! Down with the Englishman!" 
 screamed the urchins, and the mob took up the cry with a 
 savage intonation that boded mischief. As if by magic, the 
 road became completely blocked up by the half-intoxicated 
 populace, who streamed forth from their drinking-cellars at 
 the call, and two or three old crones in holiday garb, but with 
 their tangled grey locks loose and dishevelled, rushed from the 
 neighbouring houses, and began to curse the foreigner with 
 all the fury of aged bacchanates. "Down with the false 
 stranger ! Curses on all Englishmen ! Death to the friend of 
 the Turks !" screeched the old women in shrill accents, and 
 the children echoed the cry, while the men responded by a 
 menacing growl. The young man strode firmly on, pushing 
 on one side the first of those whe attempted to bar his 
 progress, when a louder shout burst from the crowd. " Huzza 
 for Sinope I" screamed the Eussians. " The cowardly English 
 
THE RUSSIA OF TO-DAY. 7 
 
 are afraid of us ; and we can beat the Turks as we please ! 
 Huzza for Sinope !" 
 
 The young Englishman turned abruptly round with a flush 
 of anger on his cheek, and confronted the mob with a look of 
 scorn before which they shrank instinctively. " Sinope !" said 
 he, in very good Russian, and in a tone whose contempt 
 abashed even his fanatical opponents; " I wonder you are not 
 ashamed to mention it. I wonder that, Muscovites as you are, 
 you don't blush when you speak of it. And you insult my 
 countrymen ! Take care that your deeds match your words. 
 The day is not perhaps far distant when an army of English- 
 men shall encamp in your capital, and give laws to your empire 
 of serfs and scoundrels.'* 
 
 This rash speech, which, however frank was the Englishman's 
 nature, would never have been uttered except under circum- 
 stances of great provocation, produced the same effect upon 
 the rage of the mob as a barrel of naphtha flung upon a 
 smouldering fire. A shower of lumps of ice for stones are 
 hard to find at St. Petersburg hailed upon the bold speaker, 
 and a dozen strong men rushed into the neighbouring 
 houses in search of weapons, and soon reappeared, flourishing 
 axes, clubs, and iron bars. The women mingled with the 
 rabble, and strove to excite the anger of their sons and hus- 
 bands to the highest point ; and in spite of the calm courage 
 with which the youthful object of the popular indignation 
 confronted the clamorous boors, the scene acquired every 
 moment a more gloomy and threatening aspect, when a 
 mounted policeman came cantering down the street, and 
 seeing the turmoil, made his way to the centre of the con- 
 fusion. The gendarme inquired the cause of the disturbance, 
 and twenty eager voices vied with each other in relating it. 
 The satellite of justice coolly contemplated the excited boors, 
 counted the lethal' weapons which were brandished by the 
 fiercest of the rioters, and then quietly turning to the young 
 Englishman, put a tariff upon the ferocity exhibited by the 
 people, and the risk incurred by the stranger. " To stop this 
 affair is well worth a dozen roubles," said he, in a cold, 
 indifferent tone, like that of a higgler at a cattle-fair. The 
 Englishman produced a couple of blue notes and thrust them 
 into the hand of the gendarme, who nodded in acknowledg- 
 ment of the douceur, and carefully placed the flimsy morsels of 
 azure paper in his breast-pocket. In an instant his counte- 
 
8 THE SEEF-SISTEES ; OK, 
 
 nance changed, and from a careless spectator lie became a stern 
 and severe myrmidon of law. "Dogs, curs, churls, beasts," he 
 shouted, as he laid his heavy whip unsparingly over the most 
 violent of the crowd; how dare you disobey our Emperor? 
 how dare you behave like a set of ignorant savages in the 
 streets of the sacred capital of the White Czar? Off with 
 you ! hide yourselves, I say, or I'll have you flayed alive, to 
 teach others not to bring the imperial metropolis into dis- 
 repute." These words, enforced by a score or two of such 
 forcible lashes as only a Russian official can bestow, scattered 
 the crowd as quickly as the bursting of a shell would have 
 done. In a minute from the time when the policeman began 
 his address, the street was emptied of its late occupants, none 
 remaining except the Englishman and his mercenary rescuer. 
 The gendarme grinned triumphantly, twisted up the thong of 
 his whip, and rode slowly off, while the late object of the 
 popular indignation turned on his heel, and strode rapidly 
 away in the same direction as before. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 ABOUND the large and highly-decorated stove which warmed a 
 spacious saloon in what was evidently the house of a wealthy 
 Russian burgher, seven persons were seated. Jacob Petrovich, 
 the owner of the dwelling, a fine-looking old man with a high 
 forehead and thoughtful mien, sat nearest to the porcelain 
 furnace, whose fierce but steady heat diffused itself through 
 the chamber, while immediately opposite to him was placed 
 his ancient friend and fellow merchant, Paul Vlad, a ruddy, 
 hale old trader, over whose head more than seventy years had 
 passed, thinning his locks and turning his flowing beard from 
 red to snow white, but without having dimmed the fire of the 
 sparkling grey eyes which twinkled beneath a pair of beetling 
 and shaggy brows. Anielka Petrovich, a beautiful dark-eyed 
 girl, was talking in an under-tone to a handsome young Polish 
 officer of cavalry, whose gay dress of blue and silver set off his 
 well-proportioned figure, which, however, evinced more grace 
 and activity than strength ; while Katinka, the youngest 
 daughter of the master of the house", a lovely little sylph, 
 whose golden tresses and blue eyes were far more Saxon than 
 
THE BUSSIA OF TO-DAY. 9 
 
 Muscovite in their character, sat apparently listening to the 
 parrot-like chattering of Thekla Vlad, old Paul's ugly daughter, 
 while in reality she marked every footstep which resounded 
 upon the pavement without, and ever and anon bit her 
 pretty lip with an impatience which had in it all the vivacity 
 natural to one who from the cradle had been humoured in 
 every wish. The seventh member of the group was an old and 
 wrinkled woman, dressed in all the holiday finery of a Russian 
 peasant matron, and wearing massive ear-rings of gold, a high 
 and quaint cap, a picture of a saint in silver filigree pinned 
 upon her breast. She sat a yard or two behind the semicircle 
 formed by the rest, as if to intimate her inferior position and 
 the fact of her being there on sufferance, although the interest 
 and sincere affection which shone across her withered features 
 as she watched the fair daughters of Lfer master showed that 
 she regarded herself less as a menial than as a member of the 
 family. Yaska had been the nurse of both Anielka and her 
 sister, and since the death of their mother, which had taken 
 place nearly ten years before the date of the story, the warm 
 attachment which she had always felt for her nurselings had 
 increased with the pity and sorrow with which their bereaved 
 condition had inspired her. 
 
 Jacob Petrovich was a man who could have done honour to 
 any country, a man whose probity, kindliness of heart, and 
 enlarged views, seconded by abilities of no mean order, would 
 in a freer and happier land have rendered him a valuable and 
 respected citizen. But he was born in Russia, and born a 
 slave. The caprice of his owner had given the young Pe- 
 trovich an education such as rarely falls to the lot of a Russian 
 of humble birth, and for a short time after he had completed 
 his studies, Jacob Petrovich, appointed instructor to Prince 
 Jargonoff's eldest son, a youth of unusually mild and intel- 
 lectual character, hoped to be able to free his neck from the 
 collar of servitude, and work his way through life a free and 
 unfettered man. The old Prince, pleased with the zeal of the 
 teacher and the progress of the pupil, declared his intention of 
 enfranchising and providing for the clever young serf, and 
 Jacob was encouraged to look forward to the day when he 
 might be able to claim admission into an inferior class of the 
 " Tchinn," or official nobility, a privilege which the constitutional 
 ukases of Russia grant to the applicant who can prove that he 
 has been for a certain period a tutor in a noble family, when 
 
10 THE SERF-SISTERS ,* OB, 
 
 his pupil was carried off by a malignant fever, and all the 
 teacher's hopes were for ever buried in his grave. 
 
 The second son of the .Prince was of a haughty and brutal 
 disposition, and having been on bad terms with his elder 
 brother during his life, had also bestowed a liberal share of his 
 ill-will upon the unoffending tutor, between whom and 
 Michael Jargonoff a sincere affection had existed. Accord- 
 ingly, Jacob was driven from his patron's roof, all the old 
 Prince's former favour having changed to indifference or dis- 
 like, and it was only at the request of the steward, who fore- 
 saw that the ex-tutor's acquirements would make their way, 
 even in the little sphere of a Malorossian village, and who 
 feared being supplanted in his stewardship, that the young 
 man was sent to St. Petersburg to be a clerk in a mercantile 
 house, being for that purpose duly provided with a licence, 
 answering 'to the "ticket of leave" of a convict, and revocable 
 at pleasure. Jacob throve to an extent, and with a rapidity, 
 which neither the Prince nor his steward had dreamt of. His 
 talents and industry were applauded by the Muscovites, who 
 value " smartness " as much as the Yankees themselves, while 
 his strict honesty and fair dealing won him many friends 
 among the English and German merchants, who were charmed 
 at finding a Russian who did not consider knavery and shrewd- 
 ness as synonymous. Jacob traded, bought and sold, specu- 
 lated successfully but prudently, and being neither a drone 
 nor a commercial gambler, realized a considerable fortune, and 
 married the daughter of a Finland shipowner, who had been 
 educated at Stockholm, and was of an order of intellect very 
 rare among the women of the mercantile class in Russia. But 
 during all this time the chain that bound the serf to the soil 
 was unsnapped, though slackened, and the collar of servitude 
 weighed heavily on the neck of the unlucky Jacob Petrovich. 
 Jacob was still a slave, as completely appertaining to the 
 estate in Southern Russia of which he was a native, as any of 
 the gloomy larch trees that grew in Prince Jargonoff 's forests. 
 True, the yoke was not apparent; no badge of serfdom en- 
 circled the rich trader's neck, and yet the unseen fetter never 
 ceased to fret and gall its wearer. The superior guilds of 
 merchants were closed against a churl, and therefore Jacob 
 Petrovich was obliged to restrict himself to the home trade, or 
 to being a mere broker and middleman in the more profitable 
 foreign commerce. 
 
THE KUSSIA OF TO-DAY. 11 
 
 Jacob was remarkably free from prejudices, an exemption 
 not very usual in the Empire of Muscovy, and he often 
 wished to travel, and even to reside abroad, that his children 
 might grow up among nobler associations and under the in- 
 fluence of a more genial climate than the land of their birth 
 could afford ; but leave of absence is the especial privilege of a 
 noble, and the serf on leave could never hope to be permitted 
 to breathe any air but that of Russia. Worst of all was the 
 conviction that the brand of slavery was hopeless, ineffaceable 
 in his case at least, for no offers of money, no earnest suppli ca- 
 tions, had ever availed to mollify Jacob's pitiless owner. 
 
 Prince Ivan Jargonoff, on succeeding to his father, found 
 himself the master of ten fine estates, and of as many thousand 
 human beings of the male sex, technically inscribed as souls 
 in the rent-roll of a Russian proprietor. His dislike to his 
 brother's *tutor had never died away, and if he permitted 
 Jacob to remain at St. Petersburg, it was only from the same 
 motive which prompts the cat to permit the half-dead mouse 
 to crawl a little distance from its watchful persecutor, well 
 knowing that by one stroke of its ruthless paw it can again 
 secure the panting victim of its sportive ferocity. Jacob 
 Petrovich would have beggared himself to buy his freedom. 
 That boon was refused, but the merchant's gold was drawn 
 from his coffers, coin by coin, in the shape of fines and ex- 
 actions, every demand being backed by the terrible threat that 
 in case of non-compliance the master would summon the slave 
 to plough his fields and tend his cattle in Malorossia. 
 Prince Ivan, like a leech, slowly and luxuriously sucked the 
 blood of Jacob Petrovich, varying his oppression, now and then, 
 by insisting on some act of servile humiliation, which to the 
 thinking, reasoning man was as bitter as the sting of a hornet. 
 
 Still the merchant's daughters grew up, graceful and lovely, 
 instructed in the lore of Europe, and refined by the accom- 
 plishments of the West ; and though their mother died before 
 they were of an age fully to appreciate her loss, their young 
 lives were watched over with all the thoughtful love of a 
 tender father, aided by the almost canine attachment of the 
 faithful old Yaska, who was a native of the same village which 
 had been the birthplace of Jacob Petrovich. No trouble had 
 been spared, no cost had been grudged, by the wealthy 
 merchant, to render his children the equals or the superiors of 
 the pallid dames and damsels of the Emperor's hot-house 
 
12 THE SERF-SISTERS; OR, 
 
 court. Foreign masters and mistresses of every art had been 
 sought for by old Jacob, and had taught their willing pupils 
 the more zealously that their sweet and natural manners con- 
 trasted as agreeably with the offensive haughtiness of the 
 young princesses and countesses of St. Petersburg as their 
 quick and intelligent appreciation of the charms of music or 
 the beauties of painting contrasted with the mechanical and 
 monkey-like rapidity of imitation which distinguished the ma- 
 jority of their aristocratic countrywomen. Yet often while 
 listening to some silver Italian melody, thrilled forth with almost 
 magical effect by Katinka's musical voice, or while gazing upon 
 the faultlessly classic contour of Anielka's queenly head, the 
 fond old father's heart would ache as if a dagger had pierced it, 
 when he remembered that those peerless and delicate maidens 
 bore in the blush of their glowing cheeks, circling in their blue 
 veins, the inevitable, hopeless taint of slavery mingled with 
 their youthful blood. No cattle of Prince Jargonoff's herds, 
 no sheep in his folds, were more indubitably his own, than the 
 fair and highly educated girls who had never seen the tyrant's 
 face, nor heard the accents of that voice which might, in any 
 moment of caprice or ill-humour, summon the whole family to 
 be hewers of wood and drawers of water in Southern Russia, to 
 toil and dwell among ignorant beings scarcely superior in 
 intellect to the oxen that they led to pasture, or the bears that 
 they tracked among the pine trees. 
 
 Paul Vlad, the guest and gossip of Jacob, was of a very dif- 
 ferent stamp from his friend. He was a merchant and a 
 Muscovite of the pure race, born at Moscow, a freeman, and 
 belonging to the second guild. Astute and unscrupulous to a 
 degree which would have made him a match for the craftiest 
 trafficker of New Orleans or Boston, or even for Barnum 
 himself, he was so completely encrusted over by the prejudices 
 and ignorance of a thorough Russian burgher, as to have failed 
 in realizing the ample fortune which his subtlety and freedom 
 from principle seemed to deserve. He could no more shake off 
 his load of superstition and prejudice than a lobster its shell ; 
 and it was a cause of much secret rage and mortification to him 
 that Jacob Petrovich, though often generously aiding him 
 with his purse to ride out some storm which threatened to 
 annihilate his credit and prosperity, had always steadily re- 
 fused to lend his assistance in any of his nefarious schemes of 
 commercial trickery. This was reason enough for Paul's 
 
THE BU8SIA OF TO-DAY. 13 
 
 hating his benefactor, for he had sense enough to see that his 
 own cunning, backed by the erudition and worldly knowledge 
 of Jacob Petrovich, would be absolutely irresistible, while of 
 minor kindnesses Paul's memory was as unretentive as the 
 sea-sand of an inscription. Paul, moreover, like most Russians, 
 considered that every one who was not a knave, must of neces- 
 sity be a fool; and had he ever heard the proverb which 
 declares honesty to be the best policy, would have received 
 it with incredulous scorn. Now, Jacob Petrovich was a puzzle 
 to Paul Ylad. He could scarcely be a fool; shrewd, pru- 
 dent, and sensible, his very conversation was enough to ward 
 off that imputation; so Paul set him down as a rogue, who for 
 unknown purposes affected to be a simpleton, and affected it so 
 very clumsily that the shallow pretence could not deceive any 
 rational person. Also, the old cheat hated Jacob both on 
 account of the latter 's deceased wife having been bred a 
 Lutheran Protestant, and because he suspected that the mer- 
 chant himself and his children were less orthodox and less 
 fervent followers of the Czar than good members of the Russo- 
 Greek Church ought to be. 
 
 Paul Vlad hated Anielka, because her suitor was a Pole and 
 a Catholic ; he detested Katinka for smiling upon an English 
 heretical lover ; and he abhorred both the sisters most cordially 
 on account of the very refinement and grace which, anywhere 
 else than, in the dominions of the Emperor with the Mild Eyes, 
 would have won them friends and sympathy. But the old 
 man's jealous glances, as they ranged around the room, found 
 ample food for the hatred and envy which filled his narrow 
 mind. The gilded and richly-bound books in foreign tongues, 
 chiefly English, French, and German, which loaded the book- 
 shelves ; the albums and portfolios of prints and drawings, the 
 thousand delicate works of female skill or of artistical in- 
 genuity, which lay upon the tables ; the open piano with the 
 music of Rossini or Meyerbeer lying carelessly across its ivory 
 keys ; the china, the ornamented French clocks, the knick- 
 knacks on the consoles and side tables, were all crimes in his 
 jaundiced eyes. There were the usual pictures of saints in 
 richly carved frames, encaged in networks of silver wire, and 
 with lamps burning before them ; the usual high samovar, or 
 tea-urn, was placed on the stove ; the ordinary Easter eggs 
 showed their rich colours in a porcelain bowl ; but these Paul 
 regarded as mere pretences, idle shows behind which to screen 
 
14 THE SEBF-SISTEES ; OK, 
 
 tlie lurking heresies of Protestantism. The contrast between 
 the sisters in their tasteful dress, every gesture showing innate 
 elegance of mind and heart, and his own sallow, clumsy 
 daughter, tricked out in all her ridiculous finery, with two 
 watches at her ungainly waist, and a circle of silver tea-spoons 
 calling attention to her flat bust, was painful and rage-inspiring 
 enough in itself. Even he, a coarse hind, could see that his 
 Thekla looked like a village wench beside two fair princesses 
 of romance ; and to embitter the mortification more, he remem- 
 bered that these girls, whose pride of beauty awed and dazzled 
 him, were the slave-born daughters of a slave. Even the 
 smoke that curled in white wreaths from old Jacob's meer- 
 schaum savoured of rank Lutheranism in the eyes of his neigh- 
 bour ; for the ancient superstitious prejudice which once made 
 the Russian Synod denounce smoking as a deadly sin still 
 lingers among many of the more bigoted subjects of the Czar. 
 It is curious, by the bye, that tobacco, which was prohibited 
 by the Sultan, accursed by the Pope, forbidden by the Czar, 
 and railed against by King James the First of England, should 
 have forced its way in spite of so much opposition, and become 
 the actual mainstay and support, in the revenue it produces, of 
 many states which once rejected it as a poisonous weed. The 
 Caliph of the Moslems, the Pontiff of the Romanists, the 
 Patriarch of the Russo-Greeks, the Spokesman of the Pro- 
 testants have all tried and signally failed in the attempt to 
 conquer tobacco. The King of the Wahabees, the Chinese 
 Emperor Tai Wang, the Temperance Society, and the Ad- 
 vocates of Women's Rights, are now at war with the victorious 
 nicotiana. Will they triumph P or will the Triad Society and 
 the Band of Hope prove equally unable to keep up the 
 struggle, and will the invincible leaf be smoked alike in 
 Darkish and in China, in London and in Philadelphia ? that is a 
 question which we may leave to the predicters of future events, 
 to the Zadkiels and Raphaels who have replaced the Agrippas 
 and Mother Red Caps of the old credulous times. It may be 
 wondered at that an honourable man like Jacob should have 
 continued to be intimate with such a commercial Robert 
 Macaire as Paul Vlad. But, besides that the white-headed 
 rascal had been wily enough never to afford his acquaintance 
 any very positive information about his darker doings, and that 
 the latter too good naturedly fancied that Paul's faults were 
 only those of his class, and that a kindly heart beat beneath 
 
THE EUSSIA OF TO-DAY. 15 
 
 his rugged husk ; besides this, I say, Paul Ylad was rumoured 
 to be on terms of intimacy with a high functionary of the 
 Police ; and in Russia few men could be found bold enough to 
 reject the society of one who was surmised to be a satellite of 
 Court Orloffand his dreaded coadjutors. 
 
 At last a quick tread was heard upon the slippery pavement 
 without, and a sharp peal from the door-bell announced the 
 arrival of a visitor. Katinka's rosy cheek flushed deeply, and 
 her blue eyes sparkled, as she heard the long-expected sounds ; 
 and when the door opened, and the new guest was ushered in, 
 the tell-tale blood which crimsoned her fair face was enough to 
 have betrayed her emotion to duller eyes than those of Paul 
 Vlad and his garrulous daughter. Mark Forster, the young 
 Englishman whose rash candour had so greatly disgusted the 
 Muscovite mob on his way from the scene of the procession, 
 was indeed a fine, manly young fellow, whose handsome face, 
 and eyes sparkling with vivacity and high spirits, would have 
 won him golden opinions among the maidens of any country ; 
 while it was easy to see, by the manner in which his glance 
 sought out Katinka as she stood half -hidden behind her 
 father's great arm-chair, and by the interest with which he 
 greeted the little northern beauty, that his heart had not re- 
 mained unscathed by the azure fire that flashed from beneath 
 Katinka's long eyelashes. The old merchant welcomed the 
 young Englishman warmly and heartily, and with an expres- 
 sion of pleasure in his looks, which, to any one who had appre- 
 ciated the fine qualities of Jacob Petrovich, would have spoken 
 eloquently in praise of the principles and conduct of the 
 favourite guest. Anielka greeted the visitor with an extended 
 hand and a frank, sisterly smile ; the Pole returned his good- 
 humoured salutation in a manner at once kind and graceful ; 
 Yaska's tanned features beamed with pleasure as she answered 
 his " Good morrow ;" and Paul Ylad growled out a surly wel- 
 come ; while his daughter Thekla stood up demurely and exe- 
 cuted a ceremonious reverence with an air of solemnity forci- 
 bly resembling that of a trained dancing bear, and which caused 
 the lively Katinka a desperate struggle with her rising laughter. 
 Paul Ylad saw the signs of repressed merriment clearly enough; 
 he saw everything, the noble beauty of Anielka, the chival- 
 rous bearing of the Polish officer, the sunny, open-hearted 
 natures of Katinka and her heretic lover, and the innate 
 goodness of disposition of old Jacob ; and his own daughter's 
 
16 THE SERF-SISTEKS ; OR, 
 
 gatickerie, and her tawdry taste in dress and ornament, 
 the absurditjr of the two watches at the girdle, and the si 
 teaspoons on the breast of that unwholesome-looking vir ; 
 half-maddened him with savage spleen and vindictive jealoi 
 
 "You are going to leave us very soon now, my young 
 friend," said Jacob Petrovich, when the new-comer had ta 
 his place in the circle, and while the dushtuks, or men-servants, 
 were drawing the heavy window-curtains, and bringing ir; a 
 huge tea-table loaded with all the strange delicacies indis- 
 pensable at Easter in St. Petersburg, and over which towe 
 the brazen dome of a colossal samovar, or urn, with a furn 
 of glowing charcoal crowning its summit with a fiery ring. 
 
 "Yes, Father Petrovich," answered the Englishman, using 
 the familiar appellation so common in Russian intercour 
 " this war compels me to go home again. I shall be heartily 
 sorry to leave you all, though ; and I need scarcely say I shall 
 not be likely to forget Russia ;" and he sighed as his glai 
 turned, half unconsciously, towards Katinka, who pretended 
 to be particularly interested in the account which Thekla was 
 giving her of some recent festivities which had taken place at) 
 the dwelling of a trader of the Gostinnoi Dvor. 
 
 " Well ! I only trust we shall have you back again in St. Peters- 
 burg soon," answered Jacob Petrovich ; " we must not lose one 
 of the best of the engineers that have come from the West 
 bridge our rivers and construct our railways ; and what v 
 Prince Sheremetieff do without the inspector of his mines?' 
 
 "I can tell you what Prince Sheremetieff has done," re- 
 plied Mark, with a laugh; "he has offered me a thousand 
 roubles a month, the dignity of being promoted to be a member 
 of the Tchinn, and the promise of a countship and a colonel 
 after ten years' service, if I will agree to be naturalized, an .- 
 remain to look after his mines as before. But I told him that, 
 if he would offer all the malachite, and iron, and platina in 
 his mountains, and all the cattle, biped and quadruped, on his 
 lands, and his estates and coronet to boot, it would be too 
 little to buy a true Englishman. So he flew into a passion, 
 and called me a fool, and bounced out of the room like a hanr 
 grenade." 
 
 Paul Vlad snarled inarticulately, and clenched his fists 
 under the folds of his flowing caftan, and Thekla gave a por- 
 tentous sniff, as this anecdote jarred upon their national ears ; 
 but Anielka looked up approvingly, Katinka stole a glancr. 
 
THE BUSSIA OP TO-DAY. 17 
 
 half-admiring, half-reproachful, at the speaker, while her soft 
 cheek burned more brightly than before, and Jacob looked so 
 pleased at an act of good faith of which he had met but few 
 previous instances, that even Yaska grinned like a happy 
 negress in the background. 
 
 "But the misunderstanding between the English Govern- 
 ment and our Czar will soon be cleared up; I hope so, at 
 least," said the master of the house, in a voice which he strove 
 to render as cheerful and hopeful as possible." 
 
 " You have reason to hope so," growled Paul Vlad ; " for 
 your warehouses are full of corn that you meant to sell to 
 the hungry foreigners, and now it must be eaten by Russian 
 mouths, or not eaten at all. I always said no luck would come 
 of catering for heretics, and now comes the blockade to prove 
 my sayings true." 
 
 " I own I have reason to regret having invested so much of 
 my capital in wheat last year," replied Jacob, gently ; " but if 
 the ukase had permitted me to ship my grain directly for 
 London or Hull, instead of my being compelled by law to wait 
 till some merchant of the first guild would buy it of me, I 
 should have had no cause to regret the speculation." 
 
 "That's what you always say," muttered Paul ; "as if the 
 ukases of the emperors had not always been made for our good, 
 and as if any human wisdom could improve upon the decisions 
 of our sacred rulers ! I always said that foreign trade was 
 a temptation of the Devil, and that though the fiend may 
 bribe you for a time, you will be sure to feel his hot claws at 
 last." 
 
 "Come, Batuscha," said the young Anglo-Saxon, good- 
 naturedly, "you must not be so hard on us poor aliens. Some 
 day peace will be proclaimed, and we shall all be friends 
 again." 
 
 " Not so soon as you fancy, Gospodin Mark," was the tart 
 rejoinder. " Don't flatter yourself that our Papa Czar will 
 ever rest, now you have insulted him and helped his enemies, 
 the barbarous Turks, until he has crushed you like wasps in 
 their nest. Bah ! Do you think we care for your trumpery 
 ships ? Our cannon will batter them to pieces if they dare to 
 come near Sveaborg and Cronstadt. You have no soldiers, 
 and our Papa Czar has more than a million of valiant warriors, 
 such as those who conquered the French at Austerlitz and 
 Borodino. Besides, you are all starving to death in England 
 
18 THE SEEF-SISTEES ; OE, 
 
 and France; bread in London is selling at five roubles a 
 pound ! Aha ! you think we don't know all, but you see we 
 are well informed." 
 
 At this point old Vlad's tirade was cut short by a summons 
 to take his place at the tea-table, where cakes of every shape 
 and kind, rusks, jams, sweetmeats, caviare, tea, quass, cider, 
 ices, white brandy, rein-deer tongues, red, blue, white, and 
 green Easter eggs, bears' hams, pastry, champagne, and 
 Curacoa, were most oddly blended together, as usual at the 
 supper-board of a wealthy Sussian of the middle classes. 
 
 The conversation became animated and general, Paul Viad's 
 spiteful sallies serving rather to amuse than annoy his more 
 amiable interlocutors ; and after supper Anielka and Katinka 
 both sang and played, at Mark Forster's earnest request. 
 Katinka's voice and taste were exquisite, and an Italian ditty 
 from her lips had all the sweetness of a bird's carol in early 
 spring ; but there was something so thrilling in her sister's 
 plaintive and musical tones, when singing the sad but simple 
 ballads of Finland, Muscovy, or Poland, that the remembrance 
 of them haunted the ear like a ghostly echo of some fairy 
 melody ; and the Polish officer, Count Klapka, whose finely- 
 chiselled features wore a look of habitual melancholy which 
 showed that his life had not been untinged by sorrow, felt an 
 unbidden tear dim the fire of the dark eyes which gazed so 
 fondly upon her whose accents gave a fresh charm to the un- 
 forgotten chants of his enslaved and outraged fatherland. 
 
 It was late when the party separated, the Englishman seizing 
 an opportunity at the moment of departure to exchange a few 
 words with Katinka, in a tone inaudible to any ears but their 
 own. 
 
 " I would ask her hand from her father to-niorrow," said 
 Mark Forster to the Pole, as they walked down the street 
 together, the Englishman's dwelling being situated within a 
 short distance of the barracks, "I would ask her in marriage 
 to-morrow, and the kind old man would consent, but she 
 would never be permitted to leave the country ; and I cannot 
 barter my allegiance for that of a Muscovite ; no ! not even for 
 Katinka's sake." 
 
 "lam as unlucky as yourself," replied the Pole, moodily j 
 "for though Anielka has accepted me, and her father has 
 agreed to our union, the Emperor's consent to my marrying 
 and retiring from the service is withheld, and all my petitions 
 
THE RUSSIA OF TO-DAY. 19 
 
 for the restitution of a part of my father's confiscated property 
 have been entirely fruitless. I am as much a puppet of the 
 Czar's as the poorest soldier that bears a musket in the ranks ; 
 and I am doomed to see Anielka married to another, or wast- 
 ing her blooming youth in waiting for the consent which the 
 hard-hearted despot refuses, as callously as if his breast were 
 indeed of flint." 
 
 Meanwhile, Paul Ylad and Thekla walked home, preceded 
 by a servant with a lantern, and vehemently affirming that 
 their late entertainer was a traitor at heart, and that of all the 
 affected, insolent, odious girls in St. Petersburg, Anielka and 
 Katinka were unquestionably the worst and ugliest. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 IT is two hours after midnight, and sleep and darkness wrap, 
 as with a dusky mantle, the myriad wrongs and woes of groan- 
 ing E-ussia. The lamps which shine on dance and revel gleam 
 from a few of the palace windows of St. Petersburg ; a few 
 candles burn feebly beside sick men's pallets in the huts of the 
 " tshernoi narocl ;" a few lights nicker before the shrines of 
 those saints whose huge pictures have replaced the hideous 
 idols of the pagan Muscovite in the popular adoration ; half- 
 frozen sentinels, whose cloaks have been withdrawn by their 
 capricious chiefs the instant the mercury of the thermometer 
 rose above a certain point, pace to and fro at their posts ; no 
 other sign of light or life is visible in the slumbering city. 
 The soldier sleeps on his hard bed, the princess on her couch of 
 down, the prisoner on his straw. And the morrow shall awaken 
 each unconscious being to fulfil his part in the great drama. 
 The soldier and the serf shall awaken to labour for a hard 
 taskmaster; the princess shall open her eyes upon a world 
 which to her is but a wearying round of frivolous dissipation ; 
 the prisoner shall arouse himself to bear the torture of the 
 knout, or to moulder away hopelessly in his rayless dungeon ; 
 and the Czar, the mighty Moloch before whose pedestal flow 
 tides of blood and tears, shall shake off the empire of sleep (an 
 empire swayed by a dream-king, who perchance may often 
 make the stern autocrat suffer a retributive punishment on the 
 rack of fancy), and remember that he is the lord of a country 
 which extends well nigh across three continents of the Old 
 
 c2 
 
20 THE SEEF-SISTERS ; OE, 
 
 World and the New. What an awful reflection is it to Mm 
 who gazes on the man, Nicholas Romanoff, that the lives, the 
 bodies, the minds, and the property of countless millions lie 
 grovelling in the dust, to be trampled on by his massive tread. 
 A bloodthirsty drunkard like Peter, a monster of vice and 
 greediness like Catharine the Second, a frantic madman like 
 Paul, have held that terrible sceptre in their grasp, and ruled 
 over those sentient multitudes, as fitting guardians as the 
 tiger for the sheep-flock. Is the hope too wild a one, that the 
 Russian slaves may be rescued from themselves and from their 
 tyrants, and that the generous ardour of civilization may over- 
 throw the foundations of that fearful throne whose pillars are 
 ignorance and oppression, and whose cement is human life- 
 blood? 
 
 The sun rose clear and bright on the morning which suc- 
 ceeded the great festival of Easter, the clouds had rolled away, 
 the breeze was sharp and frosty, and the air was keen, as the 
 crowded population of St. Petersburg poured into the 
 streets and squares, intent on celebrating what has at all 
 times, from the days of the floral games to our own, been a 
 period of general holiday-making. It was no holiday, however, 
 for the horses of St. Petersburg, which, strung with tinkling 
 bells or bedecked with gay ribbons, careered rapidly down the 
 Prospekts, drawing innumerable light droskies and sledges, 
 each driven by a grave coachman, whose silver-buttoned 
 caftan, ample beard, and ponderous calpack, contrasted to 
 advantage in their picturesque Orientalism, with the green, 
 grey, or blue uniforms of Young Russia which mingled with 
 every group. Already the giddy swings were whirling on high 
 their laughing occupants ; the target and stall of the ginger- 
 bread-seller were beset by aspirants for a shot with the cross- 
 bow, and the prospect of an indigestible prize ; the rude ice 
 hillocks of the Montagues Busses were polished by the passage 
 of the gliding cars filled with boisterous merry-makers of the 
 lower class ; the peripatetic traders in ices, sherbet, and sugar- 
 plums reaped a splendid harvest of copecks and paper roubles ; 
 the vapour-baths, quass- vaults, and drinking- cellars were 
 gorged with men, women, and children, all of whom endured 
 the suffocating vapour, or quaffed the liquid fire, from large 
 glass measures, with a hardihood and unconcern which seemed 
 to prove their throats of cast iron, and their skins of the con- 
 sistency of buffalo-hide. Even the baby appeared to imbibe 
 
THE EUSSIA OF TO-DAY. 21 
 
 the brandy which, its brutalized mother poured between 
 its infant lips with a horrible eagerness which told how 
 early is instilled the taste for ardent liquors, the only taste, 
 perhaps, which the paternal government of [Russia smiles 
 upon, and permits to exist unchecked, among the miserable 
 beings whom its fatal policy keeps in the dark bondage of 
 unreason. Thousands crowded the temples; or bowed at 
 home before the .shrine or portrait of their patron saint, 
 whose aid against the heretical foes of their Pontiff Emperor 
 they anxiously implored ; and the hymns chanted by the mul- 
 titudes who had met to pray blended with the drunken hurrah 
 for the massacre of Sinope, which rang through quass-booth 
 and market-place. Through this lively but scarcely agreeable 
 scene of unthinking jollity and barbarous debauch, slowly 
 moved a handsome sledge, lined with rich furs and drawn by 
 two spirited black horses, whose arched troika was hung with 
 small bells which rang out a clear and merry peal at each fresh 
 plunge of the high-mettled animals, which a portly driver, in 
 a huge caftan of blue cloth with buttons of silver, was 
 exerting all his skill to restrain. In the sledge, wrapped in 
 the fur mantles without which few Russians of the upper or 
 middle rank can bear to face even a moderate degree of cold, 
 sat Katinka and her father. Katinka was a wilful specimen 
 of the genus " spoilt child," who could not endure to be 
 balked of a whim ; and having suddenly taken into her capri- 
 cious little head that the day was a charming one for exercise ; 
 and, sledging being nearly over for that winter, had decided 
 that another indulgence in that amusement would be doubly 
 delightful ; that the ice of the Neva, a good way up, was certain 
 to be sufficiently firm ; and finally, that her father might, would, 
 could, and should take her out on a farewell sledging excursion. 
 Old Jacob was not quite as confident of the stability of the ice 
 as his daughter. Papas are often somewhat sceptical as to the 
 dryness of the grass, the fineness of the weather, and the con- 
 stancy of the wind, when pic-nics, boating-parties, and similar 
 out-of-doors divertisements are projected; but Jacob was a 
 sensible man, and one fit to argue with women, for he always 
 allowed himself to be over-persuaded with a good grace. It so 
 happened that Mark Forster, who, during his frequent visits to 
 the metropolis, had almost always accompanied the merchant's 
 family on their holiday trips, had been on this occasion compelled 
 to absent himself on business connected with his approaching 
 
22 THE SEEF-SISTEKS ; Oil, 
 
 departure, while a sudden call of duty retained the Pole, 
 Count Klapka, in barracks. Anielka was not as fond of dash- 
 ing over the smooth ice of the Neva as her more vivacious 
 sister ; and moreover, their usual companions were unable to be 
 of the party ; so that the only sledge which left the large remise 
 of Jacob's house that day was the one which bore its owner 
 and his blue-eyed Hebe-like daughter. 
 
 Emerging from the peopled thoroughfares of the city, the 
 sledge glided more rapidly along the causeways by which the 
 marshy district near St. Petersburg is intersected, and soon 
 approached the Neva. The frozen surface of the river, despite 
 the lateness of the season, was crowded by burghers and mujiks 
 in gala attire, escorting their wives and children. Skaters were 
 displaying their skill in tracing complicated figures upon the 
 smoother and sounder tracts of ice, and a score of sledges 
 were dashing merrily along at the full speed of then: sure- 
 footed steeds ; the chiming of the valdai bells and the merry 
 laughter of their occupants floating far and wide upon the 
 breeze of spring. Katinka clapped her little hands with 
 rapture as the fiery black horses which drew their light vehicle 
 were at length suffered to break into a gallop, and her eyes 
 sparkled as the. sledge swept over the slippery roof of the Neva 
 with the rapidity of a snow-storm driving rapidly down across 
 a wintry steppe. The majority of the pleasure-seekers had 
 prudently limited their frozen play-ground to about a mile of 
 hard and solid ice ; but Katinka pleaded so eloquently to be 
 allowed to proceed to a point above the islands, that old Jacob 
 gave the necessary orders to his coachman, and the sledge flew 
 as swiftly as a bird between the deserted banks of the river, 
 passing groves of stunted willows, alders, and other trees, 
 which love to strike their roots in the spongy ground of the 
 fens. In a few moments the holiday-making boors and citizens 
 were left behind, their cries and songs of rude joy died away 
 in the distance, and the sledge rushed through a tract of 
 country as silent and desolate as when the eyes of the Great 
 Peter first surveyed its stagnant waters and melancholy 
 thickets. The snipe and rail piped plaintively among the 
 reeds, the bittern gave its harsh boom among the grey willows, 
 the teal fluttered over the unyielding crust of the congealed 
 mere. But there was nothing to speak of the progress of ages, 
 or to tell of the boasted grandeur of the great city hard by. 
 Not far off were wastes, yet more lonely and inhospitable, where 
 
THE EUSSIA OF TO-DAY. 23 
 
 the wolf and the bear dwelt in their rarely disturbed solitudes, 
 the aboriginal masters of the land, seeming to wait till the 
 theatrical display of false civilization should be played out, till 
 the hollow mockery should be at an end, and, St. Petersburg 
 being abandoned to the devouring quicksands and hungry sea, 
 the Istrian swamp should once more belong to the denizens of 
 the wilderness. 
 
 Suddenly from a bed of tall reeds there emerged a man 
 whon his green jager's dress, high mud-boots, and well filled 
 game-pouch, sufficiently proclaimed as one of those professional 
 sportsmen, to whom the markets of St. Petersburg are in a 
 larg-e measure indebted for their supply of wild fowl and 
 haies. These, however, are usually Istrians, and of a very 
 different mien and bearing from that which attracted the 
 attention of the occupants of the sledge to the person of the 
 maksman. The latter was a powerful young man, whose blue 
 eye? glittered with that quick light often to be noticed in 
 thoie of an Indian warrior, while his tawny hair fell in careless 
 length from beneath a felt-hat, adorned with a feather of the 
 sea eagle, and partially shaded a face whose clear and rich 
 conplexion had been half bronzed by exposure to sun and 
 winl. He had a gun slung at his back, and in his hand he 
 bori an iron-spiked leaping-pole. But it was not the dress 
 and equipment of the stranger, though these were more fan- 
 cifu than was usual, which excited the curiosity of the 
 merhant and his daughter. It was the easy walk and 
 pro'.d carriage of the sportsman, the lofty carriage of his 
 to wring head, and something almost defiant in Ms fearless 
 gaz, which astonished Petrovich and Katinka, as being alto- 
 gether unusual among a population so debased as that of 
 Mucovy. A Russian clown usually plods along with bent 
 sholders and ungainly gait, like a bear walking painfully on 
 its lind legs ; and the erect stature of the purveyor for the 
 StPetersburg market seemed far more appropriate for some 
 fre Pawnee hunter than for a subject of that pattern monarch, 
 th( Mild-eyed Czar. The sledge had scarcely passed the 
 strnger, and Katinka had hardly had time to say that the 
 chsseur looked more like a Swede than a Russian, when the 
 hoses suddenly stopped short, throwing themselves well nigh 
 up n their haunches, and began to inflate their capacious 
 nofcrils and turn their starting eyes windwards, with every in- 
 diation of alarm. Vainly did the driver apply the lash with 
 
24 THE SEEF-SISTEES ; OE, 
 
 stinging effect ; a succession.of plunges alone rewarded his ex- 
 ertions. Fruitlessly did he exhaust the endearing epithets of 
 which every moujik can be so lavish on occasion ; no persuasion 
 would induce the recusant horses to progress a yard. Tha old 
 merchant became equally surprised and alarmed, and proposed 
 that they should hasten homewards. But now a long-drawn 
 moan, like that of some huge creature in pain, was heard along 
 the river, and then a shudder like the peculiar vibration pro- 
 duced by an earthquake made the strong ice of the Neva 
 quiver. The affright of the horses was now so great thai they 
 became unmanageable, and stood still, shaking tremulously in 
 every limb, with pricked-up ears and coats wet and reeking 
 with heat. ^ Katinka's merry voice was hushed, and she 
 clasped her hands convulsively together, while old Jacob tent 
 forward and spoke in a whisper to the coachman, who nut- 
 tered a reply of which Katinka could only distinguish a few 
 terrible words " The ice must be giving way above." O low 
 bitterly did the wilful little beauty repent her capricious deter- 
 mination to go on so rash an excursion, and how her bart 
 smote her as she reflected on the fearful risk which her 
 childish fancy had occasioned, not only to herself, but toher 
 indulgent old father, whose pleasure from her nursery days itfiad 
 been to forestall or fulfil her wishes. She bowed her head d<wn, 
 and hid her face in her furred mantle, while the tears gutted 
 fast from her blue eyes, as she thought of her imprudenceand 
 its results. Jacob Petrovich, though much agitated, was the 
 only one of the party who preserved sufficient presene of 
 mind to attempt any active means of escape, for the coachnan 
 was so much alarmed that he could scarcely retain a me- 
 chanical grasp of the reins, frantically invoking St. Nicblas 
 and St. Vladimir the while, and occasionally interruptinghis 
 orisons by a burst of vehement abuse addressed to the ob- 
 durate steeds. Poor old Jacob sprang out of the sledge, ad, 
 seizing the bridles of the horses, tried hard to drag the anirals 
 towards the shore, but his feeble efforts proved useless ; ;he 
 snorting brutes remained as firmly rooted to the spot as if t.ey 
 had been carved in stone. Another groan resounded ominoBly 
 along the Neva, again the ice trembled, and a harsh gra^ng. 
 sound, like that of a sawmill at work, succeeded. Then caie 
 a thundering crash, such as the fall of a mighty tree beneth 
 the axe of the woodman might have produced, and then a all 
 roar, mingled with a clashing and metallic sound, resemblag 
 
THE RUSSIA OF TO-DAY. 25 
 
 that caused by vast sheets of iron violently beaten together. 
 "Are you mad, that you tempt your fate thus?" shouted a 
 deep voice from the bank, as the fowler whom they had pre- 
 viously descried arrived at a spot parallel with that on which the 
 sledge remained stationary ; " or have you the gift of breathing 
 under water, as the fish have ? Come to shore, and be quick, 
 as you value your lives. Last spring I saw two bears drowned 
 where your sledge is standing now." Jacob Petrovich aban- 
 doned the obstinate horses, and hastily began to assist Katinka, 
 who was encumbered by a mountain of warm cloaks, to alight, 
 and the driver was in the very act of descending from his 
 perch, when an explosion as loud as the report of a score of 
 cannon resounded, and the compressed air beneath blew up the 
 ice in places with a force little inferior to that of gunpowder, 
 and the hitherto firm surface cracked and split with a succes- 
 sion of echoing sounds as sharp and well defined as pistol 
 shots. 
 
 "You are too late," exclaimed the wildfowl shooter, "stay 
 where you are. It will be your safest plan." And in fact in 
 another moment a yawning chasm gaped between the sledge 
 and the shore. The catastrophe which occurs every spring was 
 taking place more early than on ordinary occasions ; that is to say, 
 the masses of broken ice from Lake Ladoga were seeking their 
 natural outlet in the Neva, and the crust of the frozen river 
 was yielding to the enormous and irresistible pressure. The 
 solid sheet of congealed water which had furnished so ad- 
 mirable a pavement for the sledgers and skaters throughout 
 the winter was now shattered into irregular fields and mis- 
 shapen "hummocks" of ice, between which the chilly stream 
 was distinctly visible as it hurried on to meet the sea. 
 
 The mass which sustained the sledge and its occupants now 
 began slowly to move down the stream, sluggishly obeying the 
 impulse of the river, and bearing away those whom it sup- 
 ported as easily as the vast rafts of the Rhine bear their nume- 
 rous and heterogeneous crew. The coachman beat his breast 
 and tore his beard with vexation, while his cries for aid em- 
 braced every saint in the Greek calendar. Jacob grew pale, 
 and his voice shook as he vainly tried to re-assure the shrink- 
 ing Katinka, who with white lips and stony eyes sat wringing 
 her hands in silence, too much terrified to weep. The danger 
 was imminent and terrible of their being thus floated out to 
 sea to perish, before any human power could rescue them, even 
 
26 THE SERF-SISTERS ; Oil, 
 
 were their peril known ; but this was not the only risk to which 
 their imprudence had exposed them. A grim phalanx of frozen 
 giants, the huge icebergs of Lake Ladoga, came swimming 
 ponderously down the stream like a herd of Arctic monsters, 
 crushing or sinking the comparatively feeble crust of the Neva 
 as easily as a rock rolling down a mountain side uproots the 
 puny trees that essay to bar its resistless progress. Katinka 
 shuddered at the sight of these floating fortresses of crystal, 
 fringed with lake-weed, that drooped over their pellucid battle- 
 ments like the banners of a castle -keep, and which ad- 
 vanced rapidly, grinding to dust or sending to the bottom the 
 heavy blocks and ice fields in their path. Nearer and nearer 
 came the sparkling mounds, rising like diamond cliffs above 
 the sedgy banks of the Neva, and showing innumerable shades 
 of the prismatic hues as their fantastic crags gave back the 
 lustre of the sun. Katinka sank down sobbing to the bottom 
 of the sledge, speechless with fear; old Jacob clasped his 
 trembling fingers, fixed his aged eyes, now streaming with un- 
 wonted tears, upon the pale grey sky, and prayed silently. 
 The icebergs swept on in ruthless strength. The horses, long 
 paralysed by fear, now seemed to be aroused by the " instinct 
 of self-preservation," an instinct which, under the circum- 
 stances, proved more perilous than their previous repose. 
 Snorting and rearing, they tugged against the sharp bits, and 
 strove madly to dash forward into the gulf of water which " 
 yawned between the sledge and land. The driver prayed to 
 St. Isaac, and clutched the reins despairingly. A violent 
 struggle ensued, the floating mass reeled beneath the stamping 
 of the rebellious steeds, who, snorting wildly with terror and 
 excitement, pressed on towards the edge of the transparent 
 raft which alone intervened between them and destruction. 
 The coachman dropped the reins, and flung himself from his 
 seat. Katinka raised herself by a supreme effort, and gazed 
 distractedly around her, then uttered an involuntary cry of 
 wonder and joy. An active figure, armed with a long leaping- 
 pole, came rapidly springing from mass to mass of the floating 
 ice, resting no longer on each slippery mound than a m seagull 
 lingers upon the crest of a wave, and taking such bold and 
 prodigious bounds as seemed scarcely practicable for any crea- 
 ture less agile than a chamois. In the next instant, the young 
 wildfowl shooter was beside the sledge, and in a moment more 
 
THE RUSSIA OF TO-DAY. 27 
 
 he stood in front of the terrified horses, which had already 
 approached frightfully near the verge of the chasm which sepa- 
 rated the ice-field from the reedy shore, along whose willowy 
 bank the stream was gradually impelling it. Seizing the 
 bridles of the horses, he put forth his great strength, and flung 
 the animals back at once upon their haunches. For an instant, 
 the startled brutes submitted to this vigorous restraint, but 
 soon their blind fears returned, and with pawing feet and 
 glaring eyeballs they reared and plunged furiousty, straining 
 every nerve, like fiends striving to overthrow the exorcist. 
 Katinka and her father almost forgot the fearful stake they 
 had in the issue of the conflict in the anxious eagerness with 
 which they watched such a strife as might have taken place 
 thousands of years ago between the centaur horsetamers of 
 Thessaly and the desert coursers they subjugated. The fiery 
 black steeds, with smoking nostrils and bristling manes, half 
 reared upon their iron-shod hind feet, with every muscle work- 
 ing and salient, would have afforded a magnificent study to a 
 sculptor, while the figure of the dauntless youth who, within a 
 yard or two of certain death, freely risked his own life to save 
 those of strangers, would have served as a model for a young 
 Hercules, such as few statuaries have ever been fortunate 
 enough to behold. Thrown unconsciously into an attitude 
 which admirably set off the noble proportions of his frame, his 
 iron fingers clenching the bridles with a grasp which seemed 
 superhuman in its force, his form erect, his head thrown back, 
 the adventurer confronted the maddened steeds with a mien as 
 resolute as a lion's when he turns to bay. His blue eyes 
 flashed with the fire of resolution, his strong white teeth shone 
 beneath his haughtily curling lip ; his hat had fallen off, and his 
 long tawny hair fell like a JSTumidian lion's mane around his 
 glowing cheeks and majestic brow. The horses dashed them- 
 selves against him like waves against a rock, but only to recoil, 
 foaming and baffled by the strength of those mighty arms 
 which subdued and bore them down in spite of their struggles 
 and their weight. The panic-stricken driver had now suffi- 
 ciently recovered to lend his assistance, and the horses gave up 
 the contest, and remained still, trembling but submissive. The 
 icebergs still advanced ; but the young giant who in so critical 
 a moment had come to the aid of the merchant andrhis daughter, 
 now proved as useful an auxiliary as before, for vigorously 
 
28 THE SERF-SISTERS ; OE, 
 
 pushing the nearest hummocks with his pole, he succeeded in 
 forcing the swimming mass so near the bank, that it finally 
 grounded on a small promontory of swampy ground. 
 
 " Now, ashore with you ! Don't spare the whipcord, and be 
 quick !" exclaimed the fowler, in a voice so imperative that the 
 coachman obeyed on the instant. The reins were slackened, 
 the lash was laid furiously over the reeking horses, and with a 
 great bound which nearly overturned the sledge, the excited 
 animals sprang forward. The ice-field receded from the land 
 as they neared its edge, but by a bold leap and a desperate 
 flounder, the steeds gained a footing on the bank, dragging the 
 sledge after them. The ice-field had now retrograded to a dis- 
 tance of six or eight feet from the shore, and was drifting 
 down the stream, when the young sportsman, who had appa- 
 rently overlooked his own danger in his anxiety about those 
 whom he had rescued, suddenly saw the fast-widening gulf. 
 He picked up his hat which lay at his feet, coolly replaced it 
 on his head, and giving such a spring as a wild goat uses to 
 clear a chasm in the mountains, alighted safely upon the bank, 
 though encumbered by the fowling-piece and game-pouch at 
 his back. Yery shortly afterwards, the leading iceberg over- 
 took the mass which had lately borne the sledge, and passed 
 over it as easily as a frigate would pass over the bark canoe of 
 a Carib. Old Jacob, his daughter, and their servant, fell on 
 their knees and prayed, with all the genuflexions proper to the 
 Greek Church. The stranger took off* his hat, and leant against 
 a tree, silently and with half-closed eyes. Perhaps he prayed 
 too. 
 
 CHAPTEE IY. 
 
 WHILE Jacob Petrovich and his youngest daughter were 
 incurring what was probably the most imminent danger which 
 they had ever encountered, the unconscious Anielka was 
 wending her way towards the church of St. Isaac, accom- 
 panied by her faithful old nurse. Mingling with a crowd of 
 worshippers who were pouring up the granite steps which led 
 to the wide portals of the vast cathedral, Yaska and her young 
 mistress entered the aisles at the moment when the service 
 was about to commence, and while the deep voice of one of the 
 officiating priests was bidding all infidels to quit the sacred 
 
THE RUSSIA OF TO-DAY. 29 
 
 building, a summons which was obeyed by several Jews and 
 Mahometans from remote provinces, who were standing curi- 
 ously near the door, Anielka and Yaska passed up the pillared 
 aisle, and mingled with the kneeling crowd. The mass com- 
 menced, with all the imposing ceremonies belonging to the 
 Greek ritual, and the fumes of incense, the chanting of an 
 almost unrivalled choir, whose united voices pealed forth as 
 sweetly and powerfully as those of some angelic host, the 
 bursts of music with which the solemn organ shook the 
 colossal church, combined to overpower and dazzle the minds 
 of the thousands who bowed their heads before the high altar. 
 The Emperor was there, with the Empress and the Archdukes 
 and Archduchesses of the imperial race of Romanoff ; while a 
 brilliant crowd of officers in gaudy uniforms, whose breasts 
 sparkled with stars and crosses, of noble ladies and of robed 
 dignitaries of the state and the church of Russia, gleamed 
 around them like a galaxy. Above, the vaulted dome, all 
 carved and decorated with elaborate paintings in fresco, blazed 
 with fretted gold, and azure, and crimson, and purple, and 
 flung a rainbow of gorgeous hues upon the pavement beneath, 
 as the sun poured its wintry rays through the storied windows. 
 Anielka was an enthusiastic and noble-hearted girl, with 
 whose very nature the sentiment of religion was so inextricably 
 entwined that it could only have been eradicated by the de- 
 straction of the entire fabric of her soul. With her, piety was 
 less the offspring of education than of the affections, and when 
 she prayed, it was not with the cold and measured accents of a 
 chilly and worldly faith, but with a spontaneous energy of 
 passionate devotion, which caused the words she uttered to 
 rise unconsciously to her lips, like the involuntary homage to 
 his Maker which the wild-bird pours forth when he carols, 
 light-hearted and happy, on a blossomed bough. 
 
 As Anielka knelt on the pavement of that stately church, the 
 ceremonial observances which succeeded each other with be- 
 wildering rapidity awed and dazzled her, but did not satisfy the 
 cravings of her soul. She thought of her Swedish mother, that 
 delicate, patient, suffering being, the memory of whose saintly 
 precepts fondly uttered to her child as she bent over Anielka's 
 bed when she was almost an infant, and whose sad and gentle 
 eyes, seemed to her recollection more like those of a guardian 
 angel than of any mortal. The holy words thus whispered to 
 her ears in childhood had never been forgotten, and came 
 
30 THE SEETT-SISTEfiS ; OE, 
 
 back to her as she knelt before the tawdry pictures in the 
 church of Sfc. Isaac, like the distant echo of a heavenly hymn. 
 Anielka was at heart, though all unconsciously to herself, a 
 Protestant. Of this fact, however, she was in total ignorance, 
 and nothing could have been more agonizing to her feelings 
 than to have been enlightened as to her real sentiments with 
 regard to the faith of her fathers, which, all superstitious as it 
 was, she had ever been accustomed to regard with obedience 
 and reverence. On the present occasion she was over- 
 powered and fascinated by the flood of seraphic harmony in 
 which the liquid voices of the choir vied with the majestic 
 strains of the organ, which actually shook the dome, making 
 the captured Turkish and Persian standards flap their silken 
 folds to and fro as they httngfcom the roof. The ceremony of 
 Easter Monday being of a most imposing and magnificent 
 character, many strangers of different denominations of Chris- 
 tianity had joined the throng of worshippers in the cathedral, 
 from motives of curiosity. Among these stood leaning against 
 one of the prodigious columns of the aisle the elegant figure of 
 Count Klapka, whose ardent gaze, however, far from being 
 fixed on the pomp of the Easter pageant, was riveted on the 
 beautiful face of his loved Anielka, whose speaking eyes up- 
 turned in prayer, looked so pure and holy, that Klapka half 
 doubted for the moment whether it were not a sin to aspire to 
 wean so noble a being to an earthly love. This thought, how- 
 ever, soon passed away, but the young Pole still deemed it 
 would be a profanation to gaze longer upon her while she was 
 thus unaware of his presence and so rapt in devotion, and 
 with one lingering look he quitted his post in the shadow of the 
 pillar against which he had been leaning, and descended the 
 steps of the cathedral, inwardly resolving never to reveal to 
 Anielka that he had been an unobserved witness of the sincere 
 and fervent piety, which, although he professed another creed 
 than her own, had increased tenfold the love he bore her. 
 Shortly after Count ICapka's departure the ceremony con- 
 cluded, and Anielka and her nurse quitted the church with the 
 throng, lingering for a moment on the granite stairs to watch 
 the departure of the imperial court, whose well-appointed 
 equipages and gallant cavalry escort attracted many deafening 
 plaudits from the buzzing multitude. 
 
 The walk homewards to the neighbourhod of the Great 
 Market was a long and chilly one, for the short-lived day was 
 
THE RUSSIA OF TO-DAY. 31 
 
 already beginning to wane, and a sea of fleecy clouds had 
 obscured the sun ; but at length they reached their home, 
 where the old merchant and Katinka had arrived half an hour 
 before. Anielka was startled at hearing of the awful peril 
 which had recently menaced the lives of those so dear to her, 
 and shed tears of joy and gratitude for the preservation of her 
 father and sister ; while Katinka recounted with all her childish 
 earnestness, how near destruction her parent and herself had 
 been, and told of the courage and magnanimity which the 
 young fowler had displayed in rescuing them from their im- 
 pending fate ; and how the latter was named Yanos, and was 
 an Esthonian by birth ; and how he had refused all Jacob 
 Petrovich's grateful offers of recompence, though only a poor 
 hunter who lived by shooting willfowl for the market of St. 
 Petersburg ; and, lastly, how he had promised to come and see 
 them that evening or the next. But Katinka did not think fit 
 to mention the evident admiration which the young Esthonian 
 entertained for her, and which was probably the reason why 
 one whose nature, like that of many nien accustomed to dwell 
 among the lonely woods, was rather stern and unsociable than 
 otherwise, had so readily consented to visit a family of a 
 higher rank than his own. Old Jacob corroborated Katinka's 
 account, and .expressed his hearty regret that the wilful and 
 somewhat perverse pride of Yanos had led him to refuse every 
 proffer of money or services. 
 
 He trusted, however, that the obstinacy of the young man, 
 who had frankly admitted that his only means of gaining a 
 living was by his skill as a marksman, would give way in time, 
 or that he should be able to discover some more acceptable 
 mode of rewarding one whom he should always honour as the 
 preserver of himself and his child. 
 
 CHAPTEB V. 
 
 COUNT KLAPKA had walked, in a waking dream, more than 
 twice along the entire extent of the Nevskoi Prospekt, whither 
 he had turned his steps on leaving the church of St. Isaac, when 
 a field -officer riding past suddenly checked his charger, and 
 called out in an imperious tone, which effectually put an end 
 to the Pole's chequered reveries, " Lieutenant Klapka ! Hola ! 
 
02 THE SEEF-SISTEES ; OE, 
 
 Lieutenant Klapka !" The young officer started indignantly 
 at the rough summons, and a flush of momentary indignation 
 suffused his usually pale face ; but soon remembering that in- 
 stead of being a wealthy magnate of Poland, he was a poor 
 subaltern in a Russian corps, he approached his colonel, and 
 made the customary salute. " What a moon-gazing dolt you 
 are, Lieutenant!" growled out the gruff veteran, with all that 
 reckless disregard for the wounded feelings of others which is 
 habitual to the Muscovites, as well as to other Orientals. The 
 Pole bit his lips, and the Colonel continued, as he drew some 
 papers from his sabretasch, "Carry these despatches to 
 General AnnenkofF, Lieutenant ; you'll find him at the Pass- 
 port-office ; but be quick, or the bureau will be shut. What 
 were you thinking of, that you went blundering along the road ; 
 like the jade in the Somnambula, sleep-walking in broad day- 
 light, and omitting to salute your colonel? Do you think, 
 because you are a count, such conduct must pass unnoticed ? 
 Better men than you have been degraded to the ranks for 
 less ; and if I chose to report you for want of respect, we should 
 see how much the Minister-at-War would care for the coronet 
 of Count Klapka." 
 
 " You have said enough, Colonel Androsky, and more than 
 enough!" answered the Pole, steadily fixing his eyes on the 
 visage of the bullying commander ; " you are my colonel, it is 
 true, but that fact gives you no right to insult me under colour 
 of a reprimand. As for your threats of complaining to the 
 Minister, they come somewhat strangely from the officer who 
 last year sold to Minskoi the Jew eighty of the Emperor's 
 horses, and who has drawn for years the pay and forage of a 
 regiment kept up at half its nominal number. I will take your 
 despatches to the General. Have you any further instructions ? ' ' 
 
 "Not I; take care of yourself," grumbled the commander, 
 huskily, as he knit his heavy brows and rode slowly away. 
 Klapka's curling lip showed that he both understood the implied 
 menace and disdained it ; and after watching the bulky form of 
 the colonel disappear down the avenue, turned on his heel, and 
 walked towards the great square, muttering to himself, " There 
 is no lack of ill-will in yonder rascal ; if his power were equal to 
 his love of mischief,! should not pass a week without some evil 
 happening to me. It is strange, too, that he should hate me as he 
 does, merely because I am a Polish noble, and he the son of a 
 Hussian brandy contractor." Klapka soon arrived at the 
 
THE RUSSIA OF TO-DAY. 33 
 
 Passport-office, where his uniform procured him a ready ad- 
 mission, and passing through a corridor half filled with yawn- 
 ing policemen in green coats, he entered an ante-chamber 
 which led into a larger saloon, in which several generals in uni- 
 form were seated before a table strewed with books and 
 papers, and at which two clerks were writing. One or two 
 Germans or Frenchmen, dressed in plain clothes, were waiting 
 near the table for their turn of audience, and as Klapka en- 
 tered, a huissier, in a most judicial suit of sable, led up one of 
 the petitioners to the board, where he, having been asked 
 several questions by a peculiarly uncivil old general, (the 
 responses to which the clerks transcribed on loose sheets of 
 paper, and afterwards demurely copied into ledgers), received 
 the desired permission to quit the dominions of the Czar, about 
 the greatest boon to any alien, one would think, which that 
 potentate could by possibility bestow. 
 
 Klapka stepped forward and delivered his despatches to 
 General Annenkoff, who glanced at them, and laying them 
 down upon the table, notified the conge of the messenger by a 
 nod. The Pole was in the act of quitting the room, when 
 to his surprise he caught sight of the Englishman, Mark 
 Forster, who was sitting in the corner of the ante-chamber, with 
 a face expressive of disgust and indignation, and occasionally 
 trying to edge his way into the bureau, a proceeding invariably 
 prevented by some grave Jmissier or arbitrary gendarme. 
 
 " What is the matter, Mark ?" asked Klapka, rapidly, in 
 French ; " have you been here long ?" 
 
 " Seven hours !" answered Mark ; "seven mortal hours, as I 
 am an honest man. That confounded clock in the next room, 
 whose ticking reminds me of one of the tortures which the 
 Inquisition used to inflict, it is so wearisome, has struck 
 the hour seven times since I first graced this wretched den." 
 
 " But why did you not go away ?" asked the Pole, with some 
 ausenient. 
 
 " I could not bear to put off the evil day," answered Mark, 
 a serio-comic tone ; " I have a regard for my sanity, and 
 
 ur official formalities in this country bid fair to endanger it. 
 
 it gravely speaking, I did not wish to lose a chance. You 
 
 ow the law compels every foreigner w r ho asks for a passport 
 leave the empire, formally to notify his intention four times 
 
 er in the St. Petersburg Gazette, in order, probably, that if 
 
 hag run into debt with any of your too confiding tradesmen, 
 
34 THE SERF-SISTEBS ; OR, 
 
 they may have ample time to lodge a detainer. Well, this 
 same precious gazette only sheds its refulgence upon the 
 metropolis for three days in every week, so that the process of 
 advertising necessarily takes ten days ?" 
 
 The Pole nodded assent. 
 
 " Well," continued Mark, who really seemed to forget the 
 tedium of his long attendance in the delight of criticising the 
 regulations of the imperial government, " I naturally do not 
 care to go through the entire process again, and since I am 
 obliged to leave Russia, I want to get my permission at once. 
 Here I have sat since nine this morning, seeing Yankees, 
 Germans and Frenchmen, come in, get their passports, and go 
 out again, grinning and contented, while there seems to be an 
 absolute conspiracy among the policemen to prevent me from 
 having access to the generals." 
 
 "It is very strange," rejoined the Pole; who, after musing 
 for a moment, added, " very strange ; for of course you have 
 paid them their fee." 
 
 " Fee ! what fee ?" said Mark, looking intensely astonished. 
 
 " The fee, the douceur ; the little present, in fact, that the 
 generals always expect," explained the Pole. 
 
 " In the name of all that's mercenary," ejaculated Mark in 
 positive dismay, " who ever could dream of offering a bribe to 
 those consequential-looking veterans in their green uniforms 
 and golden aiguillettes ? There's not one of them who is not 
 decorated with as many stars and ribbons as if he were a 
 prince or a paladin." 
 
 " You must not come to St. Petersburg to look for pala- 
 dins," answered Klapka with a smile. Bayard is not by any 
 means the model of one of our military chieftains. Have you 
 been in Muscovy so long without discovering that every 
 functionary has his price. If the bribe be but an adequate 
 one, you may safely slip it into any hand, short of the 
 Emperor's own." 
 
 " But surely, in this public manner, to give money to an 
 officer and a gentleman " Mark began, when Klapka inter- 
 rupted him. 
 
 "How often am I to tell you, cJier ami, that 'gentlemen ' 
 do not exist in Russia. The boor and the noble are alike in 
 their hearts. A gold-laced coat, some knowledge of French 
 and German, a taste for champagne instead of brandy, and the 
 manners of an accomplished dancing-dog at a fair, such are the 
 
THE EUSSIA OF TO-DAY. 35 
 
 proud distinctions which elevate the magnate above the serf. 
 There are no gentlemen in Russia ; there were some in Poland 
 once." 
 
 "But they are brushing their cocked hats and tightening 
 their sashes !" exclaimed Mark in considerable alarm ; "they 
 must be going to leave the office." And the young English- 
 man jumped up from his chair, and pushing past the officious 
 policeman who tried to stop him, approached the table. 
 
 " M. le General," said he, civilly, to the nearest of the im- 
 posing looking quintette, " I think you have forgotten me and 
 my passport." The dignitary turned his portly person and 
 scarlet countenance towards the daring innovator on time- 
 honoured usages, and replied with a portentous scowl, " There 
 is no time to listen to you to-day, young man. You may 
 return next week." So saying, the padded old warrior twisted 
 up his grey moustache, and waving his fat and bejewelled 
 fingers, made Mark a sign to be gone. 
 
 "I came here seven hours ago," said Mark, whose blood was 
 beginning to course like liquid fire through his veins, for like 
 all Anglo-Saxons he was keenly alive to a sense of injustice, 
 " and have seen dozens of foreigners who came long after 
 myself, obtain their passports and depart. Why should I not 
 be attended to as well as the rest?" All the generals rose, their 
 swords and spurs clanking with martial dissonance, and the 
 decorations on their breasts jingling and clashing most 
 superbly. Picking up their hats, they had already left the 
 table, when Mark, exclaiming, " Stay a moment, I see what 
 you want," produced a twenty rouble note, and thrust it into 
 the hand of the officer who had recently repulsed him. The 
 general took the note, examined it, and pocketed it unblush- 
 ingly, then affixing the necessary signature to a document 
 which lay ready and neatly filled up, on the table before him, 
 rudely flung the passport down at Mark's feet, and strutted 
 out of the room, followed by his brothers in arms and in 
 plunder. "Klapka, you are right!" said Mark; "there are 
 no gentlemen in Russia." 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 ON the evening of Easter Tuesday, the usual intimates of 
 
 Jacob Petrovich's family circle were gathered once more 
 
 around the porcelain stove in the great drawing-room. The 
 
 D 2 
 
36 THE SEKF-S1STEBS ; OE, 
 
 master of tlie house was engaged in a match, of that true cos- 
 mopolitan, chess, with his old neighbour, Paul Ylad. Anielka 
 was talking in an under-tone to her lover, who was tightening 
 the strings of her harp, and apparently finding the screws very 
 refractory, to judge by the time which the operation evidently 
 required. Katinka was dividing her conversation between 
 Mark Forster and Yanos the hunter, and the daughter of Paul 
 Ylad sat apart, beside a table covered with engravings and 
 albums, engaged nominally in turning over the leaves of a 
 volume of Schiller, neither whose language nor sentiments she 
 could understand, and, actually, in watching the two sisters 
 and their attentive cavaliers with precisely the same air with 
 which a cat 'gloats over the feeble struggles of a dying mouse. 
 Sooth to say, the gentle Thekla was on that evening in a mood 
 at once so snappish and so full of exultation, that both Anielka 
 and Katinka had given up as hopeless the ungrateful task of 
 amusing or soothing her. The fair blossom of the house of 
 Ylad, never very remarkable for a dulcet temper, on the 
 present occasion exhibited such rancorous spite in the com- 
 pression of her pinched lips, and yet betrayed so strange a 
 sense of triumph in the light which filled her green eyes, that 
 Mark whispered to Katinka that her friend must certainly 
 have that morning received her first offer, and regretted having 
 refused the suitor. Paul Vlad's manner was, though more 
 guarded, still more unusual. His cunning eyes from time to 
 time shot stealthy glances at his good-natured opponent, and 
 then roved round the saloon with a scrutiny more curious than 
 benevolent; he moreover pricked up his ears, and listened to 
 every distant sound in the quiet street, as anxiously as the fox 
 for the cry of the hounds and the music of the horn ; and some- 
 times, when old Jacob took one of his pawns, menaced a bishop, 
 or placed the king in difficulty, and uttered a harmless laugh 
 of exultation, Paul Vlad would grin and chuckle in a manner 
 altogether unaccountable in a losing player. 
 
 Thekla's ears were naturally excellent, and without much 
 trouble she contrived to hear certain scraps of the conversation 
 going on between the lovers, which, to judge by the expression 
 of her features, seemed to amuse her excessively. 
 
 "And the result of your application to Count Nesselrode ; 
 did it seem of a nature to hold out hopes?" asked Anielka, 
 bending over the harp in such a manner that her dark tresses 
 almost touched Klapka's cheek. 
 
THE JBUSSIA OF TO-DAY. 
 
 " The Count spoke most kindly," returned the young Pole, 
 in a tone which, low as it was, reached the unfriendly ears of 
 Thekla, "and he promised to speak to the Chancellor of 
 Poland, and afterwards to his Majesty himself, on my behalf, 
 or rather on ours, dearest girl," continued the young man, in a 
 still softer tone, and pressing Anielka's white fingers with a 
 warmth that caused the watchful Thekla to grin diabolically. 
 
 Anielka blushed and instinctly withdrew her hand as she re- 
 plied, "I trust, I have prayed, and I trust fervently that you 
 may not be disappointed. Ever since this dreadful war began, 
 have trembled lest your regiment should be ordered to the 
 south. And if your turn should come, now that our armies are 
 to have more formidable enemies to encounter than the Turks ! 
 Oh! it is too horrid to think of! But your petition to the 
 Emperor will be granted, and you will stay with your poor 
 Anielka, my Eugene;" and the beautiful girl turned her 
 eloquent eyes half-inquiringly on her lover's face, as if she 
 doubted whether she had a right to hope for his safety. 
 
 " Calm your fears, my Anielka," answered the Pole, affect- 
 ing to be more confident than he really was, as he saw the 
 glittering tear that began to gem the dark lashes of Anielka's 
 eyes ; "his Majesty will relent when he sees the fullest proofs 
 that my father, having accepted an amnesty after the rising of 
 Warsaw, was quietly residing on his estates when he was 
 falsely accused of a share in the great conspiracy of '39. The 
 Emperor will see the hardship of the sentence which con- 
 fiscated his possessions, imprisoned him for life, and shortened 
 his days by the hardships he underwent in his dungeon. His 
 Majesty will not refuse to make amends for this injustice, nor 
 for that which forced me, two years after my father died at 
 Kiew, to become a common trooper in a dragoon regiment 
 about to march against Schamyl in the Caucasus." 
 
 "Where you won your commission at the sword's point;" 
 said Anielka, fondly and proudly. 
 
 " Where I became a lieutenant of lancers," repeated Klapka, 
 with a smile ; " no dazzling rank for one whose ancestors were 
 wont to rally round the standard of Poland, the feudal chiefs of 
 a thousand nobly mounted cavaliers all bright with gold and 
 gems. But though the lands of the Palatinate will never be 
 again united as the possessions of a Klapka, there is good 
 cause to hope that the Emperor may restore the fief my father 
 held, and then, dearest star of my soul, Anielka's noble brow 
 
38 THE SERF-SISTERS ; OR, 
 
 shall wear the coronet of a race second to none in my native 
 land." 
 
 " My father's consent has been given long ago," said Amelia, 
 with an arch smile ; "and mine too !" 
 
 "True!" answered Klapka, "and I can never sufficiently 
 honour the generosity and disinterestedness with which my 
 kind old friend received the intelligence that I had asked you 
 to be the blessing of my life. But could I I, the descendant 
 of unsullied chevaliers be mean enough to take advantage of 
 his love for his child, and live like a drone upon his bounty ? 
 And if I had remained in the army, could I have borne to 
 drag you from garrison to garrison throughout the vast empire, 
 the wife of a poor soldier of fortune, slighted and despised by 
 the insolent dames of governors and intendants?" 
 
 Anielka's reply was lost to Thekla, for a ringing laugh from 
 Katinka completely overpowered the murmuring sound. 
 
 All women have an intuitive perception of the admiration 
 which a man entertains for them a power of observation not 
 depending on any ratiocination from the effect to the cause, 
 but as purely instinctive as the knowledge which the pointer 
 possesses of the whereabouts of the game in what our eyes 
 would seem to assure us is an entirely unoccupied turnip- 
 field. Katinka, however, did not deserve much praise for 
 making the discovery that Yanos was in love with her, for the 
 forester was totally unaccustomed to any of the disguises of 
 conventional existence, and his looks of admiration were as 
 unrestrained and explicit as those which a connoisseur directs 
 to a beautiful picture, or the gem of a gallery of statues. One 
 peculiarity, however, distinguished the hunter. The Estho- 
 nian, though born a slave in a land of bondage and degrada- 
 tion, had one of those proud and indomitable natures which 
 are occasionally found belonging to individuals at the bottom 
 of the social ladder, and which often produce a terrible effect 
 in those revolutions which at times threaten to upheave and 
 overthrow the firmly-rooted systems which the practice of ages 
 has consolidated. Such was the Cevenol peasant Cavalier, 
 who conquered the best marshals, and defeated the stoutest 
 troops of the Grand Monarque ; and fifty other examples 
 might be quoted to illustrate the fact that compressed thought 
 and energy are at least as dangerous and destructive, when 
 they do explode, as compressed gunpowder. If Yanos had 
 been born a Frenchman, he might probably have risen to be a 
 
THE RUSSIA OF TO-DAY. 39 
 
 Murat or a Ney in time of war, or a red-capped chief of the 
 barricades in a Parisian revolution in time of peace. In Eng- 
 land, he would just as likely have grown up an unauthorized 
 tribune of the people, a democratic ringleader, a turbulent 
 niob orator, ever forward in riot and tumultuous assembty. 
 But bred up in ignorance and solitude upon the silent shores 
 of the Baltic, under the shade of gloomy forests, and among a 
 stern and taciturn people, the natural independence of the 
 young Esthonian had acquired a melancholy and purposeless 
 bent. Trained in the midst of barbarism and neglect, schooled 
 in the superstitions of Pagan origin which Lutheranism has 
 never been able to eradicate from the Baltic provinces, and 
 surrounded by beings who had scarcely advanced in civiliza- 
 tion for a thousand years, Yanos found no adequate field for 
 his extraordinary energies. He might, had his birthplace been 
 a freer country, have been a dangerous citizen under ordinary 
 circumstances, but in a moment of peril could as easily have 
 proved a nation's prop and safeguard. As it was, the crude 
 but innate eloquence with which Yanos was gifted lay slum- 
 bering in his breast, like an uncut diamond in some cavern of 
 the Andes ; and even his unusual physical strength and daunt- 
 lessness merely caused him to be regarded as the best hunter 
 of his country, a forest land where the wild sportsman, daily 
 chasing the elk, or grappling for life and death with the bear 
 and the wolf, feels the ardour and acquires the qualities of a 
 guerilla. The peculiarity which distinguished the air of Yanos 
 when in the saloon of Jacob Petrovich was in the singularly 
 embarrassed look which he, who had never flinched from the 
 most frightful perils, involuntarily assumed. The slayer of 
 savage beasts, the forester who strode through the wolf- 
 haunted glades of the wilderness with the bearing of a king, 
 now looked as sheepish as a schoolboy for the first time intro- 
 duced into an assembly of full-grown people. There was no 
 disguising the fact, though it would puzzle a critic to say 
 w r hat qualities necessary for a hero the Esthonian lacked, 
 Yanos was shy. He had never been in so handsome a room 
 before, never seen women so elegant in manner and so tasteful 
 in dress, as Anielka and Katinka never entered a home which 
 breathed of the same refinement, content, and luxury, as that 
 of Jacob Petrovich. The thousand little ornaments and toys 
 which we have been so accustomed to from childhood as to see 
 no wonder in; the china, the clocks, the pictures, some of 
 
40 THE SEBF-SISTERS ; OB, 
 
 them excellent copies of the great masters, that hung upon the 
 walls ; the engravings and books in costly covers that lay on 
 the tables, were all strange and new to Yanos. And it was in 
 vain that he tried to face the mocking light that sparkled in 
 Katinka's mischievous eyes ; in vain that he reminded himself 
 that on the previous day, in his own element of danger, he had 
 been not, only the equal but the superior of those whose lives 
 he had saved, and who in their excess of gratitude had striven 
 to kiss the hand that had rescued them. Yanos was unable to 
 persuade himself that he was, or ever could be, the equal of 
 the merry, but educated and accomplished maiden before him; 
 he felt abashed at his own roughness ashamed of his own 
 strength, as no doubt Hercules did when Omphale and her 
 nymphs so derided his muscular limbs. Love had clipped the 
 lion's claws, and blunted his teeth, and turned his awful roar 
 into a very humble bleat. Yanos was as clumsy and awkward 
 a swain as ever furnished merriment for a lively little puss 
 like Katinka. And mercilessly did Katinka laugh at him, and 
 flout him, and confuse his wandering wits more and more, 
 until having made him feel intensely miserable and degraded 
 in his own esteem at being thus made a jest of by what he 
 had always been taught tt> consider an inferior animal, her 
 kind heart would reproach her, and the tables would be 
 turned. When this happened, it soon came to pass that Mark 
 Forster, from being highly amused, grew by degrees to look 
 jealous and annoyed, which piece of gullibility had the effect 
 of raising Katinka's spirits to the highest pitch, and she would 
 smile so sunnily on Yanos, and speak to him in such a tone of 
 gentle interest, that the rough hunter would forget his gau- 
 cherie, and be surprised to find himself conversing unre- 
 strainedly with a creature as unlike any female he had ever 
 spoken to before, as a gold-powdered butterfly to a homely 
 moth. This made Mark gnaw his lip and redden with anger 
 and perplexity, until Katinka, turning towards her English 
 admirer, soothed his jealous feelings with that wondrous tact 
 which only a woman can exercise, and which even among 
 women is far from being an universal attribute. Katinka had 
 as great a love for coquetry as any of her sex ; but though she 
 delighted, as girls the tender, barbarous, gentle, cruel souls ! 
 will delight, in tormenting and enslaving whomsoever she 
 could bewitch by the flash of her bright glances, she was not 
 coldly and callously vain enough to prolong the sufferings she 
 
THE RUSSIA OF TO-DAY. 41 
 
 caused. She was not like those fair ones, more common in 
 France than elsewhere, who like to dissect in public some 
 unlucky heart they have netted, and to hold it up, quivering 
 and bleeding, that the company may inspect its throes with 
 anatomical curiosity. The sight of any sentient thing in pain 
 was certain to be painful to Katinka; and on the present 
 occasion, though really as constant to the Englishman as any 
 young lady with a proper regard for the dignity of woman 
 could be to a young gentleman who had never taken the 
 trouble formally to propose to her, she contrived so adroitly to 
 amuse and interest both her admirers, that Mark regained his 
 usual frank good-humour, and even the clouded brow of Yanos 
 cleared in some degree. All her simple wiles came under the 
 severe, though silent criticism of the sallow Thekla, who 
 looked on Katinka with more envy than before, since Jacob 
 Petrovich's fair daughter had contrived to attract a new 
 adorer, who was said to have performed prodigies of courage in 
 some romantic adventure on the ice of the Neva, which Thekla, 
 in confidence to her usual confidants, her red-haired maid and 
 the wall-eyed daughter of Shernowitz, the saddler in the 
 Gostinnoi Dvor, declared her total disbelief in. The amiable 
 heiress of Paul Vlad had been piqued nearly to frenzy by the 
 prodigality of Katinka in allowing herself two suitors, a fact 
 the more provoking, because Thekla herself had been pining, 
 "in maiden meditation, fancy free," (and very spiteful things 
 those "maiden meditations" are sometimes,) during more years 
 than she would have cared to mention, for the lack of one 
 "bachelor." And Yanos was so handsome, and so superior in 
 mien to any of the young herring-sellers or shoe-makers of the 
 market, that Thekla could have willingly surrendered to him 
 her parchment-skinned hand, and her prospect of inheriting the 
 hoarded roubles and imperials in Paul Vlad's strong box, and 
 to see this showy, good-looking, penniless Esthonian, who was 
 as tall and much better built than the tambour major of the 
 Preobajinsky regiment, dangling after a simpering wax doll 
 like that good-for-nothing chit, Katinka, was enough to make 
 Thekla cry with vexation ! Poor Thekla ! And why should 
 we not pity her ? Are there not many among us whose senti- 
 ments match with hers? Many who grudge to genius its 
 glowworm brilliance, who deny to merit its hard-earned recom- 
 pence, who sneer at excellence they cannot appreciate, and 
 who love to snatch his myrtles from the patriot, his laurels 
 
42 THE SEBF-SISTERS ; OB, 
 
 from the hero, and his rose-wreath from the poet? Poor 
 Thekla ! We have many poor Theklas among us ! Old Jacob 
 Petrovich went on steadily with his game at chess, which, like 
 most thoughtful men, he played coolly and scientifically, never 
 losing sight of the one great object of checkmating his anta- 
 gonist. Charles the Twelfth is said by his historian to have 
 lost every match from a characteristic mania for perpetually 
 moving his king. Jacob Petrovich fell into another error, and 
 could never be induced to make use of his knights, a species of 
 caution which prevented his becoming a first-rate player, and 
 which gave him a marked disadvantage which nothing but his 
 skilful manoeuvres in other matters connected with the game 
 availed to counteract. Paul Vlad, who finessed too much, and 
 was generally worsted, did not usually bear his losses with 
 more equanimity than was to be expected from- his cynical 
 temper; but on the evening of Easter Tuesday, 1854, he 
 manifested the blandest humour possible, and chuckled as 
 sincerely as old Jacob himself whenever some ruse of the old 
 intriguer was foiled by the science of his entertainer. It was 
 clear, or would have been clear to an impartial observer, that 
 Paul Vlad had some inward consolation for his defeats on the 
 chequered board, and scorned the petty revenge of a bitter 
 word or a surly growl at his conqueror. Mark Forster, who 
 was more noteful of passing events than is customary with 
 persons of his buoyant nature, glanced more than once at Paul 
 Vlad with a kind of floating suspicion of some undefined 
 danger, and was also puzzled by the odd vigilance of Thekla's 
 catlike eyes a vigilance very unlike the sour fixity of her 
 habitual gaze. Mark was not of a distrustful disposition, but 
 he could not divest himself of the idea that there was some- 
 thing more than was altogether natural in the demeanour of 
 Thekla and her parent. The feline stare of Thekla acquired 
 as he looked at her without her noticing his observation, occu- 
 pied as she was with Yanos and Katinka a hidden meaning of 
 menace, half developed, but still threatening. She tossed her 
 head slightly, too, from time to time, and this motion was 
 evidently in accordance with some thought that boded, to one 
 who appreciated the delightful character of the acid vestal, 
 nothing but malice and mischief. But what harm Thekla 
 could do, unless she spread some injurious scandal among the 
 neighbouring gossips, was more than Mark could conjecture. 
 Yet Paul Vlad showed his yellow teeth with so much of the air 
 
THE BUSSIA OF TO-DAY. 43 
 
 of a vicious old fox, and uttered such unpleasant cachinnations 
 over the chessboard, that Mark could not help whispering to 
 Katinka 
 
 " What can be the matter with old Vlad to-night P Would 
 3 r ou not say, to look at him, that he was Mephistophiles him- 
 self, playing a game at chess with some unluckj^ Faust, for his 
 soul?" 
 
 " My father is no more like Faust than his old companion is 
 like Mephistophiles," answered Katinka, pretending to pout, 
 and then resuming her flirtation with Yanos. 
 
 " It is almost supper time," called out Jacob Petrovich in a 
 joyous voice ; " give us a song, Anielka, my girl ; one of those 
 simple Finnish ballads that I love so well. There will just be 
 time for one song, before I finally beat my old friend here, and 
 then we'll all sit down merrily to supper." 
 
 " Ho, ho !" laughed Paul Vlad, in a ghostly tone, that made 
 every one look at him ; but all present, except Yanos, were 
 used to his freaks, and could not easily have been astonished 
 by anything he might have done. Anielka swept her white 
 fingers once or twice over the chords of the harp, and then, 
 after a short prelude of a wild and plaintive cast, she began to 
 sing an ancient ballad, well known through all the creeks and 
 bays of both Pomerania and Bothnia, and which, from beyond 
 the memory of man, has sounded alike under the birchen hovel 
 of the Lette and the turf hut of the swamp-born Finlander. 
 It would be difficult to imagine a tune more sadly musical, or a 
 rhythm more mournfully soft, than those of the humble " folk- 
 song" which Anielka had chosen. It was one of those wailing 
 dirges which all semi- civilized races appear to love beyond all 
 more joyful or more elaborate melodies. Such were the strains 
 which rose and fell amid the Druid's reverenced oaks ; which 
 echoed over the cairn of Fingal, and the rune-marked tomb of 
 many a Danish sea-king ; which rang through the gloomy woods 
 of New England, before the pilgrim fathers trod those rugged 
 shores ; and which were sung around the stone of Irmensul by 
 the idolaters of Pomerania ; strains 'melancholy and mono- 
 tonous as the sigh of the willow and the murmur of the pine. 
 In a wigwam on. the western prairies, or beside one of those 
 grey menhirs that start up like petrified giants from the black 
 Breton heaths, beside the watch-fires of the Arab and Tur- 
 coman, or among the outcast gipsies of Hungary, you may 
 still hear those touching though barbarous airs, which appeal 
 
44 THE SEEF-S1STEBS ; OK, 
 
 to the sable thread that all of us possess, inwoven firmly in the 
 mystic weft of our natures. There are many children of civili- 
 zation too hackneyed and liases to be affected by the most har- 
 rowing lamentations, shrieked forth by the most soprano- 
 voiced prima donna that Italy ever nurtured on thrushs' eggs 
 and nightingales' tongues, but yet who could not refuse a tear 
 or a sigh to the untaught pathos of some peasant minstrel of a 
 benighted land, whether on the banks of the Danube or those 
 of the Shannon. As for Yanos, he was as much moved when 
 he heard the half-forgotten ditty that had been his lullaby in 
 infancy, that in his boyish days he had listened to among the 
 flower-decked arches which were erected at the feast of Lido, 
 the Flora of the Baltic coast, and which he had hummed 
 among the rustling reeds and larch trees which border the 
 great lakes near which he had often lain in ambush for the 
 game, as was Dryden's Alexander by the magic idyll of Timo- 
 theus. 
 
 The silvery voice of Anielka, her skill on that most poetic of 
 instruments, the harp, and the exquisite feeling which she 
 threw into a ballad, much of whose charm depended on the 
 expression of the singer, overpowered the untutored heart of 
 Yanos, and made tears blind the eyes which usually possessed 
 the piercing lustre of those of an eagle. Anielka was begin- 
 ning the last stanza just as the mimic combat of the chess- 
 board came to its inevitable conclusion. 
 
 "Checkmate!" cried Jacob Petrovich, throwing himself 
 back in his great arm-chair, and laughing like a boy, quite for- 
 getful of harp and harpist in the glee of his victory. Just then 
 Thekla made a slight movement, and turning her head on one 
 side, appeared to listen as intently as a panther that crouches 
 with ears thrown back and stretched out paws, amid the long 
 grass of a jungle. Mark observed the motion, and the ex- 
 pectant attitude, but could not guess the cause. Some foot- 
 steps were faintly heard coming down the street ; could that 
 be the reason of her starting thus P 
 
 " Checkmate !" again said the old merchant. 
 
 "Eh?" answered Paul Ylad, with a simulated deafness 
 which he thought fit now and then to assume. , 
 
 " Checkmate !" repeated Jacob, as with a radiant face and 
 beaming eye he pointed out the position of the pieces on the 
 board. There was a stamping of heavy feet without, a loud 
 knocking at the door, an impatient peal of the bell. 
 
THE RUSSIA OF TO-DAY. 45 
 
 "Just so, neighbour!" snarled Paul Vlad, as every wrinkle 
 of his crabbed face became animated with a smile of devilish 
 mockery ; " checkmate !" 
 
 Jacob pushed back his chair from the table, and looked un- 
 easily at his late opponent, as if he doubted his sanity. The 
 tread of several persons was heard in the passage, and many 
 voices were half audible in what was evidently an altercation. 
 The last notes of the song died away on Anielka's lips; 
 Katinka ceased to tease Yanos ; Mark looked more fixedly 
 than before at Thekla, convinced as he was that some dark 
 mystery was afloat which, whatever its nature, was no mystery 
 to her. Thekla's green eyes wandered round the room with 
 precisely the look of a cat engaged in counting a troop of un- 
 suspicious mice. 
 
 Abruptly and violently the door was burst open, and old 
 Yaska, with her grey hair dishevelled like that of a Druidess, 
 and her aged eyes raining tears, rushed into the room. 
 
 " O my master ! my dear master ! hide yourself quickly ! O 
 my dear young mistresses ! what will become of them !" she 
 sobbed out, flinging herself down on her knees beside old 
 Jacob's chair, and holding up her trembling hands as if to 
 ward off some invisible danger. 
 
 Before Jacob, Katinka, or Klapka, who all surrounded the 
 spot where the nurse was kneeling, could induce her to explain 
 the meaning of her frenzied warning, the open doorway was filled 
 by the figure of a broad, square-built man, low in stature, and 
 of some fifty years of age. This uninvited visitor halted for 
 an instant on the threshold, and gazed as deliberately round 
 the room as a broker in the act of making an inventory of the 
 furniture in an apartment, or a planter seeking an investment 
 at a slave auction in New Orleans. Squat and ungainly in 
 person, with a forbidding countenance, horribly pitted by the 
 small-pox, blood-shot orbs of evil portent lurking under beet- 
 ling brows, and wisps of grizzled red hair hanging down on 
 all sides from under a low-crowned, broad-brimmed black hat; 
 the stranger's very aspect was of a nature to excite disgust 
 and repulsion. Dressed in a suit of coarse brown cloth, with 
 large riding boots of soft leather protecting his legs, a fur 
 cloak dangling from his shoulders, and large-rowelled spurs at 
 his heels, he resembled some Bohemian or Gallician farmer of 
 the richer class. In his hand was a riding- whip, with which 
 he once or twice struck his booted leg impatiently, while he 
 
46 THE SEEF-SISTEES ; OR, 
 
 stood upon tlie threshold, apparently waiting till some one 
 should address him. 
 
 Jacob Petrovich was the first to recal his presence of 
 mind; he rose from his elbow-chair, and said, mildly, but 
 firmly, " Be pleased to inform me who you are, and by what 
 right you thus present yourself in my house. If you come on 
 business, these are not the hours at which I transact it, and 
 the counting-house is closed. Be good enough to retire, and 
 if you have anything to say to me, return to-morrow." 
 
 A coarse laugh, or rather an exaggerated chuckle, was the 
 first reply of the stranger to the merchant's temperate address. 
 Then drawing a letter from his pocket, he held out for Jacob's 
 inspection the square, formal document, to which was affixed 
 an enormous seal, such as are appended to royal warrants, and 
 pointing to some bold, rough characters at the bottom of the 
 paper, said, " Do you know that signature, most honourable 
 and respectable Gospodin Petrovich?" 
 
 Jacob looked for an instant at the letter, then turned 
 deadly pale, and staggering a pace or two backwards, sank 
 into his chair, with a groan such as a dying sufferer might 
 have uttered on the rack. Katinka flew to her father's side, old 
 Yaska uttered a shower of incoherent lamentations, Anielka, 
 like a lovely statue of grief, sat motionless before her harp, 
 her white and rounded arms still stretched out in the act of 
 playing, and her fingers blended with the golden strings. 
 IQapka and Mark consulted hastily together in an under tone, 
 on the course most proper to be taken with a stranger so pre- 
 suming, and yet whose very effrontery seemed to announce 
 one armed with no despicable authority. Yanos, less 
 acquainted with the customs which society has rendered im- 
 perative, and a more recent guest of the Petrovich family 
 than the other young men, was unable to comprehend the 
 clue of the drama which he had unexpectedly become a 
 spectator of. In this state of perplexity the inmates of the 
 saloon had remained for some seconds, when at length the 
 harsh accents of the intruder again were heard. 
 
 " You know me well by name, Jacob Petrovich ; I am your 
 master's steward," and the stranger laid a malicious emphasis 
 on the word master, " and they call me Hans Muller." 
 
 Jacob sat still, his arms hanging over the sides of his chair, 
 and as motionless as if paralysed. 
 
 " What proof can you give of being the person whose name 
 
THE RUSSIA OF TO-DAY. 47 
 
 you claim ?" demanded Count Klapka ; " and if you really are 
 Prince JargonofF's steward, what is your errand here?" 
 
 "No pert remarks to me, young coxcomb," replied the man, 
 doggedly ; " I have interest enough, I promise you, to get your 
 gay jacket exchanged for a more sober garb, and your silver 
 sword-knot converted into a convict's chain ; nay!" he added, 
 seeing Klapka's heightening colour and menacing brow, 
 " offend me, and it shall be the worse for the dotard yonder, 
 Jacob Petrovich. Come in from the hall, Basil, George, 
 Karl ! we must bring these conceited churls to reason." 
 
 Four or five tall domestics, in the livery of the great house of 
 JargonofF, and with silver badges on their breasts, now pre- 
 sented themselves at the door, pushing on one side the mer- 
 chant's alarmed but faithful servants, who had at first tried to 
 prevent their entry by force, but had been compelled to desist 
 from their interference by the orders of a superior officer of 
 police, who was present with a party of his men. At the sight 
 of the green uniforms and brass-hilted cutlasses of the plotniks, 
 Klapka comprehended the uselessness of attempting openly to 
 defy the power of a man obviously both vain and malevolent. 
 He, therefore, curbed his anger, and, as calmly as he could, 
 asked the steward, Herr Muller, the reason of his presence. 
 Muller, the well-known Prussian intendant of Prince JargonofF, 
 and who was often praised in St. Petersburg as the most 
 skilful agriculturist, and the most scientific improver in 
 [Russia, while he was rarely mentioned in private by a serf of 
 his employer's without being loaded with curses, was not long 
 in replying. 
 
 "Prince JargonofF recals his serf," said he; "his High- 
 ness revokes the licence which Jacob Petrovich has abused, 
 and instead of spending his time any longer in harbouring 
 foreign spies and enemies of our glorious Czar, the old rascal 
 will be usefully emploj^ed on the estate where he was born." 
 
 Jacob did not stir, nor did he reply by look or sign. H 
 was stunned by the suddenness of the blow. There was a long, 
 long pause before he raised his head, and looking with a melan- 
 choly fondness at the various objects which adorned the room, 
 and which time had endeared to their owner as household genii, 
 mute friends that never refused him a smile of welcome, he 
 murmured, "Heaven's will be done. I had hoped to die here." 
 
 An unfeeling laugh from Muller was the only comment of 
 the steward on this complaint. 
 
48 THE SERF-SISTERS; OR, 
 
 " My father, my poor father !" cried Anielka, springing from 
 her statue-like rigidity, and flinging her arms round the old 
 man's neck, as she bowed her weeping face upon his bosom. 
 
 Jacob's aged eyes were filled with tears, and his chest heaved 
 fearfully as he strove to repress the unconquerable emotion 
 which vanquished his efforts at composure. 
 
 Anielka, moved by a sudden thought, rose from her kneeling 
 posture, and, approaching the steward, said in a voice that 
 might have touched even Muller's sordid heart, " You cannot 
 be so cruel, you spoke only in jest ; you will not really separate 
 our father from us." 
 
 " Not I, my pretty maiden," answered Muller, brutally; " we 
 shall soon teach you that a serf's daughters are slaves from 
 their birth. Calm your silly little heart, young woman. 
 Princess Beatrice wants a lady's maid who can dress her hair, 
 and read French novels to her. After a few scoldings, I dare 
 say you'll be obedient enough ; if not, there are other ways of 
 teaching obedience to refractory wenches on the JargonofF 
 estate." 
 
 " Insolent hound !" ejaculated Klapka, half unsheathing his 
 sword, and so fierce was the fire that glanced from the Pole's 
 eyes that the steward recoiled a step, and looked anxiously 
 over his shoulder to his myrmidons. 
 
 The gendarmes made a movement. IQapka remembered 
 the utter futility of resistance, and violently forcing his sabre 
 back into its scabbard, he leant against the wall, and drew his 
 hand quickly across his eyes. Muller grew bolder and more 
 confident. "A strange reception this, truly, for a German 
 burgher in the house of a serf of his employer's. I did well to 
 bring assistance with me, I see, and the warning was a sensible 
 one which assured me I should find the rebellious old knave's 
 house full of sturdy young bullies." 
 
 " Have I heard aright?" said Jacob Petrovich, rising fr< 
 his chair, and dragging his tottering limbs nearer the intendai 
 " do you really mean to drag my daughters away from th 
 home, from their occupations, their girlish pleasures, th 
 maiden hopes, and force them to fill a position for which th 
 education has unfitted their minds. Oh, it would be t 
 bitter. Their soft hands are as fit to wield the stone hamnn 
 as their delicate minds to bear the coarse contact and degrac 
 tion of a Malarossian village. Oh, take me, and spare ther 
 be merciful, and leave them in their home ! I will go with yo> i , 
 
THE EtTSSIA OF fO-DAY. 49 
 
 see, this instant. I am strong, I can work ; I was only over- 
 come an instant. Yes, I am reaclv, quite ready. Let me but 
 kiss my girls for the last time, and I will go cheerfully with 
 you, do the meanest work on your farms, be the humblest 
 drudge, and, when I die, I will bless you, and pray for you, 
 Sans Muller, with my latest breath." And the old white- 
 haired merchant actually knelt before the sneering steward, 
 and clasping his quivering hands, looked piteously in his face, 
 hoping to see there some ray of mercy. But Muller's mocking 
 laugh was as pitiless as before. 
 
 " Kiss your cherry-cheeked daughters, if you please," said 
 he to the venerable suppliant ; "or, if you like to perform the 
 duty by proxy, I, or my son either, will save you the trouble ; 
 but keep your sentiment for less tough subjects than Hans 
 Muller ! Do I look so very like a fool, that you think me 
 capable of losing Prince Jargonoff the services of two valuable 
 young female slaves? You have been drinking, old fellow, 
 and the brandy has addled your crazy pate. What could you 
 wish, after all, better for that milksop who is blubbering there, 
 than to be maid to Princess Beatrice, who thinks no more of 
 giving a servant a handful of gold imperials than a box on the 
 ear ! And, as for the blue-eyed litfcle kitten, we'll employ her 
 in the dairy at the model farm, or perhaps find her a good hus- 
 band in some stout young boor, or perhaps one of Prince 
 Dhemetri's grooms. You would like that better than work, 
 eh ? lazy one !" continued the steward, laying his rough grasp 
 on Katinka's wrist. 
 
 Katinka uttered a cry, Mark rushed forward, and but for 
 Klapka, who, perceiving that the hapless family were entirely 
 at the disposal of Muller, and that to aggravate their fate was 
 but a poor act of chivalry, caught him opportunely by the arm, 
 would have inflicted summary punishment on the insolent 
 tyrant. Yaska now interposed, and begged pathetically that 
 her young ladies might be left undisturbed, offering, though 
 she had bought her freedom long before, to go back to the 
 south and be a slave, instead of her darling mistresses. Meet- 
 ing nothing but derision in reply to this demand, poor Yaska 
 next prayed for permission to accompany the Petrovich family 
 in their weary pilgrimage, promising much obedience and hard 
 work, and invoking every saint in the calendar to bless Hans 
 Muller if" he acceded to her petition. To this Hans gruffly 
 replied that Yaska was a bawling witch, tha,t he was not going 
 
50 THE 8EEF-8ISTEES ; OE, 
 
 to trouble himself as to whether such useless lumber went to 
 Malorossia, or stopped to rot at St. Petersburg, and finally 
 that if the screeching beldame did journey with the family, he 
 would take care to provide her with something more profitable 
 in the way of labour on one of the farms, than the useless task 
 of looking after the comfort of two idle girls, whose white 
 hands, he remarked with a sneer, " would soon be as dingy as 
 her own." 
 
 "And is there no alternative?" cried old Jacob, wringing 
 his hands in agony; "speak, Gospodin Muller, is there no 
 sacrifice, no concession which will appease the Prince's anger 
 against his serf, and save my daughters, at least ?" 
 
 " O, yes, there is an alternative, but I had almost forgotten 
 it," returned Muller, drily; "I stay in St. Petersburg for a 
 week, at the Jargonoff Palace, and then return to the south. 
 Pay me sixty thousand silver roubles while I am yet at St. 
 Petersburg, and I will give you a receipt in my employer's 
 name;* renew your licence for ten years, and leave you and 
 your daughters to your music and your nonsensical books. 
 Well, you don't seem delighted. Cannot the honourable and 
 enlightened Petrovich produce such a sum?" 
 
 " If you could agree to take corn in part payment," sug- 
 gested Jacob, humbly. 
 
 "Corn!" said Muller, scornfully: "my employer's barns 
 and granaries overflow with corn ; but to what use is it, since 
 we cannot send it to the stupid English as before ? Corn is not 
 money in Russia now." 
 
 "I will strain every nerve, Herr Muller," answered Jacob. 
 " I will stretch my credit to the utmost ; I will sell my goods, 
 no matter at what loss ; I will appeal to my friends to lend me 
 their aid in this hour of difficulty. And I have one old neigh- 
 bour, at least, on whom I can rely." 
 
 Thekla tossed her head, and gave a short, dry cough. 
 
 " Who is this paragon of generosity?" asked Muller, care- 
 lessly. 
 
 "Paul Ylad," answered Jacob, turning to that pattern 
 friend : " Paul Ylad, my good old crony, who will, I know, be 
 as glad to help me in my need as I have often been to help 
 him." 
 
 Muller gave a grin. Paul Ylad rose from his seat, leaning 
 on his crutch-handled stick, and with his white beard stream- 
 ing over his bosom, the very figure for a benevolent, venerable 
 
THE RUSSIA OF TO-DAY. 51 
 
 old man. But no sympathy mingled with the malice that 
 shone from his grey, fiery eyes. 
 
 " Not a copeck would I give, Jacob Petrovich, to save you 
 from starvation. Not a coin, the smallest and most trifling, 
 would I bestow on your daughters, if they asked it in rags and 
 barefooted," said he, in a shrill voice. " I hate you all, you 
 and your heretic friends, and your aping the manners of the 
 vile foreigners, and your treasonable want of love for our 
 Emperor. You were never fit company for an orthodox 
 Russian merchant, and so sick am I of watching your daughters' 
 foolish tricks with their pianos and pencils and guitars, which 
 no honest Russian girl ought to know, that though I see you 
 once more the miserable serf you were born, I can hardly help 
 striking you across the face with this staff." 
 
 This sudden exhibition of black perfidy and ingratitude 
 absolutely stunned poor old Jacob. Alas, he ought to have 
 known only too well to what revolting heartlessness super- 
 stition and envy may lead a narrow-minded being. Thekla 
 now came forward, and took her father's arm. Her green 
 eyes were as brilliant as a snake's ; the cat had swelled into a 
 tigress : she looked positively fiendish with hate and jealousy. 
 * * Farewell, Jacob Petrovich, "said she . ' ' You will humble my 
 father no longer with your superior education and your hypo- 
 critical boasts of honest dealing. Farewell, Mademoiselle Anielka; 
 I hope your mistress will give you plenty of cast-off gowns, and 
 perhaps a beating now and then. It will do your proud spirit 
 good. Farewell, Katinka ; many a time have I longed to tear 
 out your unmeaning blue eyes, ay, when you thought I liked 
 you ; when you have whispered to others that Thekla was a good 
 girl, but a little cross ; ah! how little you knew I could have 
 found pleasure in tearing you with my teeth !" And with a 
 snarl like a wild cat's, Thekla turned towards the door. 
 
 Paul Ylad walked beside her, and then, halting on the 
 threshold, said, " One word more, Jacob ; I want you to 
 know who it was that met Herr Muller a month ago in the 
 Admiralty Square, that told him you were half-ruined, 
 that warned him of your tastes and the company you kept,, 
 and at whose suggestion he wrote to Prince Jargonoff for 
 leave to bring you back to the estate. We shall meet no more. 
 Remember on your death-bed that it is to Paul Vlad you owe 
 your sufferings. May you burn hereafter, Lutheran that you 
 are, in undying fire !" And after uttering these words, Paul 
 E 2 
 
52 THE 8EBF-SISTEBS ; OB, 
 
 and Thekla retired ; but so monstrous and glaring was the 
 depravity of soul which the old trader had evinced, that the 
 very gendarmes shrunk back from his touch as from a leper's, 
 and the servants recoiled in horror. Muller alone preserved 
 on his lips a cynical smile. 
 
 There was a pause, which was broken by the deep voice of 
 Yanos. " Listen to me," said he, planting himself in front of 
 the astonished steward. " Old men's tears and maidens' 
 prayers move you no more than my hand could move the 
 stone of Irmensul. I will try another plan. I promise you 
 that on the day on which you shall attempt to drag this family 
 from their home, you shall find you have made an enemy who 
 knows how to avenge an insult offered to those whose roof has 
 sheltered him and at whose hearth he has sat. And there are 
 wolves' heads enough nailed upon the trees about Dobritca, 
 and skeletons of bears enough mouldering near Lake Pskov, to 
 prove that Yanos has seldom missed his aim or his blow." 
 
 Yanos was one of those men who, diffident and awkward 
 under the ordinary circumstances of an artificial life, start into 
 grandeur and vigour in moments of peril, and seem to expand 
 and dilate into giants to face the coming danger. And as he 
 stood with folded arms opposite to Muller, the steward turned 
 pale, for he read the Esthonian's resolution in his knitted brow 
 and firm lips. How glad was the petty tyrant when his son, 
 George Muller, a red-haired, freckled young man, who had 
 stood among the servants and policemen, and had not been 
 previously noticed, started forward, crying, " Seize the villain 
 directly ! Basil ! Michael ! lay hold of him. It is Yanos, the 
 Esthonian gamekeeper, the slave that ran away from the 
 estate Prince Jargonoff bought at Dobritca, and which I went 
 down to manage. The rascal was drawn for military service, 
 and the Prince had to find a substitute for him; but he'll 
 scarcely escape carrying a musket now." 
 
 Yanos shook with passion as he recognised his old persecutor. 
 He turned to Count Klapka, and said in a guttural tone, that 
 was half inaudible with rage, "Lend me your sabre," and ad- 
 vanced his hand to receive it. 
 
 But before Klapka could either give or refuse him the 
 weapon, the officers had flung themselves upon Yanos, and 
 grasped his arms from behind. All his strength was too little 
 to shake off the hold of four powerful men, and, after a brief 
 struggle, Yanos sullenly submitted to have his wrists chained 
 
THE BUSSIA OF TO-DAY. 53 
 
 together. The policemen proceeded to remove their prisoner, 
 a welcome prize at a moment when soldiers of such stature as 
 Yanos were in great demand, and Muller, having reiterated 
 his threats of carrying away the whole family if the ransom 
 were not forthcoming in a week, followed his retreating satel- 
 lites, leaving the lately happy inmates of Jacob's invaded home 
 a prey to dismay, agony, and confusion. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE accursed system of slavery which forms the fundamental 
 principle of Russian government, spreads its hateful influence 
 around it with an effect as deadly as that of the upas tree of 
 the poets. Every relation of life, every blossom of the heart, 
 feels its withering blight, and suffers from its unwholesome 
 power. The leper may be healed of his leprosy, the plague- 
 stricken wretch may be cured of his disease, even the brand of 
 crime may be effaced by virtuous deeds and tears of penitence, 
 but the blotch of .Russian serfdom clings like a burning canker 
 to millions, whom deliberate wickedness and throned injustice 
 have doomed to hopeless ages of degradation and of woe. 
 Who can reflect on the cunningly devised cruelty, the legalized 
 brutality of the system by which any savage or profligate, born 
 a noble, can trample under foot the wounded hearts and out- 
 rage the dearest affections of hundreds and of thousands of 
 innocent but helpless creatures, without feeling his pulse 
 quicken with the generous glow of righteous indignation? 
 Could any man, not a Muscovite, behold an honest, hospitable, 
 and kind-hearted citizen such as Jacob Petrovich, whose only 
 crime was to have seen the light in a peasant's cottage instead 
 of a gilded palace, suddenly, at the whim of a master in every 
 respect his slave's inferior, save in birth, dragged from the 
 home his industry had earned, deprived of the benefits gained 
 by a life of useful toils, and borne away to herd with the 
 besotted and half-human dwellers in a village of the steppe, 
 where the rudest work was the only occupation, and the only 
 relaxation drunkenness, without feeling that instinctive sym- 
 pathy with the oppressed, which is one of the noblest gifts 
 that God has given to man ? And could the dullest worshipper 
 of Mammon among us, the most pedantic admirer of Russian 
 
54 THE SERF-SISTEES ; OK, 
 
 institutions, the most venal of courtiers, watch without emo- 
 tion the anguish of two pure-minded and delicate maidens, 
 like Anielka and her sister, when delivered over by the 
 majesty of Legalized Wrong to those whose brutal pleasure it 
 was to wound their refined feelings, and crush down their 
 noble natures, insulted and sullied, into the mire of shame and 
 degradation ? 
 
 The most passive of Quakers, nay, Mr. Bright himself, 
 would feel the dull current in his veins warmed into a manlier 
 glow, as he gazed on such a scene as Jacob Petrovieh's home 
 presented after the visit of the man-stealers. For that man 
 can have a property in man, that human beings, like cattle, 
 can be justly considered the property of others, is a notion too 
 much opposed to common sense for it to be adopted by any 
 casuists more sincere than a handful of Yankee journalists, 
 fresh from the markets of New Orleans. And even Haly and 
 Legree, even the callous dealer and the ferocious planter, have 
 the excuse, that they believed, according to their dark and 
 warped intellects, that a difference in colour justified every 
 enormity, and that the black man was born the natural bonds- 
 man of the white. But few are the Virginians or Georgians 
 who would not shudder at the idea that a girl of white skin 
 and delicately reared, without a taint of negro blood, an Anglo- 
 Saxon American, like themselves, should be flogged, and 
 starved, and forced to toil at tasks above her strength, at the 
 bidding of a fellow-countryman. Fraud and wrong are aided 
 in Eussia by the law, sanctioned by the pontiff. 
 
 The Emperor permits his nobles to steal men, women, and 
 children, from themselves, and decrees that the human being 
 born upon the soil appertaining to M. le Baron or Monseigneur 
 le Prince shall as completely belong to that baron or that 
 prince as the lambs in his fold, or the fowls in his hen -yard. 
 And in this wanton perpetuation of caste, in this daily and 
 hourly violation of right, the Emperor of Eussia makes himself 
 the crowned captain of a band of coronetted robbers, as much 
 the enemies of the world as ever were the exterminated pirates 
 of Algiers and Morocco. The contest between Eussia and the 
 West is not a contest of ordinary belligerents, not a duel 
 between rival nations, to be commenced by protocols and con- 
 cluded amid bland assurances of the distinguished consideration 
 of diplomatists. It is the commencement of a struggle for 
 existence between Muscovy and the West, and between light 
 
THE EUSSIA OF TO-DAY. 55 
 
 and darkness. Napoleon predicted it, and though his foresight 
 was deceived in the details when he declared, that within forty 
 years after his death all Europe would be [Republican or Cossack, 
 the fact remains unchanged. WesternEuropeis not Republican, 
 but it gives the great boons of political and religious freedom, 
 which Russia denies. The policy of Russia, since the Great 
 Peter organized her empire, has been to grow like a rolling 
 snowball, to spread like a gangrene over the continents of Asia 
 and Europe. The march of locusts is less desolating than that 
 of a Russian army ; for the next spring the green herbs and 
 fruit trees that the insect has bitten will sprout again, but the 
 territory that the Muscovite seizes becomes a den of slavery 
 for ever. 
 
 It is not two centuries since the first Russian ship, built by 
 a Dutch pilot, sailed on the waters of the Neva, and since the 
 first Russian battalion was being disciplined by German officers. 
 How has the pigmy navy of which Peter's own hands helped 
 to lay the first planks, grown since that day! How has the 
 giant empire fattened since the time of the royal shipwright of 
 Saardam ! The devourer of Poland, the scourge of Turkey, 
 the conqueror of Sweden, the bloated Leviathan ever advances, 
 menacing India and Persia with one hand, while with the other 
 it threatens the struggling West. O that the spirit which 
 sent the bravest warriors of Europe, seven hundred years 
 ago, to wrest from the Saracens an impoverished city and a 
 sepulchre, would wake anew to nerve the nations to a fresh 
 crusade, a crusade against the Vandals of our own time, 
 whose irruption is far more to be dreaded than any whicli has 
 ever taken place from the desert or the steppe ! " Scratch off 
 the polish of the Russian, and you will find the Tartar, "was the 
 bitterly true proverb which we owe to Napoleon. The Tartar 
 advances on Europe, cruel as in the days of Genseric and 
 Attila, but with all the perfidy and plausibility which form the 
 varnish that beguiles the world. 
 
 In front of a conquering host of Muscovites gleams the 
 bayonet and glares the torch, while in their rear resound the 
 clank of the chain, and the moan of the slave, and the lashing 
 of the knout. 
 
 It needs a strong dyke to stem such an inundation, but the 
 dyke must be built, sooner or later, or the destructive flood 
 will rush in to sweep away in headlong ruin the liberties and 
 landmarks of a thousand years . Girdled in by a line of watchful 
 
6(5 THE 3ERF-SISTEBS ; OB, 
 
 kingdoms, witli injured Poland among tlieir number, her fleets 
 diminished, her strongholds razed, her interest in Central Asia 
 thwarted and overpowered, Russia may cease to be formidable 
 to Europe, but only thus. Muscovy is like Mahometanism ; 
 while she can expand, she will thrive. Fence her in with an 
 iron barrier, resolutely forbid her to absorb fresh provinces 
 into herself, and from that hour her decay will have begun. 
 
 The corrupt mass, finding nothing to infect, will gradually 
 decompose and vanish in its own rottenness. 
 
 Limit the plague to a circumscribed space, and the plague 
 will die' out. If this humble picture of Russian manners, and 
 the Russian system of government, should serve the purpose 
 of adding one stone to the rampart needed to keep out this 
 new invasion of the barbarians with which we, or our children, 
 are menaced, of swelling by one drop the tid^e which shall wash 
 back the foul contagion of Muscovite serfdom to its native 
 shores, then my wish will have been fully answered, and I 
 shall not have written in vain. 
 
 CHAPTER YIIL 
 
 SCAKCELY had Count Elapka risen on the morning succeeding 
 the evening which witnessed the inroad of Prince JargonofF's 
 hirelings into poor Jacob's peaceful dwelling, when an orderly 
 presented himself, bearing a despatch which commanded the lieu- 
 tenant to repair to the Minister of War, at his official residence. 
 Klapka obeyed the summons with military promptitude, and 
 after a brief sojourn in the ante-chamber, was summoned by a 
 huissier into the cabinet of the minister. The great official 
 looked keenly at the soldierly figure and fine features of the 
 young lancer, who stood, cap in hand, at the door, his close- 
 fitting garb of blue and silver serving to display to admiration 
 the perfect symmetry of the wearer. Apparently, the sight of 
 Count Klapka's clear eyes, and the loyal sincerity which was 
 imprinted on his face, annoyed the dignitary, for he frowned 
 as if displeased, and it was not for some instants, during which 
 he consulted some memorandums on the table before him, that 
 he addressed the young officer. " Your name is Eugene, Count 
 Klapka, lieutenant in his Imperial Majesty's cavalry ?" asked 
 the minister. 
 
THE RUSSIA OF TO-DAY. 57 
 
 A reply was returned in the affirmative. 
 
 " Your father was Stanislas Klapka, seigneur of large estates 
 near Lublin, and claiming to be Palatine of a county?" 
 
 " He was !" answered the Pole, with a slightly shaken voice, 
 owing to the emotion which the recollection of his unhappy 
 father never failed to call up, and which did not escape the 
 minister's ears. 
 
 " You are naturally anxious, Count JDapka," said the latter, 
 " that a name so well known in Polish annals should not be 
 suffered to be extinguished jn, obscurity and poverty. You 
 have petitioned his Majesty ; and I need scarcely say that no 
 prayer founded on the shadow of a just claim is ever slighted 
 by our illustrious Czar. The Imperial clemency is never re- 
 fused to the really penitent ; and if Count Stanislas were in 
 fact innocent of the charges against him, the Emperor will the 
 more willingly grant the request, and restore the confiscated 
 property of his son. So far, Count IQapka, I am sure you will 
 be pleased and grateful, as is a loyal subject's duty," continued 
 the smiling minister, looking charmingly urbane and philan- 
 ibhropical. Klapka was gratified, and his hopes rose high ; but 
 he knew too well the difference between E/ussian promises and 
 Russian performance to feel entirely re-assured. " I grieve, 
 however, to say," went on the great man, compressing his lips, 
 and banishing his smile so completely that he might have sent 
 it to Siberia, "that serious accusations of lukewarmness, of 
 disaffection, and of sympathy with foreign foes, have been 
 made against you. It has been alleged that you have been 
 tampered with by English spies, and that you have been heard 
 to speak irreverently of the sage policy and sacred wisdom of 
 our Emperor. Hush ! don't defend yourself," he added, thus 
 cutting short Klapka's rejoinder; "you need no justification 
 besides that of your own conscience and your deeds. Now 
 what does the Emperor do," proceeded the minister, recovering 
 all his beaming 'bonhomie as quickly as he had lost it, "when 
 one of his officers is charged with so great a crime as those laid 
 to your charge ? Why, like a paternal sovereign as he is, he 
 gives the accused a fair opportunity of proving his devotion 
 and good faith by some act which shall effectually establish his 
 sincerity and his merit." 
 
 " Place me in presence of the enemy !" said Klapka, proudly : 
 " you shall see if I flinch from my standard." 
 
 The minister smiled gently. " There are hundreds of thou- 
 
58 THE SEBF-S1STEES ; OB, 
 
 sands of the Czar's children ready to die for him," replied he ; 
 " what we ask is not exactly martial courage, but a more intel- 
 ligent, and therefore a more useful devotion." Klapka looked 
 up interrogatively. " I have not time to explain to you the 
 nature of your new duties," said the dignitary : " you must call 
 at the office of the Minister of Police, in one hour from this 
 time. He has instructions respecting you, and you will soon 
 learn, if you are not already aware, that the Minister of Police 
 is no uninfluential personage in the management of our army." 
 
 The bow that followed this speech was in itself a perfectly 
 intelligible dismissal, and IQapka saluted and retired through 
 the ante-chamber, which, as the hour of the War Minister's 
 ordinary receptions was approaching, he found filled with 
 officers waiting for admission to the great man's presence. A 
 motley assemblage indeed was that through which Count 
 Klapka slowly made his way, elbowing veteran majors of 
 infantry, cavalry colonels in sober dragoon uniforms or flashy 
 hussar jackets, aides-de-camp as trim and wasp-waisted as tight 
 lacing and dandyism could make them, bushy-bearded bashkirs 
 in their barbaric finery, and red-trowsered chiefs of irregular 
 Cossacks, all of whom, with Circassian mercenaries in chain- 
 armour, and grave Mussulman Tartars, were jumbled together 
 in the dfote-chamber of the important official who had the power 
 of directing their march on Finmark or Caucasus, on the Rhine 
 or the Indus at his pleasure. Against the door was leaning a 
 staff officer, a young and fair-complexioned exquisite, but with 
 a look of that peculiar astuteness which a E/ussian is rarely 
 without, and which redeemed his effeminate features from the 
 vapid, simpering air so common among the " lions" of a London 
 club. " G-ood day to you, Baron," said Klapka, trying to pass 
 him ; when the aide-de-camp interposed his hand, incased in 
 straw-coloured kid, and gently checking the progress of his 
 unsocial acquaintance, said, " Allans, cJier Comte, one sees you 
 too seldom to permit you to run away so rapidly. Where have 
 you been hiding yourself through the winter? You never 
 appear at the club, and I have not seen you once at Madame 
 de Brouckere's, or the Princess Cheritoff's card parties." 
 
 " The club is not the natural lounge for a simple subaltern 
 of lancers; and as for the whist parties, one should be a 
 Croesus like you, my dear Baron, to be able to afford such 
 costly amusements," answered Klapka, smiling good-hu- 
 mouredly, and preparing to pass on. 
 
THE EUSSIA OF TO-DAY. 59 
 
 "You are a sly fellow, Klapka," rejoined the exquisite, 
 stroking down his blonde and silken moustache with an air of 
 fatuity that Don Juan might have copied ; " but I must say 
 you did right to keep that pretty girl near the market-place, 
 hidden away from the sight of any of the civilized inhabitants 
 of St. Petersburg. Of course, if we had found her out earier, 
 your romance would not have lasted so long." 
 
 " What do you mean ?" said Klapka, half angry and half 
 alarmed. 
 
 " Why, the daughter of the old fellow, the herring curer, 
 corn-factor, sugar-dealer, qiien sais-je, moi ! I mean the dark- 
 eyed beauty I saw you ogling at the church of St. Isaac a 
 couple of days ago. A pretty creature she was ; eyes like a 
 stag's, hair blacker than ebony and softer than silk, a better 
 complexion than the Archduchess Marie's, and such a superb 
 foot and ankle. I've laid a wager of ten thousand roubles with 
 Galitzin that I bring her on the stage four months hence, as 
 accomplished a star of the ballet as any mere [Russian can 
 ever be." 
 
 " Then you confess, Baron Vassilivitz, that you have per- 
 mitted yourself to play the spy upon my actions, and to dog 
 my steps as if you were a common mouchard of the police ?" 
 asked Klapka, in a voice that was hoarse and guttural with 
 emotion, and giving the young aide-de-camp a look which, in 
 another country and under a different form of government, 
 would have daunted a bolder man than the elegant Baron. 
 
 "Bah!" answered the Russian, with a shrug and a sneer of 
 the most elaborate impertinence ; "no one has a right to keep 
 such a treasure of loveliness and grace locked up in a dingy 
 casket, like that gloomy old house near the Gostinnoi Dvor. 
 Such a Peri belongs to the public, and all stratagems are fair 
 when used against the possessor of so peerless a jewel." 
 
 " Baron Vassilivitz," said Klapka, with a stern composure 
 more threatening than any of the signs of vulgar anger, " I 
 warn you to be more circumspect in your language concerning 
 a person very dear to me, and in every respect worthy of being 
 named with reverence and propriety. You have only known 
 me for a year, but I scarcely think that you will fancy me to 
 be a man before whom his affianced wife may be spoken lightly 
 of with impunity." 
 
 " Most doughty Don Quixote," returned the aide-de-camp, 
 with a low but taunting laugh, *' keep your threats for your 
 
60 THE SEKF-SISTEBS ; OE, 
 
 barrack-square comrades; they are absurd enough to make 
 them forgive their insolence in their comicality. You, a mere 
 dog of a Pole, a scamp without an imperial in his purse, to 
 dictate conditions to a Russian nobleman and an archducal 
 aide-de-camp ! If it were worth the trouble of speaking to his 
 Highness, I could soon show you that my interest is enough 
 to get you sent off to guard the prisoners at Tobolsk, or to 
 have you packed off to Lapland or the Oural mountains. As 
 for the girl, I'll swear she's tired of you already, and will be 
 glad of a richer admirer." 
 
 " You shall give me satisfaction for this insolence, sir, and 
 quickly too," said JQapka, going close up to the young man, 
 and speaking in a forced whisper. 
 
 "Do you think yourself in France ?" asked the Baron, with 
 a shrug that expressed volumes of contempt ; " or do you 
 fancy that I am fool enough to fight a duel with you. I've no 
 wish to serve you for a target, mon cher" 
 
 "Perhaps this may make you change your mind," said 
 Klapka, in a voice that, in spite of his efforts to restrain it, 
 echoed through the crowded ante-chamber with a violence that 
 attracted every eye to the altercation. And the Pole, who was 
 half maddened by the insulting nonchalance of the St. Peters- 
 burg roue, and by the knowledge that Anielka's abode had 
 been discovered and her steps tracked by so profligate a liber- 
 tine as Yassilivitz, struck the Baron so forcibly with his open 
 hand across the mouth, that the latter staggered back and 
 caught at the wall for support, while the blood gushed from his 
 wounded lips. Mechanically he half drew his sword, while the 
 officers who filled the room surrounded the antagonists with 
 loud ejaculations of wonder and consternation ; for it is as rare 
 for a blow to be given in Russia as in the East, among equals ; 
 though to see a general cane a field officer, or a field officer 
 drub a subaltern, would cause no amazement to a Muscovite. 
 
 " What is all this dispute about ? What is the cause of such 
 a quarrel in the minister's very ante-chamber?" demanded 
 authoritatively a white-haired colonel. 
 
 The Baron, who had sheathed his half-drawn weapon again, 
 and was leaning against the wall, pale and breathless, with a 
 stain of blood around his trembling lips, made no reply, but 
 fixed his eyes on the floor. Klapka, in a brief but spirited 
 manner, gave an account of the dispute, omitting all mention 
 of Anielka's name, and laying as much stress as he could upon 
 
T&E RUSSIA OF TO-BAY. 61 
 
 the insults personal to himself. When men are left to their 
 own unbiassed judgment respecting some simple question of 
 right and wrong in which their own passions or prejudices are 
 rtot involved, their decision is apt to be tolerably just, even in 
 [Russia. Accordingly, the murmur which ensued was decidedly 
 in favour of the Pole, while many strong opinions were ex- 
 pressed respecting the conduct of the effeminate aggressor. 
 Four or five officers, indeed, declared that the latter would 
 deserve to be cashiered from the army, if, after the blow he 
 had received, and the provocation he had so wantonly given, 
 he were to persist in his refusal to afford Count Klapka the 
 satisfaction which the latter so reasonably claimed. 
 
 " You must fight him, sir !" said a grim old major of cuiras- 
 siers ; "you must fight him, or submit to be branded as a 
 coward." 
 
 " Who says must to the aide-de-camp of the Archduke Con- 
 stantine P" said the Baron, looking up with a scowl of rage and 
 malignity. Immediately a whisper ran tnrough the room, 
 "It is Yassilivitz, the Archduke's junior aide-de-camp!" and 
 as that whisper spread, every brow was cleared, every voice 
 was hushed ; the major of cuirassiers looked as frightened as a 
 schoolboy detected in playing truant, and shrunk away into 
 the crowd, while the loudest panegyrists of Count Klapka were 
 silent in a moment. 
 
 Then the tide turned. The name of an imperial highness 
 at once broke down the barriers of manly fairness and honest 
 impartiality. The disputants were no longer, in the eyes of 
 the bystanders, a noble young soldier and an impertinent pol- 
 troon ; but by the magic sound of the Archduke's name and 
 the recognition of his satellite, were converted into a poor 
 foreign adventurer contending with a powerfully-befriended 
 and high-born courtier. Numerous voices were now raised in 
 eulogy of the Baron and in reprobation of Klapka's conduct ; 
 and the unanimity of the decorated throng was greater by far 
 in praising the favourite of an archduke than it had been in 
 commending the manliness of a gallant young officer like 
 Klapka, whose sad reverses of fortune, as well as the valour he 
 had displayed in the rugged campaigns of the Caucasus, had 
 made his name unusually well known in the Hussian service. 
 If the fawning and civil speeches addressed to Yassilivitz had 
 not the effect of taking away the smart of the blow he had 
 received, they at least made his veins tingle with a glow of 
 
62 THE SERF-SISTERS ; OB, 
 
 gratified vanity which, served to replace the courage in which 
 he was deficient. He drew out an embroidered handkerchief, 
 wiped the blood from his swollen lips, and exclaimed, " Count 
 Klapka, you are not worthy of the keen sword of an orthodox 
 Russian. You are an impudent brawler, whom the Archduke, 
 at my request, would instantly cause to receive a severe chas- 
 tisement. But I will punish you myself. A Russian noble is 
 not to be insulted without the stain being washed out in the 
 life-blood of his enemy. Two of these gentlemen, who will, I 
 am sure, oblige by aiding me in the vindication of my injured 
 honour, will call upon you this evening; and if you will name 
 to them your temoins, they can make arrangements for a 
 rencontre to-morrow. How say you, gentlemen ? Is not my 
 conduct that which befits a man of my rank and position ?" A 
 burst of applause was the answer, and more encomiums were 
 lavished on the condescension, chivalry, and courage of Baron 
 Yassilivitz than would have amply remunerated some deed of 
 signal heroism. Two captains of dragoon regiments enthusi- 
 astically proffered their services as seconds to the aide-de-camp, 
 while not a word of sympathy greeted the champion of Eight 
 against Might, never the popular side in [Russia. 
 
 "To-morrow, M. le Baron!" said Klapka in a measured 
 tone, but with a glance that froze the blood which, under the 
 influence of flattery, was simmering in the veins of the Baron, 
 and gravely lifting his cap to the company, he strode slowly 
 down the stairs, without turning his head or appearing to 
 listen to the gasconade which Vassilivitz commenced as soon 
 as his foe withdrew. The officers listened to the latter with 
 affected interest, and that they did not follow Klapka's re- 
 treating steps by a burst of fierce invectives, gave proof of an 
 unusual forbearance reflecting the highest credit on Muscovite 
 urbanity. Klapka having gained the street, remembered his 
 appointment at the Prefecture of Police, and hastened on to 
 keep it, while his enemy, the foppish aide-de-camp, set off at 
 full speed for his master's palace, fully determined to lose not 
 a moment in procuring Klapka's instant exile to some distant 
 military post in Siberia, in which event the duel would become 
 impossible, and Anielka be deprived of her champion, without 
 the stigma of poltroonery a species of distinction not coveted 
 in Russia, though less repulsive there than in a land where a 
 higher standard of honour flourishes being affixed to the 
 exquisite par excellence, the refined Gustav Vassilivitz. 
 
THE BUSSIA OF TO-DAY. 63 
 
 Klapka had to wait a long time in the corridor of the Hotel 
 de Police, before he was summoned to the presence, not of 
 Count Orloff himself, but of one of the lieutenants of the secret 
 police, that formidable brigade whose skill in unearthing secrets 
 might well excite the jealousy of the wiliest socius whom the 
 Jesuits ever sent forth to ferret out a mystery or penetrate 
 a motive. The bureau of this chief of mouchards was a small 
 dark den, whose smoke-dried panels were innocent of having 
 felt the touch of a paint-brush for more than a quarter of a 
 century, and whose homely furniture consisted of a bureau 
 with a curious lock, a desk, two office stools, four chairs, a 
 walnut-wood table, and a nearly red-hot iron stove. The occu- 
 pant of this delectable chamber was a small, stooping, prema- 
 turely bald man, wearing spectacles, and dressed in a suit of 
 tarnished black. Yet Klapka, who had made early acquaint- 
 ance with the machinery of tyranny by which the Emperor 
 rules his vast possessions, well knew that this mean-looking 
 little man was one of a clique as powerful as the terrible 
 triumvirs of Rome, or the more fearful sectionists of Paris. 
 The lieutenant received Klapka with much greater urbanity 
 than the more pompous Minister of War had done, and when 
 the young Pole was seated on one of those insignificant looking 
 deal chairs, which had borne strange weights, and heard 
 strange confessions, the tutelary genius of the dusky bureau 
 scrutinized his visitor with a keen and luminous glance, which 
 proved that the lieutenant had assumed his spectacles, not as 
 aids to the sight, but as screens, from behind which, unobserved, 
 to watch the workings of the countenances of those who entered 
 the gloomy sphere of his authority. 
 
 " Count Eugene Klapka !" said the Argus of the Prefecture, 
 in a voice as soft and humble as that of a petitioner, instead of 
 a dictator ; "it will be useless to waste our time in recapitu- 
 lating and commenting upon what his Excellency at the War 
 Ministry has doubtless told you. It is in your power to render 
 great services to the Emperor, and it is in his Majesty's power 
 to recompense your merits in the manner most agreeable to 
 you. I can safely promise that your lands in Poland shall be 
 restored, your seigneurial rights placed on their former footing, 
 and any other favour in the gift of the Czar bestowed upon 
 you, if you show commendable zeal and discretion in the duties 
 assigned to you." 
 
 Klapka bowed gravely. " I am ever at his Majesty's com- 
 
64 THE SiSfcF-SISTERS ; OK, 
 
 mand," said lie, "and in every service which an honourable 
 man can render he will not find me slow or timid, while, if 
 the Emperor grants my petition, he will have an opportunity 
 of at once performing a great act of mingled justice and 
 mercy." 
 
 The lieutenant's dark eyes looked over their screen of Bra- 
 zillian pebble as glaringly as those of a basilisk. He was all 
 unused to hear limitations mentioned and conditions implied, 
 when the question was of any matter relating to the Czar's 
 service. But he had been warned that his present interlocutor 
 had imbibed a fastidiousness most unfashionable in Russia, and 
 when he spoke again it was in the expostulatory tone, half 
 vexed, half pitying, in which an experienced guardian would 
 remonstrate with his silly but well-intentioned ward. " You 
 can scarcely have worn a sabre for years in the imperial army, 
 Count Klapka," said he, "without having learned that the 
 Emperor is the fountain of honour, and that he alone is the 
 proper arbiter in all things which concern the susceptibility or 
 the consciences of his subjects. What the Czar orders, let it 
 jar never so much with your prejudices, is certain to be 
 consistent with all that is right and respectable in morality. 
 But, in short, his Majesty has, as you are probably aware, 
 many Polish regiments so misguided and unhappy, as not to 
 feel that firm fidelity and affection for his sacred person, which 
 ought to pervade the whole of his fortunate empire. You 
 may scarcely be surprised if I tell you, in confidence, that 
 several of these base Poles have actually deserted to the brutal 
 Turks." 
 
 Klapka replied briefly that he had heard reports to that 
 effect, but made no comment on the fact. 
 
 " It therefore has suggested itself to the sage council of his 
 Majesty," went on the Chief of Police, " that, in addition to the 
 subordinate agents of the government, whom we retain in our 
 pay among the Polish troops, it would be wise to engage the 
 services of some high-born and dashing officer of the Polish 
 nation, who could easily gain the confidence of his countrymen 
 at the seat of war, and, without being suspected, give most 
 valuable information at head- quarters when any project of 
 mutiny or desertion was on foot. I need scarcely say, Count 
 Klapka, that your birth, your talents, and the sympathy which 
 your compatriots entertain for you, point you out as the fittest 
 person to be entrusted with this delicate and important post." 
 
THE RUSSIA OF TO-DAY. b5 
 
 The lieutenant f police meant this last phrase as a compli- 
 ment, but, to his surprise, Klapka, instead of smirking and 
 looking pleased, sat pale and motionless as marble. 
 
 " The duty will be onerous, and not without risk," continued 
 the lieutenant glibly, " and the salary will be proportionably 
 high. You will at once be sent to the Danube, and if you dis- 
 play as much skill in your new duties as you did bravery in 
 the Caucasus, you will ere long receive promotion. Yqu will 
 be sent, perhaps, to perform the same duties at Warsaw, or to 
 report proceedings at Constantinople, or even to the allied 
 camp, where you may, by the exercise of a little discretion, 
 render services which the Emperor will never forget." And 
 the Russian Fouche rubbed his hands and smiled genially. 
 " I have made up my mind already ;" answered ICapka. 
 " Of course, of course," said the lieutenant, gaily ; " but I may 
 as well tell you what your duties and rewards will be if you 
 answer our hopes. You will very likely be sent to London, as 
 soon as this foolish expedition of the French and English is 
 defeated, and you will have ample occupation in worming 
 yourself into the confidence of the exiled Poles and Hunga- 
 rians, whose secrets you will thus acquire, and transmit to our 
 custody. After three years spent thus, you shall be pushed on 
 in the more ostensibly diplomatic line, made Secretary of 
 Legation at Stockholm, or Madrid; perhaps, who knows, 
 Ambassador at Naples a few years later. And this, with high 
 pay, the restitution of your lands, and the cross of St. Yladimir 
 in prospect, is surely enough to encourage you to embrace 
 your career with enthusiasm." 
 
 " I said my mind was made up," rejoined Klapka, firmly. 
 "No doubt! no doubt! how could it be otherwise?" said 
 * L ~ Meutenant. 
 
 low indeed!" rejoined Klapka. "I refuse." 
 Zou refuse!" cried the lieutenant, pushing back his chair 
 unutterable surprise. 
 
 totally and distinctly," answered the young Pole, with 
 itening colour, and resolute eye ; " I would die for the 
 eror on the field of battle. My blood and my life are his, 
 :ny honour I will keep pure. A Klapka can never be 
 
 r ou had better not yield to a rash impulse. The Emperor 
 not love to see his favours refused," said the minister, 
 nember that your reward will be princely, your salary will 
 
66 THE SERF-SISTEBS ; OR, 
 
 consist of thirty thousand silver roubles a year, and I am ready 
 to pay you the first year's recompence in advance." 
 
 For a moment Klapka was dazzled. Thirty thousand silver 
 roubles ! With such a sum as that, joined to his own resources, 
 Jacob Petrovich could easily satisfy the cupidity of the cruel 
 Prince Jargonoff, and remain a practically free, though an 
 impoverished man. Anielka's beauty, the happiness of her 
 father's down-trodden home restored, fortune, rank, and splen- 
 dour, flashed in one glittering blaze before the young Pole's 
 eyes. In one scale lay wealth, dignity, his estates and position 
 restored, the beloved of his hopes his own ; in the other balance 
 was the displeasure of the Autocrat, the despair of the Petro- 
 vich family, the hopeless loss of Anielka. But though the man 
 wavered, the Polish patriot and the noble gentleman stood 
 firm. With an effort that seemed to rend his heartstrings, he 
 cast manfully away from him the bright temptation, and, 
 rising from his seat, he set his foot firmly on the ground, as if 
 to crush all his faded hopes and day dreams beneath his tread, 
 and exclaimed in a clear voice, " I answer, as my father would 
 have answered, as any Pole worthy of the name would reply 
 No!" 
 
 "Very well!" answered the lieutenant of police, "you 
 must take the consequences of your obstinacy ;" and, as he 
 spoke, he rang a small silver bell. The door opened as if at 
 the pressure of a spring, and an officer of infantry appeared at 
 the head of a file of grey-coated soldiers. The chief of police 
 pointed out Klapka with a wave of the hand. The officer 
 advanced, followed by two soldiers. The lieutenant of police 
 took from a drawer in his bureau two papers, each of which 
 bore the seal and sign-manual of the Emperor Nicholas. 
 Unfolding them, the lieutenant allowed Klapka to glance at 
 their contents. One paper purported to be the restoration of 
 the confiscated estates of the Klapka family, the other docu- 
 ment was a sentence condemning Eugene, commonly called 
 Count JQapka, to suffer degradation to the ranks, and in an 
 infantry corps. 
 
 "Do you persist in your refusal?" asked the chief of police, 
 when the Pole had had an opportunity of glancing at the con- 
 tents of these papers. 
 
 " I do," answered Klapka, whose lips were bloodless and 
 whose cheek was pale, but whose firmness remained un- 
 altered. 
 
THE RUSSIA Of tO-BAY. 6? 
 
 " Tlien you are degraded ; no longer a Count, no longer a 
 noble, no longer an officer. Sous -lieutenant, remove the 
 prisoner, Eugene Klapka, number 559 in your regiment," 
 said the chief of police. 
 
 The officer made a sign, and the soldiers instantly seized on 
 Klapka, brutally wrested his sword from him, and bound his 
 wrists together with a cord. 
 
 " The Emperor's mercy gives you one more 1 chance !" said 
 the chief of spies, holding aloft the paper which restored to 
 the Pole his estates. Klapka shook his head. The lieutenant 
 thrust the document between the bars of the stove, and held 
 it there until it was nearly consumed, then flung the charred 
 paper on the floor, and crushed the smoking tinder with his 
 heel. He handed the sentence of degradation to the officer, 
 and Klapka, stripped of sword-knot and shoulder-strap, and 
 deprived of all the little marks of his rank as an officer, was 
 led away a captive, and dragged in his manacled condition 
 through the streets to the same infantry barrack where, though 
 he knew it not, Yanos, the Esthonian, was also a prisoner- 
 recruit under the strictest surveillance. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE allotted week had almost elapsed, and still old Jacob 
 Petrovich consumed his time in fruitless applications to the 
 capitalists of his acquaintance, or sat for hours, silent and 
 desolate, leaning his venerable head upon his enfeebled hands. 
 He had sold such foreign goods as were in his possession at a 
 great loss, but the Russian iron, Russian hides, and Russian 
 corn, in which the principal portion of his savings had been 
 invested, were as unsaleable as the granite of Oural or the ice 
 of Siberia. No Russian vessel could safely drop down the 
 Baltic to bear these bulky cargoes to the rich countries with 
 which the Czar was now at enmity, and though a brisk over- 
 land traffic had commenced between Muscovy and the Prussian 
 ports, through which hemp and tallow still, though at much 
 higher rates than usual, poured into England in defiance of 
 the Admiralty, yet still this trade was prohibited to the serf- 
 born broker, whose origin forbade him to enjoy the privileges 
 of the superior guild of merchants. In a longer space of time, 
 F 2 
 
68 THE SERF-SISTERS ; OR, 
 
 perhaps in a month, when the commercial panic which ever 
 accompanies the beginning of a defensive war, should be a 
 little appeased, Jacob might have hoped to find some dealer 
 duly qualified to chaffer with foreigners, and who might be 
 persuaded to buy his corn and hides at a trifle below cost 
 price. Jacob would have thus gained the means of purchasing 
 a ten years' respite from persecution, and though impoverished 
 and half beggared, would have been able to escape the clutches 
 of Prince Jargonoff, and to provide for the future safety and 
 comfort of his beloved daughters. But in the short period of 
 a week, this was impossible. The English and other foreign 
 capitalists, whose wealth had hitherto given a stimulus to the 
 mercantile transactions of St. Petersburg, and whose good 
 sense and widely extended knowledge had shone out the 
 brighter for the intellectual darkness and narrow craft of the 
 native chapmen, had either left the country, or were unwilling 
 to risk their money in a ship so leaky and rotten as the 
 Empire of Russia. There remained some Greek firms, cer- 
 tainly, but roguery is the natural element of the Hellene, and 
 Jacob knew it was folly to expect that any Chrysippus or 
 Xanthos among these polysyllabic gentry would give him 
 above a twentieth part of the value of the goods he had to sell. 
 As for borrowing money, the practice was too general, and 
 lenders were hunted for in every direction. The Czar was 
 enforcing loans in every possible way, bullying bankers, 
 robbing land societies, wheedling landed proprietors, and 
 screwing every available rouble out of the pockets of his 
 people whichT^rce or persuasion could extract. The nobles 
 were borrowing funds to enable them to work their lands, the 
 owners of mines were seeking capital to continue their excava- 
 tions, the officers of the army were raising money for their 
 outfit and equipages, in anticipation of a long campaign. 
 Every grandee from the White Sea to the Black Sea wanted 
 cash, and Jacob might as well have expected to be helped first 
 at a 'state banquet as to have his wants supplied. Anielka and 
 Katinka were full of tender sympathy for their father, full of 
 anxious apprehensions for themselves. They tried hard to 
 cheer and console poor old Jacob, when he returned, weary 
 and despondent, from his long courses through the city, and 
 strove to smile and speak pleasantly to the aged man, though 
 even his dim eyes could detect the anguish that lurked in 
 those young hearts, lately so free from suffering. And yet 
 
THE EUSSIA OP TO-DAY. 69 
 
 Anielka had her own griefs, the more poignant because they 
 were mingled with a reproachful feeling against one whom she 
 had loved and trusted with all the warmth and confidence of 
 her spotless but ardent nature. 
 
 Since that fatal evening, when the steward of Prince 
 Jargonoffhad abruptly burst into what was no longer to be 
 the home of Jacob and his children, Klapka had never reap- 
 peared beside that hearth where he had ever been a favoured 
 guest. The strange absence of her lover mortified and 
 wounded Anielka deeply ; she could scarcely attribute it to a 
 mere heartless desertion, for the noble countenance and the 
 sensitively honourable principles of Count Klapka would rise 
 up in her recollection as if to plead for him, and yet how to 
 account for his absence at this trying moment was a difficulty 
 not easily surmounted. Anielka could easily have discovered 
 the truth, had she been able to persuade herself to ask her 
 sister's lover to inquire of the Pole's fate, but her pride and 
 delicacy revolted at the idea of thus seeking one who had 
 apparently abandoned her at the very moment when the 
 blackness of the tempest of ruin was gathering around her, 
 and the very remembrance of how often she had entrusted her 
 thoughts,! her wishes, and her day-dreams to the ear of him 
 who now seemed a monster of perfidy and callousness, added 
 bitterness to her regrets, and effectually prevented her from 
 naming the absent, even to Katinka. Mark Porster came 
 daily to visit his afflicted friends, and proved a warm-hearted 
 and affectionate companion to them in their calamity. He 
 told Katinka openly how much he loved her, and for the first 
 time spoke seriously of his future prospects. Katinka would 
 perhaps in prosperity have teased him, refusing him, half a 
 dozen times ; as it was, she said Yes, frankly. But she 
 refused to leave her father and sister, nor could Mark, much 
 as he would have wished to see her safe in his own free land, 
 find the heart to urge her to quit those dear and unhappy 
 beings, while Jacob Petrovich, although willingly consenting 
 to receive Mark as the future husband of his daughter, yet 
 shook his head gloomily over the fate in store for Katinka and 
 her betrothed. Even if Katinka had agreed to leave her 
 distressed relatives and return to England with Mark, that 
 alternative would have been a hopeless one. Katinka was 
 bound to Russia by a double chain, as the serf of Prince 
 Jargonoff and as the subject of the Czar. To expect that the 
 
70 THE SERF-SISTEKS J OR, 
 
 Emperor would consent to her marriage with a heretic alien, 
 to her enfranchisement from villeinage, to her becoming the 
 bride of an enemy, and leaving the Russian shores, would 
 have been to anticipate a quadruple breach of Muscovite law, 
 that is to say, a fourfold impossibility in a case where no bribe 
 could be offered, and no more influential feeling than the 
 imperial clemency appealed to. For the Russian Czar, like 
 the demon in German legends, gives nothing for nothing, and 
 never drives a harder bargain than when he is supposed to be 
 magnanimous. When he visited England his affability won 
 him more popularity than all his well-paid agents had done for 
 years ; he enchanted peeresses, and took his hat off more 
 civilly to Greenwich pensioners than he would have done at 
 home to the whole body of the nobles of the empire, with 
 their marshals at their head ; he gave a cup to be raced for, 
 and became popular with sporting men. Just so in time of war 
 he sets free a young nobleman whose gratitude may do him 
 good service, and who can be of no possible utility to him as a 
 "captive foe ; he catches some young naval officers, and instead 
 of knouting them to death, or sending them to hunt beaver in 
 Kamschatka, he fascinates them and feasts them, feeds them 
 on ortolans and Tokay, makes them free of court and opera, 
 and finally sends them home, bewildered by champagne and 
 the smiles of pretty princesses, dazzled and confused, like the 
 talking parrot of the Arabian Nights by the mock thunder 
 and lightning, and ready to sound the Czar's praises as long as 
 they can find breath or pens, hearers or readers. Nicholas is 
 a wise man, and knows that it is more easy to cajole John 
 Bull than to intimidate him. So he keeps his threats for the 
 Turk and the Persian, and contents himself with exhibiting a 
 pageant as roseate and unreal as fairyland to the more 
 educated of his English prisoners, and then turns them loose, 
 blind with gratitude, and inflated with vanity, to write, talk, 
 and speechify in praise of the Incarnation of Humbug. 
 
 Now Mark Forster was not a prisoner of war, nor a lord, nor 
 a litterateur. He could not, therefore, hope for any boon at 
 the hands of the mild-eyed Emperor. And so the week wore 
 on, and the ransom seemed farther off than ever. Katinka 
 began to have a new subject of uneasiness. Mark received a 
 domiciliary visit from the police, in which it was more than 
 hinted that, as he had shown no alacrity in availing himself of 
 his permission to quit Russia, if he did not speedily withdraw 
 
THE KUSSIA OF TO-DAY. 71 
 
 beyond the confines of the Czar's dominions, he would be con- 
 sidered as a spy, and treated accordingly. Katinka, on hearing 
 of this, at once unselfishly implored her lover to provide for his 
 own safety, to leave her to her fate, and to return to England. 
 This Mark steadily refused to do, and he spent his time, as 
 before, in aiding old Jacob's vain search for assistance, and in 
 consoling the sorrows of his affianced bride. But another and 
 more peremptory mandate from the police arrived, and Mark 
 could not disguise from Katinka that in the event of dis- 
 obedience his imprisonment, or forcible expulsion would pro- 
 bably follow. In this extremity, urged by fears for Katinka's 
 safety, and it being certain that Jacob could never pay the 
 price of his family within the stipulated time, Mark deter- 
 mined to watch over Katinka in the manner best calculated to 
 avert suspicion, and declared his intention of following her to 
 the south. 
 
 " JN~o, no, dearest Mark," said Katinka ; " you do not know 
 how severely our laws are administered. Do you fancy that 
 you would be allowed to travel unmolested through the length 
 of the empire ? You will be compelled to leave Russia either 
 by the Prussian frontier or from the nearest port, and you 
 will very likely have no option as to the place of embarkation. 
 You will be placed on board some neutral vessel, and only 
 released from police espionage when you are in deep water." 
 
 " Never fear, my own Katinka," replied the Englishman. 
 " I will ask the leave of neither Emperor nor prefect, but will 
 make my way to Kiew if I have to walk barefoot through the 
 snow. You shall not be thrown without a protector into the 
 power of these brutes of Mullers and their tyrannical employers. 
 I will be near, ready to do all that a single heart and arm can 
 accomplish in your behalf, to watch over and guard you." 
 
 "Do not expose yourself to danger for my sake, Mark," 
 replied Katinka, with a seriousness which she had never 
 exhibited before the last few days of misery and care. " The 
 laws of Russia are stern, and if you are detected hiding in the 
 country, the knout " 
 
 " Nay, nay, dearest girl, your fears deceive you," interrupted 
 Mark, tenderly. "An Englishman is in no danger of being 
 subjected to such a punishment. Long and dreary imprison- 
 ment, not torture, is all I have to apprehend ; but if I were to 
 be torn with wild horses in the event of my capture, I would 
 not be frightened from my task. When you gave me your love 
 
72 THE SERF-SISTERS ; OR, 
 
 and your promise, dear Katinka, I accepted a charge which I 
 should be the basest of beings to desert. Dry your tears, sweet 
 one : in spite of all the heartlessness of Prince Jargonoff, we 
 shall be happy yet." 
 
 Katinka wept on, the tears streaming fast between the 
 rounded white fingers of the hand she had pressed to her 
 eyes, and her gentle bosom heaving with convulsive sobs. As 
 Mark knelt beside her, she grasped his hand, and looking in 
 his face with her blue eyes bathed in tears, she said, hurriedly, 
 " Bless you, Mark, bless you. Since you love me so dearly as 
 to run such risks for my sake, save my poor father, save 
 Anielka, save me." 
 
 " I will," answered Mark ; " trust to me, love. I will be at 
 Kiew before you reach it. Farewell for a short space ; but, 
 trust me, you will see me again, whatever difficulties may He 
 in my path. So farewell, sweet girl, and do not forget that we 
 shall meet again." 
 
 So saying, Mark pressed his lips to Katinka's cold cheek, 
 and, fearful lest she should observe how much this parting had 
 unnerved him, clasped her hand convulsively for a moment, 
 and hurried from the house, agitated by a thousand fears, yet 
 firmly resolved to gain the south in spite of all obstacles to so 
 arduous an enterprise. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE traveller in [Russia may often meet with a quaint-looking 
 band of nomades, whose Astracan bonnets of fur, shaggy 
 pelisses, wide eastern shalwars, and roomy boots, proclaim the 
 wearers descendants of those terrible Mongolian and Calmue 
 hordes which formerly overran Russia, Poland, and Hungary, 
 and whose light horsemen have forayed even in Pomerania. 
 But these picturesque Moslems are entirely oblivious of the 
 ancient glories of Togrul and Xenghis Khan ; they have laid 
 aside the bow and spear, and taken up the ell-wand as a sub- 
 stitute ; they are simply what the Muscovites call " Dressing- 
 gown Tartars." Natives of the steppes and mountains which 
 form the frontier of Southern Asiatic Russia, these wanderers 
 emerge annually from Kirghis, Kasan, the Crimea, and other 
 conquered territories now appertaining to the Czar, and roam 
 over the more civilized parts of the Empire, vending robes, and 
 
THE EUSSIA OP TO-DAY. 73 
 
 shawls, and fur caps, and warm Tartar boots, and perhaps tea, 
 obtained from some China caravan. They are mostly Maho- 
 metans, but among them may perhaps be found a few Chris- 
 tian converts, or a stray Pagan from Daghestan or elsewhere. 
 Almost all of them are subjects of the Czar, though a few 
 natives of Independent Tartary and of other lands in the far 
 east will sometimes join the pilgrimage of their quieter cousins. 
 In some cities, such as Moscow, there is a mosque for their 
 purposes of worship, and a solitary Moollah abides there to 
 chant daily his invitation to prayer, and to read the Koran to 
 a scattered and scanty congregation. 
 
 These sons of the steppe use various means of transporting 
 the goods they sell from one district to another. In the far 
 south, camels, pack-bullocks, and rude Turkish arubahs drawn 
 by oxen are employed ; while in the north, light waggons, and 
 whole strings of pack-horses, are more commonly to be seen. 
 Altogether the Dressing-gown Tartars are among the most 
 useful and harmless subjects whom Russia numbers. They 
 own great flocks and herds, which graze upon the boundless 
 plains of Russian Asia, and the wool yielded by their own 
 sheep is spun by the adroit fingers of their women into a warm 
 and soft web, in great request for shawls and robes, and some- 
 what resembling in texture the old home-made tartan and 
 shepherd's plaid of Scotland. The women toil at this manu- 
 facture, the men ramble over the empire, as restless as gipsies, 
 but much better employed, and carry to the frozen shores of 
 the Neva the fabrics wrought from the fleeces of Kasan. A 
 troop of these singular people occupied a species of khan in 
 one of the suburbs of St. Petersburg, and several of them 
 were engaged in feeding the hardy little ponies, natives of the 
 same deserts as their masters, which were tethered under the 
 sheds which lined the yard, when Mark Forster, who had been 
 for some hours pacing the streets of St. Petersburg, vainly 
 trying to discover some means by which he might, unsuspected 
 and unchallenged, perform the journey to Kiew, suddenly 
 found himself in presence of this band of wild travellers, who 
 unquestionably possessed the power, if they had but the incli- 
 nation, to aid his project. Interrogating one of the Tartars 
 who spoke Russian more fluently than the rest, Mark elicited 
 the information that they were to leave the capital in four 
 days, and that they should travel rapidly, as they had sold 
 almost all their goods, and were anxious to reach home in time 
 
74 THE SERF-SISTEKS ; OK, 
 
 to lead tlie cattle to their distant summer pasturages. This 
 news decided Mark not to neglect the chance so opportunely 
 presented to him, and he at once asked to see the chief of tlie 
 caravan. He was accordingly directed to enter the khan, 
 where, in a long, low room, and tranquilly smoking his cherry- 
 stick pipe before a large stove, sat the principal Tartar. The 
 chief rover was a stout fellow of forty, with a flat Mongolian 
 face, broad and yellow as a Chinaman's, a scanty beard, and 
 black eyes of remarkable vivacity. He was dressed in a 
 pelisse of black sheepskin and a pair of wide Persian trousers, 
 a high cap of sable lambswool rested on his shaven head, and 
 on his feet were a huge pair of those rough Tartar boots which 
 alone can keep the feet warm in the rigorous winter of Russia. 
 On each side of the stove sat "a boy of twelve or fourteen, 
 dressed in the same national costume as their sire, who wa,s 
 thus early initiating his sons into the life of the road and the 
 mysteries of barter. Mark Porster approached the stove, and 
 entered into conversation with the chief of the caravan on the 
 subject of the latter's approaching migration. 
 
 " Yes, we are going through the pine-forests and over the 
 bleak steppes once more," said the Tartar; "we have many a 
 league to travel before we see the blue peaks of the Elburz, 
 but it is six-and-twenty years since I left our green valleys on 
 my first journey to the land of the Muscove, and I am so used 
 to the road, that I fancy my spirit will scarcely be able, when 
 I am dead, to rest quietly in Paradise, and give up the old 
 oft-travelled road." 
 
 " I, too," said Mark ; " I, too, should be glad to make one 
 such pilgrimage. I wish to visit the southern provinces of the 
 empire, and I should be pleased if you would permit me to 
 accompany you." 
 
 The Tartar permitted the white smoke from his mouthpiece 
 to curl in spiral wreaths around his wiry moustaches, while he 
 indulged in a long stare at the well-dressed youth who ex- 
 pressed a desire to voyage with a troop of Dressing-gown 
 Tartars. 
 
 " You would soon wish yourself back at St. Petersburg," 
 said the chief, at last ; " the snow is but half melted on the 
 steppes, the wolves are not yet silent among the fir-trees ; the 
 Tartar travels through mire, and hail, and wind ; it is not for 
 a delicately-nurtured child of the city to wander with the sons 
 of the rough desert," 
 
THE EUSSIA OF TO-DAY. 75 
 
 "lam hardier than you imagine," answered Mark; "the 
 storms and the wolves frighten me no more than they do 
 yourself. Seriously speaking, I am anxious to make the 
 journey. I would give a thousand roubles to the man who 
 should agree to take me along with his caravan to the south." 
 
 The Tartar's dark eye sparkled as the silvery word " roubles" 
 fell upon his ears. Money is as useful to a herdsman of 
 Elburz as to a moujik of Moscow ; and here was an opportu- 
 nity of clearing a handsome sum without much trouble. Yet 
 the nomade directed a suspicious glance to the face of the 
 young Englishman, and said coldly 
 
 " If you want to travel, you need not share the rye-cake of 
 the poor Tartar, nor sleep beneath his humble tent. You have 
 money, stranger, and the Government will furnish you with 
 post-horses, if your passport is proper and sufficient." And 
 the chief darted another distrustful look at Mark. 
 
 " But if I have a whim to wander in your wild way, if my 
 taste leads me to prefer the bivouac fire and the camel's-hair 
 tent to the smoky village inn, why should I be baulked of my 
 whim ?" said Mark, with a smile. 
 
 "We are not in the Attock or in Houm," answered the 
 nomade, puffing volumes of smoke from between his parted 
 lips; "we are in Russia, where there is a police that takes 
 note of travellers. A well-clad citizen would excite as much 
 suspicion if he were to pass through a village along with such 
 as we are, as would give the authorities an excuse for sending 
 him in irons to the capital, unless, of course, he were well 
 provided with papers that proved his good intentions and 
 loyalty to the Czar." 
 
 Mark saw that frankness was the best policy under the cir- 
 cumstances. " Hearken to me, my friend," said he ; " I am a 
 foreigner." 
 
 "I knew it," quietly replied the Tartar; "I have had no 
 dealings myself with the people of Nyemzestan and Fran- 
 guestan, but I have heard every dialect in the empire, from 
 that of Lapland to that of Taganrog ; and I perceived at once, 
 by your accent, that you were no subject of the Czar." 
 
 " And I seek," continued Mark, " to visit Kiew. If you will 
 agree to disguise me as one of your tribe, and allow me to 
 go with you so far, I will pay you, not a thousand, but fifteen 
 hundred roubles, half at starting, half on my arrival at Kiew." 
 
 The chief of the caravan puffed at his pipe more and more 
 
76 THE SEEF-SISTERS ; OB, 
 
 vehemently, until the tobacco that filled the capacious earthen 
 bowl glowed like the coals of a furnace. 
 
 " I will be as cautious as I can," went on Mark, who saw 
 that the Mussulman was mentally debating the feasibility of 
 the proposed arrangement. "I will assume the dress and 
 manners of yottr people, and keep as much aloof from prying 
 eyes as possible. You have, of course, a general passport for 
 all your tribe. Who will dream of counting your numbers, to 
 see whether there is a Tartar the more P" 
 
 "I will tell you one more thing," said the nomade. " You 
 are not only a foreigner, but I am sure you are one of those 
 Franks with whom the Czar is at war. You are going to travel 
 through Hussia, that you may afterwards return home and tell 
 what you have seen. Now if I were detected in aiding you in 
 such a project, what mercy could I expect ? I have kept my skin 
 unscathed by the knout for forty years, and I have no Wish to 
 be flogged to death, I can assure you." 
 
 " Have no fears of that," said Mark, earnestly ; " my object 
 is not political. I am not devising anything against the Czar. 
 I am going to watch over the safety of the maiden I love, and 
 to protect her from injury, or to die for her." And Mark gave 
 the Tartar a brief account of the misfortune which had be- 
 fallen the Petrovich family, and repeated his own resolution 
 to perish rather than desert Katinka. 
 
 The Tartar puffed energetically at his pipe the while, and 
 occasionally uttered a snort, which Mark rightly interpreted as 
 an inarticulate expression of sympathy and interest. When 
 the young Englishman had concluded, the chief of the caravan 
 cogitated for a moment, and then gravely said 
 
 " You are a brave lad, Christian, and I am sorry for you, 
 and sorry for the old man, and for the little maidens. I have 
 seen this Prince Jargonoff; he is a hard man, and his son 
 Demetrius is a veritable child of Eblis. And we Tartars do 
 not love slavery, and least of all the slavery of our own 
 countrymen. So, if you will pay me the fifteen hundred 
 roubles, and will be guided by me in all things, I will take you 
 with me unto Kiew. -Fodda!" 
 
 One of the boys started up at the call, and stood respectfully 
 before his parent. The chief uttered a few words in his native 
 tongue, and the boy left the room, and at once reappeared, 
 carrying a cake of dark-coloured bread and a tin canister of 
 salt, which he gave to his father. The Tartar sprinkled the 
 
THE RUSSIA OF TO-DAY. 77 
 
 salt freely on the bread, broke the cake in two, and, eating one 
 portion of it himself, made signs to Mark to partake of the 
 rest. Mark obeyed, and the Tartar said, gravely 
 
 " I swear on this bread and salt, by my beard, and Toy my 
 father's head, that I and my tribe will guard thee as a brother, 
 O JSTazarene, and will treat thee .as if thou wfert of our faith 
 and of our race. I have taken the great oath on bread and 
 salt ; and thou shalt be safer and better befriended, O stranger, 
 under the lowly tents of the roving Tartars, than any prince 
 of Muscovy in his palace of carved stone." 
 
 It was then agreed that Mark should return to his lodgings, 
 and selecting a few necessary and portable articles from the 
 bulk of his property, should revisit the khan at nightfall, the 
 chief agreeing at once to provide him a Tartar dress, and to 
 prepare the horde to welcome him. It was further determined 
 that, for the sake of precaution, Mark should that evening 
 assume the costume of the wanderers, and remain among them 
 at their khan for the day or two preceding the departure of the 
 caravan for the south. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 TRUMPET and clarion gave forth a flood of martial melody ; 
 drums rolled deeply and sternly along the Prospekts and 
 across the bridges, while cymbals clashed and bugles were 
 blown, as twenty military bands filled the busy streets of St. 
 Petersburg with the menacing yet joyous notes of warlike pre- 
 paration. Twenty battalions of infantry were pouring in 
 massive strength through the city, music pealing and colours 
 displayed. Heavily and steadily the firm grenadiers moved 
 along the streets, the officers with drawn swords and elated 
 looks striding on at the head of their companies, the soldiers, 
 whose blood was and is the cement of the pyramid of Russian 
 power, tramped forward, stolid, fearless, thoughtless, machines 
 of slaughter. The dull roll of artillery, the ceaseless rumble of 
 waggons and tumbrils, shook the vast houses, and made the 
 pavement that bridged the rotten morass on which the city is 
 built tremble as the giant load passed by. There were cavalry 
 in the squares, cavalry on the roads, cavalry in the barrack 
 yards, cavalry pouring like a sea out of the gates. Forests of 
 shining bayonets swept by, making the eye ache that rested on 
 
78 THE SEEF-SISTERS ; OK, 
 
 the sparkling points of steel, the small flags and bright spear- 
 heads of the lancers danced over the squadrons which succeeded 
 each other, like the waves of a rising tide, while the helmets 
 and panoply of the cuirassier brigades flashed back every ray 
 of the feeble sun of spring. Generals surrounded by groups of 
 caracoling staff officers, carriages gay with blazonry, led horses 
 prancing and striving to break from their restraining guardians, 
 orderlies and aides-de-camp galloping recklessly with despatches 
 to the front, and all the thousand accessories and details of 
 modern war, might have been reckoned there. Waggon upon 
 waggon bearing provisions, clothing, stores, for the marching 
 multitude, caissons bursting with the hoards of warlike 
 materiel they contained, a load as deadly as the cargo of the 
 wooden steed of Ulysses, the ambulances, the baggage cars, 
 moved as rapidly along as the fiery little horses of the North 
 could drag such cumbrous loads. Troops of grim Bashkirs, 
 mounted savages from Siberia, wolfish marauders from the 
 Ukraine, Polish hussars, Russian dragoons, swart Mussulman 
 Tartars, were blended with the sombre, docile, Muscovite 
 infantry, on whose obstinate courage and muscular strength 
 the fabric of the unwieldy empire had been chiefly erected. 
 Various in dress, in tongue, in creed, in complexion, but held 
 together by the vast power of centralizing despotism, the 
 legions of Russia were on their way to battle. 
 
 The Northern Colossus was about to try the practical efficacy 
 of that brute force which had threatened Europe for a century. 
 The troops were to march to the South. Surrounding their 
 columns on every side were the moujiks, the ignorant sup- 
 porters of the Czar, frantically cheering the soldiers, and 
 mingling their shouts with the most fulsome praises of the 
 Emperor, an adulation often blasphemous from the extra- 
 vagant nature of the praises bestowed upon what? a lawgiver, 
 like our own Saxon Alfred H a hero, like Napoleon ? No ; 
 simply a tall, handsome, soft-spoken, adroit man Nicholas 
 Romanoff. Is it not an instructive fact, that the two least 
 respectable of European Sovereigns, viz., the King of Naples 
 and the Emperor of Russia, should rely so entirely on the blind 
 devotion, one of the lazzaroni, the other of the moujiks, that is 
 to say, of the most animal, most degraded, and most fanatical 
 of their subjects. 
 
 The officers of the departing host were flushed with vanity 
 and excitement, for the fairest of the unhealthy beauties of 
 
THE RUSSIA OF TO-DAY. 79 
 
 fashionable St. Petersburg were coughing and waving their 
 handkerchiefs in the balconies, catching cold, it is true, in 
 spite of furs and chauffeuses, but encouraging most enthusias- 
 tically their late partners at ball and soiree. The very privates, 
 poor, crushed, beaten hounds, half forgot the quarter of a 
 century's drudgery and misery in store for them, and gathered 
 from the shouts of the crowd a vague idea that they were 
 going to fight for St. Yladimir, St. Isaac, and St. Anne, to say 
 nothing of that greatest of saints, the Czar, and that they 
 were to be favoured by miraculous intervention and assisted 
 by spiritual allies. In the centre of a dark column of infantry 
 marched Yanos and Klapka, both clad in the sober garb of 
 Russian foot soldiers, and each bearing on his shoulder the 
 musket of a private. Small trouble had the Esthonian given to 
 the painstaking drill sergeant of his company, who, accustomed 
 by the unsparing blows of his stick to compel recruits to 
 change their slouching gait for a soldierly bearing, was amazed 
 to find that nature and habit had " set up " Yanos to perfection. 
 2sTo military instructor could have improved upon the Estho- 
 nian's martial erectness of person, while his expanded chest, his 
 firm and measured tread, and the proud carriage of his head, 
 would have satisfied the most censorious critic. Perhaps a 
 severe Prussian or English martinet might have objected that 
 Yanos was not unintelligent or wooden enough for a faultless 
 automaton, but such a censure would have come under the 
 head of hypercriticism. 
 
 In the matter of discipline, however, Yanos was by no means 
 a model. It was not from any natural antipathy to the pro- 
 fession of arms, for the same adventurous spirit that had made 
 the Esthonian a hunter gave him all the qualifications of a 
 warrior. Brave as a lion, animated by a strong feeling of 
 personal dignity, and easily warmed by emulation, Yanos 
 would have been an admirable defender of a country un- 
 shackled by the restrictions of caste. 
 
 In the French service, for instance, the velvet baton of a 
 marshal might have been as fitly grasped by his strong fingers 
 as by those of Bernadotte or Murat, while in the English 
 army he would probably have won his epaulettes, and died at 
 least an officer, if not a general. But the Procrustean system 
 of the Russian service galled his giant limbs and chafed his 
 fearless nature. Treated as a man, as a sentient compound of 
 body and soul, capable of progression, development, improve- 
 
80 THE SERF-SISTERS ; OH, 
 
 ment, the Esthonian forester would have respected every rule 
 and ordinance of discipline and order. But, like most men of 
 strong individuality of character, he made but a bad and un- 
 manageable machine. Treated but as a living spoke in a wheel 
 of that great war-chariot in which the Czar was to drive 
 triumphantly over the bloody carcasses of the champions of 
 Europe, Yanos seemed to take a pride in defying the petty 
 but vexatious regulations which break the spirit and crush the 
 will of Muscovite soldiers. He had been but five days in 
 the caserne of the regiment to which he was attached, and 
 already he was set down in the black book of the commanding 
 officer as a headstrong and rebellious recruit, not exactly 
 mutinous as yet, but requiring strict vigilance to keep him in 
 subjection. When some nature is found stubborn enough to 
 resist the organisation of the Eussian scheme of rule, it is 
 usual for the Czar and his satraps to break that which refuses to 
 bend. But the case was an exceptional one, soldiers were much 
 needed, more needed than the Emperor cared to own, and such 
 a grenadier as Yanos, with thews of iron and a heart of steel, 
 was enough to encourage a whole battalion of dull boors. 
 So the colonel resolved that he should not be knouted, if it 
 could possibly be prevented. And now that the troops were 
 leaving the capital for the seat of war, Yanos marched steadily 
 on among his new comrades, the tallest, finest warrior there. 
 
 Many a lady of that fair crowd that swarmed in balcony and 
 at window to see the battalions go by, forgot the gold-laced 
 generals and slender-waisted officers, in gazing after that 
 noble form, that not even the coarse watch coat of grey duffel 
 could disfigure, and admiring that handsome head which 
 towered above the mass of flat Mongolian visages around. 
 
 Klapka, on the other hand, looked hopeless and dejected, 
 and moved along an unnoticed atom of that avalanche of 
 fighting slaves. The Pole's elegant figure was disguised by the 
 muffling coat and russet leather knapsack of the common 
 soldier, and as he marched mechanically forwards, with his cap 
 drawn over his brows and his eyes riveted on the ground, no 
 spectator could recognise the high-born Count in the coarsely 
 cliidfantassin. The sentence which had reduced Klapka to so 
 lowly a condition had stunned his energies. Every prejudice, 
 every habit, every taste, that had grown up in his mind during 
 life, revolted against the duties and the comrades to whose 
 rough contact he was now condemned. 
 
THE RUSSIA OF TO-DAY. 81 
 
 The Polish noble had now become the equal and companion, 
 not only of serfs whose courage was ferocity and whose wisdom, 
 was the fox's cunning, but of felons whose crimes were to be 
 expiated, not in the bagne, but on the battle-field, and whom 
 the prudent Emperor chose to punish by the bayonet of the 
 enemy rather than by the sword of .the law. The highly 
 educated, highly bred gentleman was now the associate of a 
 horde of drunken brutes who had retained the vices, while 
 losing the virtues, of savage nations, and whose mental blind- 
 ness and depraved tastes made the unnatural union little less 
 hideous than the grim partnership in which Mezentius chained 
 the dead foe to the living captive. JSTot once had either Yanos 
 or Klapka been allowed to pass the jealously guarded gate of 
 t^.e barrack-yard, and though the Pole had earnestly implored 
 permission to pay one farewell visit to Anielka, or at least to 
 write and acquaint her with the cause of his absence, the 
 request had never reached the ears of any one except the non- 
 commissioned officer to whom it was addressed, and by whom 
 it was contemptuously refused. 
 
 Tormented by a thousand fears for the safety of the delicate 
 girl from whose side he had been torn at the very moment 
 when she most needed a protector, Klapka walked in the martial 
 pageant like a man in a dream. At last the streets are cleared, 
 the gates are passed, and the columns debouch into the open 
 country. The railway from St. Petersburg to Moscow bears 
 its quota of troops and cannon, but the great bulk of the army 
 must journey by the high road. Mire and water, and melting 
 snow, soft and dirty, a cold grey sky, from whose clouds peeps 
 forth an occasional sickly glimpse of pale sunshine, such are the 
 most prominent features of the prospect which greets the de- 
 parting warriors. The bands playedonwithundiminishedvigour, 
 but after a little while a shower of sleet came driving pitilessly 
 into the faces of the soldiers, and immediately the music 
 ceased, and the instruments were enveloped in their shrouds 
 of green baize. The infantry unfixed and sheathed their 
 bayonets, thrust the protecting tow into the muzzles of their 
 bright-barreled muskets, and trudged doggedly on. The dra- 
 goons draped themselves in their loose mantles ; the aides-de- 
 camp drew their furred pelisses closer around their corset-im- 
 prisoned forms ; the generals who were lucky enough to possess 
 carriages rolled themselves up in a mass of wrappings, and 
 went to sleep in the corners of their comfortable vehicles, 
 
82 THE SEftF-SISTERS ; OK, 
 
 while tliose who bad not had the forethought or the funds neces- 
 sary to provide an English brougham or a St. Petersburg 
 Clarence sat on their quiet horses, looking unutterably cold, 
 savage, and discontented. t The sleet turned into hail, and the 
 hail into rain, and the rain into snow. Soon the feathery 
 flakes poured down so thickly that a dark haze settled over 
 the dreary landscape. A snowy mist obscured the -air, and 
 through the driving showers the cloaked troopers loomed out 
 like huge Centaurs, and the artillery and waggons could only 
 be distinguished as shapeless masses, lumbering painfully along 
 the swampy road. The wheels of the tumbrils ploughed 
 slowly through the stained snow heaps, the horses of the 
 cavalry splashed and floundered fetlock-deep in mud, now 
 and then sinking knee-deep into some miniature quagmire, 
 and the infantry (wet and dirty), tramped sturdily soutK- 
 wards. 
 
 On they went for many a mile, and halted only when the short 
 spring day drew near its close, and when the shades of evening 
 joined with the darkness caused by the snow-storm, to blind 
 the eyes that sought to peer along the shadowy road that led to 
 Moscow. There were a few huts and farm-houses near the 
 spot which was selected for the first night's bivouac, and these 
 were at once taken possession of by the generals and staff- 
 officers. A hundred axes were soon ringing on the trunks of 
 the forest trees, pines were felled, and innumerable piles of 
 fresh lopped fir branches were carried from the woods by the 
 soldiers, and flung upon the great watch-fires which had been 
 lighted the instant the bugles had sounded a halt. Whole 
 companies were employed in collecting fuel, and in a few 
 minutes an immense store of boughs and logs had been col- 
 lected near the blazing bonfires, beside which many mailed 
 cuirassiers and green-clad sharpshooters were drying their wet 
 cloaks, while others were busily constructing the rude ovens 
 which are used Jby all who camp out on the bleak ground, 
 whether among the stony kloofs of Kaffirland or among the 
 pestilential marshes of the Amazon. Hude gipsy cookery was 
 going on on every side, the classical tripods of poles supporting 
 over the blaze many an iron pot or serviceable camp kettle, 
 from which issued gushes of greasy steam, and which were 
 carefully watched by ladle-bearing soldiers, intent on the per- 
 formance of their culinary functions. Some gourmands, not 
 contented with their rations of hard black bread, pork, and 
 
THE RUSSIA OF TO-DAY. 83 
 
 beans, set off across the fields to try to wire a hare, or perhaps 
 to essay their powers in the art of abstracting some turkey 
 or sucking pig from the sty or the poultry-yard, a welcome 
 addition to their frugal fare. Dragoons were picketing their 
 hardy horses beneath the sheltering boughs of the pine-trees ; 
 stores were being rapidly given out by the active satellites of 
 the commissary-general ; the rations of the soldiers, and their 
 allowance of spirits, were promptly doled out to the squadrons 
 and battalions; and the glare of the ruddy flames flashed amid 
 the sable fir groves, and made the helmets and breastplates of 
 the horsemen glitter like silver as they moved to and fro 
 through the dusky glades. The snow fell still, though mingled 
 with sleet and rain, and pattered down upon the roaring watch 
 fires, making the green wood hiss and sputter as the unwel- 
 come moisture touched the glowing embers. The thick 
 branches of the pines were loaded heavily with clinging snow, 
 but the broad flakes that reached the wet ground did but shine 
 in sparkling purity for an instant, and then vanished as the 
 fame of the ephemera of talent disappears from the memories of 
 men. Here and there a sentinel paced up and down in front of 
 the quarters of some officers of rank, or a party of grenadiers 
 partook of their humble supper, lighted by a couple of im- 
 promptu torches composed of flaming branches of the resinous 
 fir wood, pinned to the earth with bayonets, and throwing 
 their smoky lustre on the shining arms and warlike forms that 
 occasionally emerged from the black shadow of the woodlands. 
 Par off in the distant forest the keen -nosed wolf sniffed the 
 tainted air, and answered by his long drawn whining howl to 
 the shrill neighing of the war steeds in the camp. The win- 
 dows of the farm-houses were brilliant with lights, and from 
 within resounded the sounds of feasting and merriment, the 
 clatter of plates and glasses, the notes of song and the buzz of 
 conversation, accompanied by the popping of champagne corks, 
 as the generals not disadvantageously replaced the corn- 
 brandy of the soldier by the aristocratic beverage which the 
 vineyards of Epernay, aided by the orchards of Normandy and 
 the rhubarb -fields of the Berri, produce for the delectation 
 of high society in Russia. 
 
 The night wore on, and the supper parties of the dignitaries 
 
 were broken up, and muffled figures, their feet turned to the 
 
 glowing logs, lay around the bivouac fires, thick as prostrate 
 
 trees in a felled forest. Pillowed on their knapsacks, the 
 
 a 2 
 
84 THE SERF-SISTERS; OR, 
 
 Pawns of the great Muscovite Chessboard slept soundly enough, 
 and nothing was heard in the camp, except the challenge of a 
 sentinel, the plaintive howl of the hungry wolf, and the sullen 
 answer of the watch-dogs of a farm. The snow ceased to fall, 
 the clouds opened their serried phalanx, and the pale cold 
 moon appeared in the sky, and enveloped the sleepers in a 
 ghastly circle of chilly light that rendered the black gloom 
 of the woods still more dense and dismal, and that enwrapped 
 the unconscious forms that lay around the fires as in a 
 luminous and transparent shroud. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 MARCHING through ice and snow, struggling with rain and 
 tempest, the army arrived at Novgorod, and halted for a brief 
 space to 'refresh the wearied soldiers. But short was the 
 breathing-time allowed. The Turk, the despised Turk, was 
 triumphing on the Danube, and the science and prudence of 
 Omar Pasha had foiled the craft of Gortschakoff. How frantic 
 was the rage of the imperialist circles at St. Petersburg ! 
 Omar Pasha, a renegade, a Croat who had assumed the turban, 
 a fellow bred a clerk in a public office, had presumed to prove 
 an overmatch in talent and coolness for a veteran general of 
 Russia ! Such audacity, such bare-faced impudence, made the 
 orthodox subjects of the Czar, from the rouge-daubed countess 
 to the oily moujik, join in a shriek of indignant horror when 
 trumpet-toDgued rumour revealed what the Russian news- 
 papers were not rash enough to tell the truth about. Omar 
 Pasha was defending the line of the Danube with equal skill 
 and resolution ; the Christian population were wicked enough 
 not to rise against their rulers, in spite of all the Czar's pro- 
 clamations, and all the letters of " Anglicanus" in the Times 
 relative to the establishment of "that rogues' and pirates' 
 Utopia," a Greek empire ; and the fleets of England and France 
 rode side by side in the Turkish waters. Bitter was the resent- 
 ment of Russian officials and Russian agents. To have been 
 beaten at all was disagreeable enough ; but, after all, Narva, 
 Priedland, and Austerlitz, had proved that Muscovites were 
 not invincible ; the venom of the sting was, that a Russian 
 army should have been baffled by a born, not a bred, tactician, 
 
THE BUSSIA OF TO-DAY. 85 
 
 commanding a force of those very Mahometans whom the 
 bragging heroes of the Emperor were wont to estimate as very 
 much upon a par with the naked savages of Polynesia. Pe- 
 remptory orders were despatched to the reinforcements to 
 hasten their march, and after a day or two at Novgorod, the 
 regiment in which Klapka and Yanos were serving recom- 
 menced its southward journey, taking the western road by 
 Vitebsk and Mphilew, in preference to the easterly route by 
 Moscow. The snow was by this time nearly melted, although 
 storms of hail and wind were frequent, and the roads were ankle- 
 deep in mud, affording the most desperate toil for the horses of 
 the artillery and waggon-tram, many of which perished daily 
 from sheer fatigue. As the march continued, the weather 
 grew warmer : snow never fell on the dreary encampment of the 
 host as during the first days after the departure from St. 
 Petersburg, but still hail and rain alternated with periods of 
 sunshine ; the wind blew so violently across the plains, that the 
 movements of the troops were seriously impeded by its fury ; 
 and the mud of the roads, partially hardened every night by 
 frost, and liquefied each morning by sun and rain, became of 
 the consistency of glue, and clung to wheel and foot as tena- 
 ciously as a quicksand. Under these circumstances, the 
 advance was necessarily very slow; and as weariness and 
 exposure to the elements told upon even the iron sinews of the 
 hardy serfs, the multitude began rather to crawl than to 
 march. All this time the enormous arms of the telegraph, like 
 those of Briareus, were working vigorously, and sending to 
 the banks of the Neva the intelligence of what was passing on 
 those of the Danube. Mounted messengers were spurring 
 across the Principalities ; telegas, each with an imperial courier 
 for its occupant, were jolting and bounding along at the full 
 gallop of a team of Ukraine horses ; and all these rapid meteors 
 that whirled across the country were speeding to announce to 
 the Czar some tidings of doubt and alarm. Order after order 
 was sent down with fiery haste from the capital to hasten the 
 advance of the army; fresh levies of conscript serfs were 
 hurried from their homes, rapidly drilled, and placed in the 
 garrisons; more forced loans, and compulsory purchases of 
 corn and cattle, went on ; more spoliation of banks and land 
 societies took place ; and every waggon, horse, house, man, 
 woman, and child, along the southern routes, was placed at 
 the disposition of the generals, with orders to push on at all 
 
86 THE SEKF-SI8TERS ; OB, 
 
 hazards. Miracle-working pictures of the popular saints of 
 ^Russia were sent express from Moscow to the army, and every 
 day these portraits were carried by the black-robed popes 
 along the lines of Muscovite warriors, and held up with much 
 ceremony to be kissed and adored. Corn brandy was liberally 
 dealt out, and the rations of the troops were increased. At 
 the same time the rigour of discipline was not relaxed for an 
 instant ; the lash urged on the jaded horse till % he sunk dying 
 in his harness ; the stick proved itself able to extract fresh 
 exertions from the footsore and flagging soldier. The generals 
 alone felt little fatigue and few hardships. To the mass of the 
 army the march was a period of frightful suffering. No pause 
 could be permitted; the imperious commands that came by 
 every messenger from head-quarters rendered it necessary to 
 save every instant of time, to strain every nerve, but to press 
 on, so as to crush the Turks before the arrival of the tardy 
 succours from the West. And the corruption of the military 
 system reacted cruelly upon the helpless victims of knavish 
 generals and swindling colonels. No orders, however stringent, 
 no considerations of humanity, not even the dread of the im- 
 perial displeasure, could prevent the chiefs of regiments from 
 continuing their usual peculations. Most of the corps were far 
 weaker than their nominal strength, but drawing the pay of 
 two or three fictitious companies was not enough to satisfy the 
 greediness of the commanders, and the men and horses were 
 stinted in food, in forage, in caps and shoes, in everything but 
 brandy and blows. There were robbers in the commissariat, 
 in the staff, among the superior officers of every arm. Stores 
 were sold almost avowedly ; cattle and draught horses exchanged 
 for bags of roubles with the crafty sutlers who followed the 
 host like vultures ; and few were the colonels who did not filch 
 a portion of the poor soldier's crust to pay their gambling 
 debts, or transmute the frugal dinner of their troopers into 
 some cases of lead-papered champagne for their own banquets. 
 A great proportion of the troops were ragged, shoeless, and 
 scarcely able to limp the allotted number of versts in each 
 succeeding day ; dead horses lay along the roads, fed upon by 
 multitudes of carrion crows ; sick or disabled men were left 
 behind in every hamlet ; the ambulances had ample occupa- 
 tion ; the constant use of the stick was the only stimulant that 
 could induce the exhausted recruits to stagger on ; yet still 
 
THE RUSSIA OP TO-DAY. 87 
 
 the army plodded doggedly along the road, uncomplaining, 
 sullen, and stupid. 
 
 At Mohilow an order reached them, in compliance with 
 which six infantry and four cavalry regiments instantly 
 turned their faces towards Poland, and marched to strengthen 
 the garrisons of Minsk and "Warsaw. The rest of the force 
 proceeded southward along the course of the lengthy Borys- 
 thenes, and finally reached the strong fortress and walled city 
 of Kiew, in so pitiable a state of exhaustion and neglect, that 
 a period of repose was called for by sheer necessity, that 
 implacable opponent of autocrats. A part of the garrison of 
 Kiew moved rapidly down to Wallachia to assist Prince 
 Grortschakoff, while the infantry of the newly-arrived army 
 was placed in barracks, and its cavalry encamped upon the 
 plains, already white with the tents of a vast body of horse- 
 men, those famous Cossacks, who have been the vain bugbears 
 of Europe for forty years. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE period of redemption was over, and Jacob Petrovich 
 abandoned hope. The fatal morning dawned at last on which 
 the unhappy family were doomed to leave their home. Yery 
 early did the old merchant lift his grey head from the pillow 
 on which it had tossed, feverish and restless, through the long 
 night. Leaning on his ebony staff, for he was much shaken and 
 enfeebled by the sorrow which the past week had heaped upon 
 him, the old man descended to the large saloon around whose 
 hearth Muller had found his prey assembled on the evening 
 which witnessed his intrusion. Jacob sat down in his favourite 
 elbow chair, and with a wan smile looked around at the mute 
 friends he was that day to leave for ever. There was Anielka's 
 harp, now covered with dust, and with a roll of music lying 
 across its gilded pedestal ; there were the drawings of both 
 sisters, some of them unfinished alas ! when would either of 
 them find leisure or inclination for such delicate labours again ! 
 There stood the piano whose ivory keys had so often sounded 
 merrily beneath the active fingers of Katinka ; it was open, 
 and her laced handk erchief lay upon it as she had left it on the 
 
88 THE SERF-SISTERS; OR, 
 
 niglit of Muller's arrival. The books and albums disarranged, 
 the silent clock on the marble mantelpiece, the precious china 
 and medallions in the open cabinets left dusty and neglected, 
 the chessboard and its ivory warriors swept away in confusion 
 into a corner, the arm-chair in which his false friend, Paul 
 Vlad, had sat so often by the fireside he had betrayed, all these 
 possessed a speechless eloquence in old Jacob's eyes. They 
 were the ruins of his home. He was one of those men about 
 whose hearts the insensible objects which custom and associa- 
 tions have endeared twine themselves with as tenacious a grasp 
 as that with which the circling tendrils of the ivy embrace the 
 turret or the oak. To rend away those apparently slight 
 chains was to give a shock to his inmost nature that it was no 
 easy task for an aged man to bear. And yet, in the simplicity 
 of his single-hearted paternal love, Jacob would have torn 
 himself from the dwelling which his industry and thrift had 
 earned, and in which every book, every quaint bureau or 
 massive arm-chair, every picture on the wall, nay, every orna- 
 ment of porcelain or alabaster, was a humble friend whose loss 
 would have grieved him. Jacob would, I say, have quitted his 
 abode and all that made it pleasant, and gone forth in his old 
 age to drudge and feel cold and hunger, and die without a fond 
 hand to smooth his pillow, or close his eyelids in death, and 
 all this without a tear or a groan, or any sign of outward 
 sorrow, if his daughters might have been saved by his sacrifice 
 from all risk of shame and suffering. But this was denied. 
 Such precautions as the old merchant had been enabled to take 
 had not been neglected. Jacob had realized a sum of twelve 
 thousand roubles, of which the one-half had been lodged in a 
 bank, to the joint credit of his daughters, while the remainder 
 was to be devoted to their use in their dreary bondage in Malo- 
 rossia. The old man's will, by which he bequeathed all he 
 owned to his beloved children, was in the custody of an eminent 
 German firm, whose caution had induced them to refuse to 
 Jacob the loan that would have saved them, but who had 
 willingly agreed to act as trustees for the benefit of his mother- 
 less girls. The merchant had several debtors among com- 
 mercial men, whose obligations were not yet due, or who were 
 for a time impoverished and paralysed by the panic that pre- 
 vailed, but he felt a melancholy pleasure in reflecting that 
 much of the money which he had saved during his life of useful 
 toil would hereafter revert to Anielka and Katinka. Then 
 
THE RUSSIA OF TO-DAY. 89 
 
 there were stores of corn, hides, iron ore, and timber, which 
 would, in time of peace, regain their usual value, and which 
 the German house that took charge of Jacob's will would 
 undertake to sell at the proper period. 
 
 It was some consolation to Jacob to think that if his 
 daughters were fortunate enough to be released . from their 
 enforced slavery in the South an event which might be 
 brought about by the succession of a milder master to the 
 estates of the merciless Prince Ivan Jargonoff, for on mollify- 
 ing that terrible boyard himself it was idle to count the two 
 orphan girls might be actually among the richest heiresses in 
 St. Petersburg. The house in which Anielka and Katinkahad 
 been born, and in which the family had dwelt so long, was also 
 the old merchant's property. It was unsaleable on account of 
 the terror caused by the war, which had depreciated the value 
 of such possessions to zero ; and J acob was determined that 
 whenever his daughters should return from their captivity on 
 the banks of the Borysthenes, they should find the dear old 
 home, under wiiose roof their mother had died, unchanged, and 
 every familiar object smiling its mute welcome as of yore. 
 For this purpose, having dismissed the rest of the household, 
 whose sorrow at parting from their aged master and young 
 mistresses said more for the worth of the unfortunate family 
 than the most pompous eulogy could have done, Jacob en- 
 trusted the care of his dwelling to the faithful old house- 
 keeper, whose love for Anielka and Katinka was only second 
 to that of the nurse Yaska, and in whose arms his long 
 mourned wife had breathed her last. This good-natured old 
 dame had agreed to remain in the deserted dwelling as its 
 guardian ; and it was a comforting thought to poor Jacob, that 
 whenever his children should return (for he could not bear 
 to contemplate the idea that their exile might be eternal), 
 they would find one kind face in the old house besides those of 
 the unforgotten portraits that hung upon its walls. For half 
 an hour Jacob sat musing and gazing sadly about the room, 
 and then the door opened, and his daughters, followed by 
 Yaska, glided into the saloon. Anielka' s beautiful face was as 
 colourless as the whitest marble, and she appeared as calm, at 
 first sightj as if she had been actually a statue ; and an occa- 
 sional quiver of her lip alone betrayed the anguish which she 
 strived to hide for her father's sake, while the peculiar, glazed 
 look of her radiant eyes showed that they were exhausted by 
 
90 THE SERF-SISTERS ; OR, 
 
 long weeping. Katinka looked ill and tired, but still fought 
 bravely against any outward exhibition of grief. All night 
 long she had sobbed upon her restless pillow, while Anielka 
 had passed the greater part of the dark hours upon her knees 
 in prayer. And when the first glimmer of pale light had 
 peeped forth from the eastern sky, Katinka, over- wearied and 
 stupified by sorrow, had fallen asleep, but still murmured 
 complainingly in her slumber, while Anielka stood beside her 
 bed, pallid and lovely as a mourning angel, and looked down 
 pityingly on the fair young blossom which a gust of the wind 
 of misfortune was whirling from its native glades. Unselfish 
 as she was pure, Anielka had resolved to crush down the flood 
 of grief that welled up from her own heart, and to repress every 
 sign of woe, that she might the better be able to cheer and 
 console her father and sister in their common calamity. But 
 when Anielka caught sight of old Jacob's sad face and 
 trembling hands, and saw the feeble show of meeting them 
 with his usual fond and hearty greeting which the poor 
 merchant thought it necessary to make, she flew across the 
 room, and flung her arms round his neck, with such a fearful 
 but involuntary burst of sorrow as it would have made even 
 Prince Jargonoff's heart ache to listen to. Jacob sprang up 
 hastily, and clasping the fainting girl in his aged arms, laid her 
 on a sofa. Katinka knelt beside her sister, wringing her hands 
 in very terror and agony, and old Yaska ran screaming from 
 the other end of the room, where she had been busy with some 
 preparations for the morning meal, and hurried to her nurse- 
 ling's side. Every restorative at hand, every care that affec- 
 tion could inspire, was used before Anielka evinced any sign of 
 reviving consciousness. Her brow and cheeks were as cold as 
 if it were really the damp of death that had chilled them, and 
 her slender white fingers lay nerveless and icy in the warm 
 hands of Katinka. Her father gazed upon her with tenderness 
 and alarm, and Yaska, while seeking for every available 
 remedy which her experience suggested, implored the aid of 
 every saint whose name she could recollect. Anielka reco- 
 vered so far as to open her dark eyes, and weakly essay to 
 raise herself. Yaska supported her in her arms, and by de- 
 grees she seemed to gain sufficient strength to enable her to dis- 
 tinguish the faces of those around her, and to breathe more 
 freely. As her senses returned, however, she shuddered 
 visibly, like one who has just awakened from some hideous 
 
THE RUSSIA OF TO-DAY. 91 
 
 nightmare of a dream. " Thank heaven, it is not true," she 
 murmured in a low tremulous tone. 
 
 "What is not true, dearest?" whispered Katinka, whose 
 light tresses brushed her sister's blanched cheek. 
 
 " What I fancied I saw," answered Anielka, feebly, and with 
 an expression of unconquerable horror and disgust ; " I thought 
 I was dead, and wrapped in a shroud, and lying on a bier in a 
 poor hut, a hut more miserable than any in the quarter of the 
 ' Black People.' And there were candles burning dimly at my 
 feet and near my head, and a cross lay upon my breast, but 
 there was silence around, and no watchers were near me. I 
 tried to cry aloud, but a heavy hand, as if of lead, pressed 
 upon my heart, and my lips could not move. And then I was 
 in a grave, oh, so damp and cold !" 
 
 "No, no, dearest!" answered Katinka, gently, "you are 
 safe, you are with us, with our father and Katinka, here at 
 home." 
 
 " Home !" said Anielka, " yes, I am at home, but the place 
 I saw was not home, and this dear old room " And she looked 
 gladly around her, and then shuddered again, for she remem- 
 bered what in her brief moment of unconsciousness she had 
 forgotten, that on that morning they were all to bid farewell to 
 their beloved dwelling-place. Jacob took one of Anielka's 
 hands in his, and gazed on her with the most anxious solici- 
 tude, a solicitude which lasted even when her strength had so 
 much returned as to permit her to sit up without difficulty. 
 There is nothing so contagious as sadness, especially if the 
 feeling of melancholy be never so slightly alloyed with super- 
 stition. In Anielka's dream old Jacob fancied a vague fore- 
 boding of misfortune, which moved him more than all his 
 former trials, and which caused him to peer earnestly into his 
 daughter's beautiful face for the signs of some undermining 
 disease, for the hectic spot, or the unnaturally bright eye, 
 those early, deceptive signs which mark the canker in the bud. 
 Old Jacob's blood grew cold as he thought involuntarily, 
 " What if my hopes for the future should be blighted ! what if 
 she should never come back from Malorossia !" But he 
 banished the idea as an unwelcome intruder, and really felt 
 comforted when he saw Anielka almost completely recovered, 
 but still tenderly cared for by Katinka, who forgot her .own 
 woes in her sister's sufferings. Yaska busied herself in pre- 
 paring the breakfast, for the time was fast approaching when 
 
02 THE SERF-SISTERS; OR, 
 
 the family would no longer be left the arbiters of their own 
 actions. It was a melancholy reunion around the breakfast- 
 table on that fatal morning, and the more wretched that it was 
 one of those occasions on which every member of a circle feels 
 bound to make a sickly attempt at cheerfulness or indifference, 
 to raise the spirits of the rest. In the present case, there was 
 no exception to the rule. Such dismal essays at conversation, 
 such harmlessly hypocritical affectations of partaking of the 
 delicacies with which poor Yaska, like most peasants in 
 seasons of affliction, had loaded the table, have seldom been 
 witnessed, let us hope. Jacob tried to smile and speak hope- 
 fully of the happy days yet in store for them. Anielka, vexed 
 with herself for having so signally failed to overpower her feel- 
 ings, did her best to seem sanguine as to their speedy return to 
 St. Petersburg, and pretended to talk of their absence from 
 home as a mere temporary sojourn, while her aching heart 
 contradicted every word she said. Katinka's eyes wandered 
 incessantly around the room, lingering on all the inanimate 
 things which refined and adorned the chamber, and which she 
 had never prized so much as now, and then she would start 
 like a guilty thing, and dropping her glance on her plate or 
 her teacup, would affect to be exceedingly hungry and unem- 
 barrassed. Yaska hovered about the doorway, pressing her 
 apron to her eyes when she thought herself unobserved. And 
 Time moved on with his equal, measured tread, that never 
 slackens nor hurries, whether it brings nearer the rosy dawn 
 of a joyful bridal day, or the ghastly morn that visits the 
 condemned wretch shivering on his dungeon pallet, and calls 
 on him to awaken and die. 
 
 Ten o'clock struck, the heavy beats of the massive hammer 
 that swung in a neighbouring belfry seeming to strike on the 
 very hearts of the listeners. ,The hour was come. A note from 
 Muller had warned the Petrovich family to be ready at ten, and 
 had announced his intention of coming in search of them. 
 Five minutes passed, and then five more. Old Jacob had laid 
 his watch upon the table, and appeared to be counting the 
 seconds as they flew by at racing speed, and yet with such 
 regular swiftness. Not a word was spoken, not a finger 
 moved. Every tick of the large gold repeater was distinctly 
 heard, and the two fair girls and the aged man sat listening 
 with painful attention to the sound, which the fleeting seconds, 
 those minute grains of golden sand that fill the hourglass of 
 
THE RUSSIA OF TO-DAY. 93 
 
 life, and by which, though we heed them not, our existence is 
 measured out, made as they fell one by one into the shadowy 
 gulf of eternity. How slowly, yet how rapidly, did those 
 drops of Time's ebbing life-blood trickle away ! Every individual 
 moment expanded into the proportions of a cycle, and yet how 
 quickly did the tiny indicator glide along the dial-plate ! It is 
 true that we note not the evanescent duration of seconds, yet 
 this blindness is a mercy. To think habitually of the transi- 
 tion of moments would be as bewildering a task for the mind as 
 it is for the imagination to conceive the overpowering ideas of 
 infinity and eternity. Were such a strain upon the intellect 
 possible, madness could be the only result. Unhappy is the 
 man who is forced involuntarily to count seconds as they flit by . 
 It is only at the foot of the scaffold, beside the bed-side of a 
 dying friend, or when ruin and fortune are trembling in the 
 balance, and one's future fate depends upon the turn of a card, 
 the speed of a horse, or the verdict of a jury, that seconds are 
 appreciated and marked. 
 
 So great was the mental anguish which the Petrovich family 
 endured during some twelve or fifteen minutes after the clock 
 had struck the hour, that when a rattling of wheels was heard 
 along the street, and several vehicles drew up in front of the 
 house, it was with actual relief from the painful suspense they 
 had undergone that the merchant and his daughters rose from 
 their places around the almost untasted breakfast. Suspense, 
 at least, existed no longer. There was a peal at the bell; 
 Yaska opened the door, and immediately Muller's hoarse voice 
 was heard calling out to ask if the family were ready. Anielka 
 and Katinka hastened to array themselves in the long travel- 
 ling mantles and furred pelisses which they had prepared for 
 the journey, while Yaska and the housekeeper carried out 
 sundry packages which composed the modest baggage of the 
 family. There were four light waggons before the door, two 
 of which were laden with champagne, hampers of Bordeaux, 
 and various delicacies for the table, destined for the use of 
 Prince JargonofF, as well as a most heterogeneous cargo of 
 shawls, Lyons brocaded silks, French novels, new music, artifi- 
 cial flowers, lace, bonnets, gloves, and perfumery, which im- 
 portations from the West were to gratify the caprices of 
 Princess Beatrice. The third waggon was occupied by old 
 Muller and his son, and the fourth was designed to transport 
 the merchant and his daughters to the banks of the Dnieper. 
 
94 THE SERF-SISTERS ; OR, 
 
 Each vehicle was drawn by three strong horses of a hardy 
 Cossack breed, and driven by a stout fellow in the gaudy 
 livery of the JargonofFs. 
 
 In a very short time old Jacob and his children came forth, 
 the merchant leaning on his staff, and with his furred cap 
 drawn down over his brow, in which the last few days had 
 ploughed more furrows than all the years that had preceded 
 them. Katinka walked beside her father, affording him the 
 slight support of her girlish arm, and watching lest his totter- 
 ing limbs should suddenly fail to bear the weight, to which, 
 for the first time, they seemed unequal. For few of us pass 
 by a gradual transition from childhood to adolescence, or from 
 vigour to dotage. An hour of trial nobly supported, a moment 
 of danger gallantly confronted, anything that calls for moral 
 courage and self-control, will at once convert the stripling into 
 the man. An accident, a fit of severe illness, a worldly 
 calamity, transmutes those whom decay has but slightly 
 shaken into infirm and broken wrecks, the shadows of their 
 former selves. Anielka followed, pale but tearless. Yaska, 
 with a pile of cloaks and fur mantles, was already beside the 
 waggon. The housekeeper stood on the^ door step, trying 
 hard not to cry, and gasping spasmodically from time to time. 
 Muller was in high good humour, for him at least, and had 
 waited five or six minutes without expressing much impatience, 
 but the sight of Jacob's tardy and uncertain gait was more 
 than the steward's equanimity could endure. 
 
 " Hascally old snail !"he roared at the top of his hard voice ; 
 "what do you mean by crawling along in that x sluggish way, 
 and delaying your master's intendant by your slowness? 
 Move quicker, you swindling huckster! or I'll hasten your 
 pace, I promise you." And the steward shook his cane fiercely 
 at the old merchant, who scarcely seemed to see or he^-r him, 
 so absorbed was he in the grief of this last farewell to his 
 home. The old man was seated in the waggon, and Katinka 
 next took her place, not noticing George Muller, who, with an 
 impudent leer upon his coarse face, had come up to the side of 
 the vehicle, and who had proffered his - assistance to help the 
 sisters to mount the rude conveyance. 
 
 As with a grin and a grotesque semblance of courtesy, the 
 young man offered the aid of his arm to Anielka, she stepped 
 back and looked him in the face, with such a calm and quiet 
 dignity, rendered still more touching by her mourning gar- 
 
THE IIUSSIA OF TO-DAY. 95 
 
 ments and sad face, that the Prussian involuntarily recoiled, 
 and touched his hat, sullenly but respectfully. Aiiielka 
 assumed her place, and Yaska followed. The spell was broken 
 which had awed the vulgar libertine, and he felt angry with 
 himself and furious with her whose calm grace had awed him 
 into propriety of demeanour. Stamping his foot upon the 
 ground as he turned away, George Muller uttered a savage 
 oath, and inwardly swore that his humiliation before a serf's 
 daughters should be bitterly avenged. He regained his place 
 beside his father, and drawing his hat over his eyes, lighted 
 his ponderous Leipsic meerschaum, and smoked silently and 
 doggedly. The whips of the drivers cracked, and the willing 
 horses broke into a trot. Katinka and Anielka strained their 
 gaze to get a last lingering look at the old house as the wag- 
 gons rolled quickly down the street. Old Jacob never turned 
 his head, but sat motionless, and apparently unconscious. At 
 first the broad thoroughfares were nearly empty, and the 
 waggons could proceed at a swifter pace than is usual in a 
 great city, but farther on the number of foot passengers in- 
 creased considerably, and the drivers were obliged to curtail 
 the trot into a walk. When they traversed the Admiralty 
 Square, they found it more than half filled with troops, newly 
 arrived from the Baltic coasts, and about to march against the 
 Turks. 
 
 On a platform covered with purple cloth stood the Emperor, 
 as usual in full uniform, and with the grand crosses of several 
 high orders of knighthood ornamenting his broad chest. 
 Behind the Czar were veteran officers of rank, and priests in 
 flowing robes, evidently gathered for some occasion of cere- 
 mony. As the waggons halted, and the whole imposing 
 spectacle became visible to the Petrovich family, the Czar, who 
 had been addressing the troops with great animation, concluded 
 his oration. There was a moment's silence, and then a roll of 
 the drums, hollow, abrupt, and startling. In an instant every 
 soldier sank upon his knees, bending low his head so as almost 
 to lie prostrate in his abject humility before the Emperor, 
 while he lifted his eyes with a gaze of awe-struck -adoration to 
 the countenance of his sovereign. The banners were drooped 
 to the earth, the officers crouched in the dust, and the troops 
 gazed on the Czar as pagans gaze on their enshrined idol. 
 And then the Pontiff Emperor, slowly spreading out his hands 
 above the heads of the nearest soldiers, in a sonorous voice 
 
06 THE SERF-SISTERS ; OR, 
 
 pronounced his fervent benediction on the kneeling mass, 
 solemnly blessed them and their holy enterprise, and in lan- 
 guage presumptuous enough to have shocked any but the 
 ignorant beings he addressed, invoked the aid of heaven 
 in his and their cause. The drums beat again, and the square 
 of armed men arose. They uttered a shout of acclamation 
 that made the neighbouring buildings resound, and then 
 marched off, radiant and stupidly confident, to their barracks 
 without the walls. 
 
 The Emperor mounted his horse, and followed by his 
 glittering staff, rode away. He passed very near the spot 
 where the carriages were waiting till the police should allow 
 vehicles to pass on across the square. His quick glance roved 
 over the waggons, and recognising the Jargonoff liveries worn 
 by the drivers, took note of the occupants of these simple 
 conveyances. The rare beauty of the sisters arrested his 
 attention, and he half checked his horse as he contemplated 
 them. For a moment the eyes of Anielka Petrovich en- 
 countered those of Nicholas Romanoff, in which shone a look 
 of curiosity and surprise. For a moment the virtuous, per- 
 secuted maiden and the unscrupulous Kaiser looked upon each 
 other, while Anielka's bosom thrilled with the thought that 
 she was in the immediate presence of the powerful autocrat 
 whose word would have sufficed to frustrate all Prince Jar- 
 gonoff's malignity. She half raised herself, and was in the act 
 of opening her lips to utter an imploring cry for pity and pro- 
 tection to the great monarch before her, when the Czar 
 mistaking her suppliant attitude for one of reverence, returned 
 a gracious salutation to the supposed mark of respect, and, 
 loosening his rein, disappeared in an instant. Anielka sank 
 back, again into her seat, and her heart- wrung prayer for aid 
 died away upon her lips in a scarce audible groan. The 
 police allowed the drivers to proceed, and the waggons, advanc- 
 ing at a slow trot, were soon without the walls of St. Peters- 
 burg and rolling down the Moscow road. 
 
 CHAPTER XIY. 
 
 THE journey which interposed itself between t. Petersburg 
 and Kiew could not by the most moderate computation occupy 
 1 ess than six weeks, even with a frequent change of horses, 
 
THE RUSSIA OF TO-DAY. 97 
 
 which Prince JargonofPs numerous estates afforded unusual 
 opportunities for obtaining. At Novgorod, at Tver, near 
 Moscow, near Orel, and at Berezna, the prince owned lands 
 which he rarely visited, but which were under the manage- 
 ment of bailiffs. When Muller arrived at one of these friendly 
 havens, he was always received with that fawning subser- 
 viency which a Russian rarely fails to exhibit towards those 
 from whom he has something to hope or to fear, and was, 
 moreover, enabled to leave behind him his tired horses, and 
 replace them by fresh teams. The monotony of the journey 
 alone would have made it far from agreeable, even to persons 
 travelling on a more cheerful errand than Jacob Petrovich and 
 his daughters. Russia in Europe scarcely contains a moun- 
 tain, or even a hill, to break the uniformity of its illimitable 
 flats, as level as the plains of Flanders and Lombardy, but 
 wanting the rich vegetation and marvellous husbandry which 
 give an interest, politico-economical rather than artistical, to 
 the vast nursery-garden districts which form the boast of 
 Italy and Belgium. In Flanders, too, if the pilgrim sees no 
 wooded eminences or craggy peaks, he at least beholds num- 
 berless Gothic belfry -turrets of the most airy and graceful con- 
 structure, cloud-piercing spires, and cities, some of w r hose 
 most ancient houses have facades carved like a cameo. In 
 Lombardy, the hoary towns nestling within their broad-built 
 Roman ramparts ; the ruined' arches, the venerable cathedrals 
 on which the patient toil of generations was expended, make 
 the traveller forget the glare of the arrow-straight Emilian 
 Way, and the sameness of the rich swamps of rice, flax, and 
 Indian corn. But Russia offers few attractions to the anti- 
 quary or the landscape-painter. Her ancient associations are 
 of no value, even to her natives. People go mad about the 
 Greeks and Romans, and mourn over the Parthenon and the 
 Golden House of Nero. Englishmen are not unfrequently 
 quite enthusiastic on the subject of their hardy Scandinavian 
 forefathers, and love to follow in imagination their migrations 
 from Norwegian holms and Danish "oes;" but who cares 
 about the good old days of Russia ! It is only a few years 
 since the ancestors of the Muscovites were more than half 
 Pagan, barbarous, unwashed savages ; their squalor and their 
 heathenish propensities have descended to too near our own 
 epoch to be mellowed by distance or gilded by romance ; and 
 probably the modern Russians take the wisest course when 
 they varnish themselves over with that French polish which 
 
98 THE SERF-SISTERS ; OR, 
 
 was too flimsy to deceive the eagle eye of Napoleon, forget the 
 past altogether, and start up a bran new, imitative people. 
 
 As regards the scenery of the greater part of the empire, it 
 is saddening rather than interesting. Boundless forests of 
 black pine trees are succeeded by measureless plains of corn- 
 land, and these again by pastures as colossally monotonous as 
 Salisbury Plain, which are flanked by some more thousands of 
 square versts of fir-trees, while a huge, winding, slowly-flow- 
 ing river occasionally diversifies the prospect. Through these 
 dreary alternations of forest and plough-land, the Petrovieh 
 family travelled for some seven or eight hours daily ; and as 
 each succeeding league seemed to forge a new link in the chain 
 that bound them, their spirits sank, if possible, to a still lower 
 pitch than before, and their involuntary hopes of a return from 
 slavery were crushed as soon as they were formed. Not that 
 the acute grief which had lacerated their hearts on the day 
 which witnessed their departure from the capital had con- 
 tinued in all its poignancy of suffering. The mental nerves, 
 like those of the body, are, by a merciful foresight, unable to 
 endure more than a certain degree or duration of pain. Agony 
 becomes blunted by prolongation, and that which was meant to 
 torture merely stuns. To the pangs of parting from a home so 
 dear and a life so blissful, with little chance of regaining the 
 one or the other of these blessings, had succeeded a less keen 
 but more constant feeling of misery, such as casts a shadow 
 between its victim and the glorious sunshine, and robs the 
 flower of its perfume, the bird's carol of its melody, and the 
 west wind of its freshness. After a day passed in rolling 
 through dark glades, or fields, above whose surface the sprout- 
 ing corn scarcely showed its myriad heads of green, the train 
 of waggons would stop in the dirty street of some village on 
 the high road, and Jacob and his daughters would be inducted 
 into the same smoky and heated apartment of the wretched 
 inn, as that in which old Muller and his estimable son were 
 awaiting their supper. And let not the word "inn" suggest 
 to the reader a clean, unpretending, rustic hostelry, such as 
 may still be found in some nooks of England, with its sanded 
 floors of white deal, its deep, lozenge-paned, red-curtained 
 windows, its sweet blossomed garden, tidy motherly Iandlad3 r , 
 and porch clustered over with roses and honeysuckles. Neither 
 let the idea of a trim Elienish Gast Hans, or of a rural auberge 
 in southern France, present itself to any sanguine imagination. 
 A Mexican posada or an Irish shebeen-house, perhaps but 
 
THE KUSSIA OF TO-DAY. VV 
 
 no ; there is no type for a Russian inn*. Fancy a dingy, smoke- 
 dried wooden hut, containing some half-dozen rooms, and 
 housing perhaps ten adults, a host of children, and a swarm of 
 domestic animals, poultry, pigs, dogs, pigeons, and a cow. 
 Imagine this delectable hostel to be in perfect innocence of 
 paint, of paper-hangings, of soap and scrubbing-brushes its 
 temperature that of a vapour-bath its passages filled with 
 smoke and steam, its floors begrimed, its flock-beds alive with 
 blood-sucking tormentors, its close rooms reeking with the 
 odours of bad tobacco, oil, onions, fat, brandy, and burnt 
 tallow, imagine this den the rendezvous of all the intoxicated 
 boors of the village, drinking, howling out songs, and stamping 
 up and down with their linden-bark shoes ; fancy it resounding 
 with the revelry of men, the squalling or the noisy play of 
 children, the barking, crowing, cooing and clucking, lowing 
 and grunting of its four-footed tenants ; add to these horrors 
 those of a cookery whose chef-d'ceuvres would have sickened a 
 Hottentot, a hag of a hostess, scolding and boozing, a brutal 
 host, a couple of rough lads for waiters and hostlers, and two 
 or three slatternly handmaidens, usually romping on the stairs 
 with the young boors of the neighbourhood, and you may 
 form a faint picture of what the merchant's unhappy daughters 
 must have endured in such a hideous Pandemonium. To add 
 to these unavoidable discomforts, at these halting-places the 
 sisters were exposed to no trifling annoyances from the rough 
 persecutions of young Muller. 
 
 On the road, the only person with whom the family had any 
 communication was the servant who drove them, and who was, 
 like his three liveried companions, a good-natured, harmless 
 fellow enough, who would have been a passive instrument of 
 evil in the hand of his master, but who would never have 
 originated any scheme of wrong-doing, and was civil when left 
 to his own choice. He was a good type of a large section of 
 his countrymen, blindly obedient, but by no means naturally 
 cruel or mischievous. Unprompted, he would not have wan- 
 tonly trodden on a worm ; but at Muller's or Prince JargonofFs 
 orders he would have perpetrated any act, however shocking, 
 without remorse or hesitation. He had not been commanded 
 to ill-treat his passengers : and, as far as his own opinion w r ent, 
 he rather liked them than otherwise. 
 
 George Muller, however, was of a different mould. Accus- 
 tomed to the half-civilized manners and deficient morality of 
 the serf -maidens of Malorossia, the calm composure with which 
 H 2 
 
100 THE SEBF-SISTEBS ; OB, 
 
 the daughters of Jacob Petrovich had repulsed his advances 
 had piqued him deeply. He hated Anielka, whose quiet dig- 
 nity checked his boorish gallantry, and abashed him in spite of 
 himself. She was too clever, too superior in mind and refine- 
 ment, also, for him to keep alive the spark which her remark- 
 able beauty had first kindled in his brutal bosom. But Ka- 
 tinka, who had more of earth and less of heaven in her nature, 
 who was less an angel and more a woman than Anielka, was 
 now the object of George Muller's admiration. He made a 
 bravado of tormenting Anielka with his addresses ; but it was 
 more in spite than in love, and he never lost an opportunity of 
 persecuting Katinka. Old Jacob was no fitting protector for 
 two lovely and undefended girls; for, independently of his 
 age, and the benumbing shock his faculties had undergone, 
 at every step that brought him nearer his native village, that 
 hated, dreaded spot of ground to which he was shackled by the 
 chain of soil-bound servitude, his spirit sank lower, and his 
 submission became more abject and timid. The fact was, 'that 
 by degrees he was forgetting the years of comparative freedom 
 he had enjoyed, and the early lessons of slavery lessons taught 
 by the gyve and the lash presented themselves in vivid 
 colours to his memory, and bewildered his reason. He began 
 to consider it a law of nature that there should be a class born 
 to rule and to inflict pain, and another doomed to submit and 
 to endure. His birth had placed him in the latter category, 
 and he bowed his head, cowed and trembling, to the yoke. 
 George Muller was more guarded in his behaviour when 
 Jacob was present ; but often did the old merchant pass over 
 without comment insolent jests or compliments addressed to 
 his daughters, both by old Muller and his son, which in St. 
 Petersburg he would have resented with just indignation. Do 
 you blame him for his pusillanimity ? Alas ! you have never 
 lived a serf on the estate of a Russian prince ! 
 
 The journey was, as may be supposed, a painful one to 
 Anielka and Katinka. On the twentieth day, at Toula, Hans 
 Muller was surprised at meeting an old acquaintance, Hamed, 
 the chief of a caravan of wandering Tartars, who had left 
 St. Petersburg a day or two before the steward of Prince Jar- 
 gonoff. Hamed was well known throughout the European por- 
 tion of the Czar's Empire. He brought tea, Persian brocade, 
 Indian shawls, Siberian furs, and curiosities from China to 
 Prince Jargonoff's palace. Muller had often dealt with him, 
 and entertained more respect for him than for any born Mus- 
 
THE BTTSSIA OF TO-DAY. 101 
 
 covite. Accordingly, on hearing that the caravan was bound 
 for Kiew, Muller invited Hamed to travel to the swamps of the 
 Dnieper in company with his own waggon train. The Tartar 
 agreed readily, for the pace of his own cars and packhorses was 
 such as would suit with Muller 's rate of journeying ; and on 
 the following day the four waggons of the steward and the 
 troop of nomad traders started together from Toula. 
 Hamed, who rode a shaggy horse in front of his cavalcade, 
 flitted around the party like a hawk upon the wing, now 
 chatting in his purest Russian with Muller, now peering at 
 Jacob and his children, and then dropping back to join his own 
 caravan, but never in the same position for five minutes at a 
 time. During a mid-day halt at the hamlet of Ivanofskoe, 
 twenty versts from Orel, where the troop had stopped to rest 
 beneath the dark green boughs of a pine grove, Katinka was 
 sitting beside a little waterfall, where the pure stream came 
 trickling through the hollowed trunks of trees, which, placed 
 in line, formed a sylvan aqueduct, when a Tartar emerged 
 from the underwood so abruptly as to cause her to utter a 
 faint scream. The man, wrapped, notwithstanding the compa- 
 rative warmth of the day, in a thick pelisse of wolf skins, and 
 with an Astracan bonnet drawn down over his eyes, ap- 
 proached so near that Katinka was about to cry aloud for 
 assistance to the party who were bivouacking in the grove, 
 against one whose appearance and movements were so sus- 
 picious, when the Tartar, perceiving her intention, placed his 
 hand so suddenly upon her lips that the cry was checked 
 before it could find utterance. Poor Katinka struggled to 
 escape from the mysterious barbarian, and pushing him from 
 her with her whole force, was about to raise an alarm which 
 would have brought half the loiterers beneath the pine glades 
 to the spot, when the supposed Tartar flung off his Calmuc 
 bonnet and grey pelisse, and it was Mark Forster that knelt at 
 the feet of Katinka Petrovich, clasping her hand, and looking 
 fondly into her face. 
 
 " Mark !" exclaimed Katinka, overcome with the joyful sur- 
 prise, and bursting into tears, " you here? O how glad I am!" 
 And the poor girl sat down on the rocky bank from which she 
 had risen, and cried more bitterly at seeing her lover again 
 than at all the affronts she had undergone from George Muller. 
 It was long before Mark could soothe her, and induce her to 
 compose her nerves sufficiently to enable her to listen to his 
 tale, and hear the hopes which he had formed for the future 
 
102 THE SERF-SISTEBS ; OK, 
 
 At length Katinka became more calm, and the pleasure of 
 seeing one who was not only her betrothed husband, but also 
 a true friend to her afflicted father and sister, brought back all 
 the colour to her pale check, and all the lustre to her blue 
 eyes, wiiose sparkle had been lamentably dimmed since Muller 
 had first made his forcible entry into the peaceful home which 
 his inroad had rendered desolate. For a long time the lovers 
 sat together on the moss-grown bank, talking over the past, 
 while the future blended itself inextricably with the present in 
 their conversation. Mark's plan was a simple one. It was to 
 separate himself from the troop of Tartars as soon as they 
 should all have arrived at Kiew, to remain in that city, in his 
 present disguise, or in some other, until a favourable opportu- 
 nity for evading the vigilance of the active police should occur, 
 and then to escape with Katinka, her sister, and old Jacob, to 
 the nearest port on the Black Sea, where a small vessel might 
 easily be hired to convey them all to Constantinople, where 
 safety and freedom awaited them. And Mark never seemed to 
 get tired of telling, nor Katinka of listening, to the young 
 man's projects for a happy and contented life in England, how 
 Anielka and Jacob should be established with his old aunt in 
 Cumberland, how Katinka and himself should be married at 
 Carlisle, and how he should become chief engineer of an Irish 
 railway, a post which he had been offered while still at St. Pe- 
 tersburg, and which was to prove but the stepping-stone to 
 something better. And then the young Englishman pressed 
 Katinka to tell him all that had happened in the early part of 
 her journey, and how poor Jacob and Anielka, whom he had 
 not dared to approach for fear of recognition, bore the priva- 
 tions and evils of their exile. Katinka tried to make as light as 
 she could of her own sufferings, but the tears that rebelliously 
 gushed up into her blue eyes when she spoke of the misery of 
 her father and sister, were evidence enough to teach Mark 
 what they had all been forced to endure, and his lip quivered, 
 and tears stood in his bold dark eyes as he heard the artless 
 story which Katinka told. With the tact of a true woman, she 
 touched very slightly upon the persecution which she was 
 exposed to from the libertine son of the steward ; but little as she 
 said about young Muller and his conduct, still Mark's Anglo- 
 Saxon blood mantled darkly in his cheeks, and his eyes flashed 
 in a manner that George Muller would have by no means 
 approved of. The shouts of the drivers, who had missed 
 Katinka from the company, and were about to resume their 
 
THE EUSSIA OF TO-DAY. 103 
 
 journey, warned the lovers at last of the necessity for parting. 
 Marie hurriedly clasped Katinka in his arms, kissed her pout- 
 ing lips, and with a word of encouragement mingling with his 
 farewell, resumed his disguise, and plunged into the wood. 
 George Muller wondered when Katinka rejoined the troop 
 what made her eyes so bright, and gave her blooming cheeks so 
 fresh and rosy a colour. 
 
 CHAPTEE XV. 
 
 WHEN Katinka had, in the fulness of her innocent joy, des- 
 canted to Mark upon the happiness which her father and 
 sister would experience on hearing that their English friend 
 had followed them to the South, and was determined if possible 
 to save them, Mark had strenuously urged upon the impulsive 
 girl the absolute necessity for caution. He did not attempt to 
 dissuade her from confiding the secret to Anielka, whose ad- 
 mirable firmness of disposition he appreciated ; but he earnestly 
 begged her on no account, for the present at least, to mention 
 to old Jacob his presence or his intentions. He urged that 
 the merchant's benumbed faculties, and the state of vague 
 terror into which he had fallen, were not such as to warrant 
 his being entrusted with the knowledge of a fact on which so 
 much depended, and which could only add to Jacob's mental 
 perturbation, and perhaps lead to a fatal discovery. Accord- 
 ingly Katinka sought out an opportunity of communicating to 
 her sister the intelligence of the young Englishman's presence 
 in disguise among the Dressing-gown Tartars ; and Anielka 
 reluctantly agreed with her as to the propriety of not en- 
 lightening Jacob Petrovich upon the subject. It was a hard 
 necessity for both the girls ; for, like many maidens who have 
 lost their mothers in infancy, they had been in the habit of 
 confiding their thoughts and hopes to their surviving parent ; 
 and to keep a secret from the indulgent old father, who had 
 humoured their fancies and forestalled their wishes so long, 
 seemed at first sight a treason that nothing could excuse. But 
 Mark's arguments were just, and it was impossible even for 
 filial partiality to deny that it would be cruel to add to the aged 
 merchant's distress of mind by informing him that another 
 person was running the most fearful risks for his sake and that 
 of his daughters ; while it was extremely probable that the old 
 man would, by his affright, lest the consequences of Mark's 
 defiance of the Czar's authority should be severely visited on 
 
104 THE SEBF-SISTERS ; OH, 
 
 Katinka, actually excite the suspicions of Muller, and cause 
 the detection of the adventurer. At almost every halting-place 
 during the remainder of the journey, Katinka, accompanied by 
 Anielka, would contrive to separate herself unperceived from 
 the rest of the caravan, and gliding among the avenues of the 
 never-failing pine woods, would meet Mark, who was ever 
 watchful for the chance of an interview with his plighted 
 bride ; and for a short space half forget her sorrows while in- 
 dulging in day-dreams for the future. Thus the party pro- 
 ceeded southwards, the long train of packhorses and waggons 
 serpentining slowly across the plains, until the sable masses of 
 forest began to give way to immense steppes, grazed by countless 
 herds, enamelled by millions of wild flowers, and decked with 
 the long and waving grass of spring. In these prairies the 
 climate seemed somewhat warmer than among the fir-woods to 
 the north ; and, as the sun had really attained considerable 
 power, no trace of snow was to be seen. On the travellers 
 went across the steppes, where the breeze rustled pleasantly 
 through the long grass, where the bees from a thousand hives 
 hovered around the cups of the wild flowers, where the hum of 
 multitudinous insect life mingled with the bellowing and bleat- 
 ing that proceeded from innumerable herds and flocks, and 
 where the bustard would occasionally start from some still 
 pool beside the road, and rush off as swiftly as an ostrich across 
 the boundless savannahs. Wow and then, too, the caravan 
 would wend through some vast meadow of emerald green, 
 whose succulent grass fed a phalanx of half- wild horses that 
 moved in obedience to the screaming neigh and haughty 
 prancing of some noble old steed, whose ample tail streamed 
 forth like a pasha's banner as he galloped around the obedient 
 herd. Frequently these assemblages of savage coursers would 
 number several hundreds of fine animals, who, with manes 
 and tails flying in the wind, would either crop the luxuriant 
 herbage, or career in squadrons over the steppe, bounding 
 along in all the unrestrained freedom and gracefulness of un- 
 shackled liberty, and filling the air with their shrill neighings 
 that pealed like trumpet-calls over the smiling prairies. It was 
 curious on these occasions to watch the herdsman, almost as 
 savage in nature and look as the high-mettled animals whose 
 guardian he was, mounted on a powerful half-broken horse, 
 which he sat like a Centaur, a coil of cordage at his saddle-bow, 
 a short, heavy wolf-club swinging beside it, a long knife at his 
 belt, and a tremendous whip in his hand. These strange jtygg^:- : , 
 
THE BTTSSIA OF TO-DAY. 105 
 
 whosehigh wages scarcely compensate themfor the fearful fatigue 
 incidental to their trade, and who, living on horseback like the 
 Mongols, watch their herds night and day during the whole 
 summer season, would sometimes ride up to the troop of tra- 
 vellers to ask for news, or to beg tobacco. Then, having filled 
 their smoking-pouches or heard the last report on the subject 
 of the war, they would dash away with a loud yell, cracking 
 their whips till the reports rang like pistol-shots, and follow 
 their charges, keeping a keen look-out for any tawny wolf 
 hiding in the grass to surprise a young colt, or for a bustard 
 which they might pursue and kill with a stroke of the whip. 
 At last the reedy banks of the Borysthenes were approached, 
 and at Brovary, twenty versts from Kiew, the two parties 
 separated from each other, the Dressing-gown Tartars pro- 
 ceeding towards the city, while Muller turned off towards the 
 village of Khopol, a hamlet built at the junction of the Desna 
 with the Borysthenes, and where Prince Menschikoff usually 
 resided. Had it not been for the good nature of Hamed the 
 Tartar, there would have been no possibility of a leave-taking 
 between Mark and Katinka ; but the kind-hearted wanderer 
 really took an interest in the young couple, and persuaded 
 Muller, against his original design, to stay a few hours at 
 Brovary for refreshment, by which means a final interview was 
 secured to the lovers. Mark parted from Katinka with the 
 greatest regret ; but he attempted to console himself and her 
 with the reflection that he should be within a few miles of the 
 prince's estate, that he should easily be able to devise means 
 to visit her during her sojourn at Khopol, and that he should 
 soon be able to find an opportunity for escaping to the sea- 
 coast, and bearing away the victims of feudal tyranny beyond 
 the reach of their lordly oppressors. With these assurances on 
 Mark's part, and many tears on that of Katinka, the lovers 
 bade each other farewell, and an hour afterw--r-ls 1^ 
 quitted Hamed and his nomad band, and struck -. ss- 
 
 road leading to Khopol, which was at a dista 
 twenty-five miles to the westward. The actual spa 
 between Brovary and Khopol was not great, but the 
 road was so filled with deep mud and intersected n 
 ruts, that the horses could only proceed at a wall 
 midway was indispensably necessary to recruit th 
 by rest and corn. Poor Katinka was already c 
 unhappy on account of her parting with Mark ; and 
 misery, she was subjected to more annoyance froir 
 
106 THE SEEF-SISTERS ; OE, 
 
 pursuit of George Muller on that day than on any other. George 
 Muller had been drinking more deeply than usual ; he was 
 elated and triumphant in proportion as he approached the 
 estate where his caprices were almost as much unchecked as 
 those of Prince Jargonoff himself; and during the halt he 
 treated both Katinka and Anielka with the most daring inso- 
 lence. "When they started again it was a period of relief to 
 the sisters, whose unrestrainable tears and agitation even 
 alarmed the dulled perceptions of old Jacob, though he but 
 imperfectly divined their cause; andYaska's indignation knew 
 no bounds. On rolled the waggons over the rough road, the 
 wheels creaking and rattling, and George Muller's drunken 
 voice chanting a Bacchanalian song, until at length a smoother 
 and better kept track presented itself; the horses gladly broke 
 into a trot, while young Muller ceased singing and fett asleep. 
 Just as evening was closing in, the drivers pointed out with 
 their whips the great yellow river, with its marshy and rush- 
 grown banks, the squalid hamlet of Khopol, consisting of about 
 a hundred huts, built of the white porous stone of the steppes, 
 arid boasting no other ornament than an Oriental-looking 
 church, with green walls and a copper dome, covered with 
 tarnished gilding, to which the sun gave back its primitive 
 glitter. About five hundred yards from the village stood a 
 great pile of rambling buildings, forming a sort of hollow 
 square, and capped with fifty turrets and pinnacles, on whose 
 gilded vanes, and on a flag that floated from the highest tower, 
 the slanting rays of the sun fell with a blood-red gleam. This 
 was the palace of Prince Ivan Jargonoff. 
 
 CHAPTEE XVI. 
 
 AROUND a table which exhibited the wrecks of a costly dessert, 
 furnished bv the great hot-houses of the castle, sat three per- 
 soni dress and air announced them as the masters of 
 
 F palace. They were, in effect, the prince himself, 
 L and daughter. The room they occupied was a 
 fty hall, whose ceiling had been painted in fresco 
 idering Italian artist, though the colours were fast 
 r the influence of wood-smoke and the damp 
 le walls were panelled with some dark foreign 
 everal Italian and Dutch paintings, of no small 
 le, hung here and there, as well as a few family 
 
THE KUSSIA OF TO-DAY. 107 
 
 portraits of nobles in furs and gold lace, or in military uniforms, 
 and of ladies in brocaded silks fringed with, ermine. There 
 were no ancient pictures of knights in armour, and dames in 
 stole and wimple, or even of beruffed and velvet-jerkined 
 gallants ; no ladies in hoop and farthingale, such as may be 
 seen in so many halls, schlosses, and chateaux, of the "West. 
 And yet the JargonofFs were of an old family enough, as old, 
 perhaps, as the Rohans and Percies, for their pedigree re- 
 mounted to a traditionary antiquity that few Celts, Welsh, 
 Scotch, Irish, Cornish, Basque, or Breton could have sur- 
 passed in genealogic grandeur. But it was only a couple of 
 centuries since the first civilized member of the family had laid 
 aside his barbarism, and given up his belief in the Prophet 
 of Mecca to embrace the creed of the Russo-Greek church. 
 The Jargonoffs had plenty of ancestors ; they were no mush- 
 rooms ; but the fact was, their forefathers were wide-trousered 
 marauders, the descendants of those valiant khans to whom 
 Timour owed his victories, and portrait painters were not 
 very common among the black tents of the hordes whose 
 steeds were picqueted on the Kipchak five or six hundred 
 years ago. 
 
 It is a curious circumstance that Russia possesses among her 
 aristocracy scarcely one indigenous family. The Muscovite is 
 born a slave, and a slave he remains, while his master is a 
 foreigner. Almost all the nobles of Russia are Tartars, Geor- 
 gians, Turks, Poles, Germans, Swedes anything but Russians. 
 The born Muscovite rarely rises ; Menschikoff is an example 
 to the contrary : but the exceptions are few, and the Teuton, 
 the Sarmatian, and the Tartar shake their whips triumphantly 
 over the cowering Sclavonic race. Poor Russians of the 
 genuine breed, ruled by an Emperor whose ancestors were 
 Norse pirates, belonging to the children of German officers and 
 Mongol robbers, how much more deserving of pity than of 
 hate, are those helots, of whom the Czar makes his tools and 
 puppets ! The Varangian Emperor and the hireling nobles are 
 the true foes of Europe, and even they are divided amongst 
 themselves. But as for the poor Sclaves (they say their national 
 name comes from slava, or glory, but to our ears its very 
 sound smacks of slavery), maddened by drink and fanaticism, 
 or cowed and crushed by severity, who can blame them for the 
 fault of their brutal rulers ? Prince JargonofF was the great 
 great grandson of a Tartar prince, whose father had turned 
 Christian, and who had himself yielded to the dulcet eloquence 
 
108 THE SERF-SISTERS; OR, 
 
 of Peter tlie Great, and permitted his beard to be shaved off 
 by that potentate's own hand. The wealth of the Jargonoffs 
 was great, and under Peter, and Catherine the First, it had 
 augmented, until in every province of the Empire, some estate 
 called a Jargonoff its master. It was not until Prince Ivan, 
 who had received his baptismal name in consequence of the 
 resemblance he bore to the portraits of the Emperor Ivan the 
 Terrible, had succeeded to his dignities, that the prosperity of 
 the family received a sudden check. 
 
 Prince Ivan was a man who, if he had been born in the dark 
 ages of Western European history, would have been the model 
 of a turbulent, independent, feudal baron. Two hundred years 
 earlier, he would have been such an obstinate Boyard as the 
 stoutest Strelitzes could not have subdued. In the nineteenth 
 century he was merely a passive obstacle in the path of Russian 
 centralization. He had feelings and principles more at vari- 
 ance with the levelling theory of the Czar's government than 
 with that of Mazzini himself. He regarded the House of 
 Rurik as interloping aliens, while as for the family of Romanoff, 
 which only claims to rule because of its descent in the female 
 line from the bold Dane, Rurik, to Prince Ivan they seemed 
 usurpers of the blackest dye. He had said openly at St. 
 Petersburg, that the Czar's ancestors had served his own fore- 
 fathers with bowls of milk when they rode haughtily into 
 Moscow, and that the trembling monarchs of Russia had dried 
 with their lips the stains of milk that fell on the necks of the 
 chargers of the Jargonoffs on those occasions. The words 
 were repeated to the Czar, and Prince Ivan was in an honour- 
 able exile at Khopol. If Nicholas Romanoff had an enemy on 
 earth, that enemy was Ivan Jargonoff. Had an aristocratic 
 conspiracy been organized, like that which destroyed Paul, 
 Prince Ivan's strong fingers would willingly have passed 
 around the Emperor's throat the handkerchief that strangled 
 his father. Had the nobles, nine-tenths of whom, that is to 
 say, of the territorial noblesse, not of the official " Tchinn," 
 hate the Czar, raised the standard of revolt, Prince Jargonoffs 
 sword would have shone in the van of their tumultuous array. 
 But, as it was, the great landowner remained a discontented, 
 extravagant, half-ruined tyrant, rich in acres, men, women, 
 cattle, and produce, but poor in money, without which civilized 
 medium he could not obtain from abroad the countless objects 
 which his tastes required. The prince was a man of fifty, 
 spare, strong, and bony, with keen aquiline features, an inhe- 
 
THE KITSSIA OF TO-DAY^ 109 
 
 ritance from his Georgian mother, scanty grey hair, bushy 
 whiskers, and bloodshot eyes, whose red gleam was fiercer 
 than that of a tiger's orbs. He was dressed in one of those 
 pelisses of sable fur commonly worn by Moslems of high rank, 
 his blue trousers were very wide, and slashed with silver, and 
 round his neck hung a gold chain. 
 
 Prince Demetrius, the great noble's only son, was a slightly 
 built young man, with a sallow complexion, brown hair, and a 
 figure so wasted and attenuated by excess, as to seem incapable 
 of supporting its own weight. Dressed in the extreme of Parisian 
 fashion, the emaciated and sickly son offered as great a contrast 
 to his hardy father whose iron constitution the indulgences of 
 the table had hardly sapped as the varnished boots of Prince 
 Demetrius did to the warm Tartar buskins of his sire. 
 
 Demetrius had been a hanger-on of diplomacy from boy- 
 hood ; he had been attached to the Russian embassies every- 
 where, at Stockholm, Naples, London, and the Hague. He 
 had been much admired at Vienna, where he had contrived to 
 ruin his health, and at Paris he had fairly brought himself to 
 the brink of the grave by the dissipations into which Russians 
 often plunge with the desperate recklessness of buccaneers. 
 He had come home degraded, in consequence of his father's 
 disgrace at court, and in a dying state. Yet he drank every 
 day such quantities of wine and liqueurs as flushed even his 
 pallid cheeks, and seemed to know no enjoyment of life save 
 in the paroxysms of some wild debauch. Prince Ivan was 
 proud of his lineage, proud of his Tartar blood, proud of ruling 
 over Russians. Prince Demetrius was ashamed of his bar- 
 barous country, not because he appreciated its evils, or cared 
 for its gangrened rottenness, but because he loved to mingle 
 with the polished throng of butterflies that skim the surface of 
 French society, and his savage parentage often exposed him to 
 jests which galled him to the quick. He liked to use the pri- 
 vileges of a Russian landowner, and at the same time wished 
 to be considered a Parisian viveur, in all the force of the term. 
 The Princess Beatrice differed in appearance from both her 
 father and brother. She was very beautiful, or at least she 
 seemed so to those who only noted the exquisite chiselling of 
 her features, and the fine shape of her head, the glossy rich- 
 ness of her auburn hair, and the deep blue of her handsome 
 eyes. But those who observed her more narrowly could 
 scarcely fail to remark in her thin lips, the frequent quiver of 
 her almost transparent nostrils, and the shape of her slightly 
 
110 THE SEB-SISTERS ; OE, 
 
 receding, though very white, forehead, the seldom failing signs 
 of a cruel and treacherous nature, in which vanity and whim 
 supplied the place of all the warmer and more violent passions. 
 Even the sombre blue of her unquestionably superb eyes had 
 in it something unpleasing, something of the cold lustre that 
 distinguishes the menacing eyes of the hysena. The princess 
 was richly dressed, but in a sort of fantastic exaggeration of 
 the reigning Parisian fashion. Beatrice had the tastes of the 
 Lower Empire, or of the days of Louis Quinze, in all that 
 regards costume and display. No milliner could sew enough 
 costly Flemish lace, or enough fringes and ribbons, on to a 
 robe of hers to content her, and, even in the depths of the 
 provinces, she took her place every day at the dinner-table, 
 with her father and brother for her only companions, more 
 sumptuously attired than if for a royal banquet. She was as 
 fond of jewellery as of lace, and now as she sat nonchalantly 
 thrown back in a deep arm-chair, her fingers flashed with 
 rings, gemmed bracelets decked her rounded arms, and 
 diamonds sparkled at her ears, on her bosom, and around her 
 neck. She could not bear to leave her ornaments in their 
 ecrins, even where their blaze was thrown away upon the 
 company. As she half sat, half reclined, in the languid posi- 
 tion she had assumed, it would have been curious to have 
 contrasted her half-shut eyes and indolent grace with the 
 mechanical spite and vigour which her fingers displayed in 
 tearing to pieces her valuable' scarf of Mechlin lace, and to 
 have remarked the difference between those fingers them- 
 selves, taper and pliant, but hard, colourless, and with dull 
 nails, whose opaque shell never showed a rosy tinge from the 
 youthful blood within, and the plump white arm to which they 
 belonged, and which had something voluptuous and Cleopatra- 
 like in its swelling contour. 
 
 The Princess Beatrice was a widow, having been married at 
 seventeen to a Yice-Admiral of Russia, who had died a year 
 or two after this union, leaving the daughter of Prince Ivan rich 
 and independent, an ornament to the Imperial Court at St. 
 Petersburg. She had, however, fallen into disgrace, and was 
 compelled to take refuge on her father's estates, and abandon, 
 for a time at least, the gaieties of the capital. 
 
 Prince Ivan was the first to break the silence that had pre- 
 vailed since the domestics had retired. Filling a great goblet of 
 Bohemian crystal with claret from a huge jug of crimson glass, 
 he pushed the decanter towards his son, and said, in a deep voice. 
 
THE EUSSIA OP TO-DAY. Ill 
 
 whose mildest tones had in them something harsh and threat- 
 ening: "You rode over to the bailiff's Chouse to-day, Deme- 
 trius ; what news did you hear?" 
 
 "Nothing of much interest," answered Demetrius, care- 
 lessly ; " the old forester at Kulcza, I forget his name, but you 
 know whom I mean, has been detected in selling game to the 
 officers at Kiew, and they were to take him over to-day to the 
 magistrate at Dimirka, to be sentenced and flogged." 
 
 " The scoundrel !" cried the old Prince, indignantly ; " what 
 has he been shooting ? not my pheasants, I hope." 
 
 " Yes," replied Demetrius, with a yawn; "there were some 
 hares, and a deer, and some pheasants." 
 
 The old Prince grew almost purple. " Insolent hound !" he 
 exclaimed ; " so a cur like old Boris must rob me of my 
 pheasants, the birds I have had so much trouble to import 
 from Italy; knouting is too good for the ruffian. I'll find 
 another way to make him smart." 
 
 "Bah!" answered Demetrius, with the indifferent air that 
 seemed habitual to his wasted features ; " I always told you 
 the preserve would fail. You cannot rear pheasants in Russia, 
 even though each bird costs you its weight in silver : what 
 with the cold, and the foxes, and the rogues of peasants, you 
 will lose every one of your golden-plumaged pets." 
 
 "Not I, I'll be sworn," growled out Prince Ivan, whose 
 red eyes grew more and more injected with blood as he spoke ; 
 " I will make such an example of Boris that no churl of them 
 all shall venture again to touch so much as a feather from my 
 preserves. Is that all you heard ?" 
 
 "Why, no," replied Demetrius, in the same lazy tone ; "of 
 the two lads drawn for the conscription, neither is available. 
 Gregory has cut off four fingers of his right hand with an axe, 
 and Isaac has run away into the swamps." 
 
 " Very good," said Prince Ivan, grimly; "I shall have to 
 furnish two fresh conscripts to the Governor of Kiew ; but as 
 for those rebellious dogs, Gregory shall be sent to my salt 
 mine at Urzedow. To work in the dark for a score of years 
 w r ill make him regret even the Emperor's service, and he must 
 learn to use the mattock with his left hand. As for Isaac, I 
 can promise him that if he does not return 111 make the fens 
 too hot to hold him." 
 
 "What do you mean?" inquired Demetrius, with more 
 curiosity than was usual to him. 
 
 "I mean that I'll set the rushes on fire, and roast the 
 
112 THE SEEF-SISTEES ; OE, 
 
 fellow, as my grandfather did the serfs that ran away after 
 burning the mill and shooting the bailiff," answered Prince 
 Ivan, gruffly, as he flung a fresh log upon the blazing wood- 
 fire, which replaced the stove so generally seen in Russian 
 chambers. 
 
 " You may chance to roast something of more importance 
 than the miserable runaway," said Beatrice, now speaking for 
 the first time; " my maid, Vhalda, told me that her brother 
 had seen again the great snake that killed so many cattle last 
 year. He was shooting ducks in the fens, and saw the crea- 
 ture glide through the reeds." 
 
 "And you really believe in the existence of this fabulous 
 serpent!" said Demetrius, in a tone of pitying incredulity; 
 "pauvre sceur ! you are happy to be able to swallow such 
 monstrous absurdities." 
 
 "But the serpent is not an absurdity," said Beatrice; 
 " fifty people saw it last year : it killed scores of sheep, and the 
 shepherds declared it to be as long and thick as a fishing boat's 
 cable." 
 
 " Of course !" said Demetrius, shrugging up his shoulders, 
 with the air of a flaneur of the Boulevard des Italiens, whom 
 some one is trying to persuade of the truth of a romantic 
 story; "the worst of these stupid tales about Dragons and 
 Anacondas is, that they have no originality. Your devouring 
 Python is merely the American Sea Serpent in a Russian 
 dress." 
 
 "What a coxcomb you are, Demetrius !" exclaimed the old 
 Prince, impatiently striking his fist upon the table: "you 
 believe in nothing that is not to be found on your asphalte of 
 Paris, or your pavement of Vienna. Our marshes hold 
 strange guests sometimes ; be careful how you venture too far 
 into them, in your snipe-shooting excursions, Monsieur I'ln- 
 credule ! I have seen two such serpents myself, one when I 
 was a boy, and one when I was scarcely your age, and I sent 
 a rifle ball through the second, without apparently harming it 
 in the least." 
 
 "A would-be Saint George!" sneered Demetrius, as he 
 replenished his glass : " what a pity there was no persecuted 
 princess to recompense such an exploit." 
 
 Prince Ivan's hideous eyes flashed ominously, but he could 
 bear more persiflage from his son than from any other human 
 being, and by an unwonted effort he checked the angry answer 
 that had risen to his lips. 
 
THE RUSSIA OF TO-DAY. 113 
 
 "Talking of princesses," said Beatrice, "Vhalda has been 
 telling me some absurd tale about two disguised ladies of 
 rank that Muller, the steward, has brought back from St. 
 Petersburg. I cannot guess what such a report means." 
 
 " I think I know," said Prince Jargonoff, drinking off 
 another goblet full of claret ; " Muller was to arrive this after- 
 noon with that old ass, Jacob, my brother's ex-tutor, and those 
 are doubtless his daughters of whom Yhalda spoke." 
 
 " I am heartily glad to hear it," said Beatrice, nonchalantly ; 
 " if that be the case I shall not be disappointed in my new 
 maid. I want a girl who can read to me when I am not 
 disposed to sleep, and who can finish my pieces of embroidery, 
 and do fifty things that these clumsy Malorossian women 
 know nothing of. Now, if Vhalda took old Jacob Petrovich's 
 daughters for ladies, it is plain that either the one or the 
 other would make me just such a Cameriste as I have been 
 longing for." 
 
 " Don't be too sanguine," said Demetrius, as he sipped his 
 wine; "I would not mind wagering a rouleau or two that 
 Vhalda's disguised princesses turn out merely to be a couple 
 of pert damsels, with the tawdry airs of refinement that make 
 your St. Petersburg modistes such ridiculous caricatures of 
 second-hand Parisian elegance. Princesses in disguise ! there 
 are no such things, except in the novels of Dumas, or on the 
 boards of the opera! What does your red-fisted, bony- 
 knuckled Vhalda know about princesses in disguise ?" 
 
 Beatrice was probably about to make some sarcastic reply, 
 for her thin lips became sharply compressed, and her blue 
 eyes looked as spiteful as those of a viper, when the door 
 opened, and a grave major-domo, dressed in decorous black, 
 entered with noiseless tread, and bowed humbly before the 
 prince. 
 
 "What is the matter, Simon?" asked Prince Jargonoff. 
 
 " Gospodin Muller is in your excellency's private apart- 
 ments. Your highness ordered me to announce him as soon 
 as he arrived," said the major domo. 
 
 "Good," said the prince. " I will go and talk to him. I 
 have been as helpless since he went to St. Petersburg as if I 
 had lost my right hand. Demetrius, will you come with me to 
 hear the old fox's report ?" 
 
 " I shall see him soon enough, I dare say," said the young 
 noble, negligently, and his father left the room. 
 
 Prince Jargonoff was a true Russian grandee ; he was uncivil 
 
114 THE SERF-SISTERS ; OE, 
 
 and rude to his own countrymen, but he was accustomed to 
 treat Muller, a foreigner and a freeman,, with some kindness 
 and a good deal of consideration. It was not because of his 
 utility, not because of his hard head and clear judgment, but 
 because he was a foreigner, and had a king of his own to com- 
 plain to if he were ill-treated by his Russian employer. The 
 major domo turned to Beatrice, and executed a new reve- 
 rence. 
 
 " Highness, " said he, "your grandeur's maid, Anielka 
 Petrovich, accompanied the Herr Muller, and is waiting with 
 Mademoiselle Vhalda in your highness's ante-chamber." 
 Beatrice started. 
 
 " How charming," said she ; "how thoughtful of Muller to 
 choose me the one best suited for my service ! Now I need 
 no longer read those novels of Sue's, that always make my eyes 
 ache, but that are so delightful when they are read aloud to 
 me. And now I may have Skogla flogged as she deserves. I 
 don't care w r hether it spoils her or not. I made my mind up 
 to punish her when she broke the mirror at Christmas. O how 
 glad lam !" 
 
 And the princess ran out of the room like a child who has 
 heard of the arrival of a new toy. The young prince placed 
 his glossy boots on the bronze fender, filled himself another 
 huge glass of claret, and began to cut up a pineapple into 
 segments. The grave major domo bowed solemnly three times 
 before Prince Demetrius saw him. 
 
 " George Muller, the young German Gospodin, is asking to 
 see your excellency," said the domestic at last. 
 
 " George ! Well, you may bring him in," was the young 
 diplomatist's gracious reply, and in a minute more George 
 Muller was introduced, and stood, grinning but sheepish, 
 before his patron. If Hans Muller was the right hand and 
 factotum of the great landowner, George Muller was the dme 
 damnee of his son, and had made himself useful to Prince 
 Demetrius in fifty dishonourable ways. There were several 
 Russians on the estate w r ho envied George his emoluments and 
 the young prince's good will ; but, unscrupulous and artful as 
 they were, the Prussian possessed two advantages that insured 
 him the perpetual enjoyment of his post as prime minister to 
 the heir of JargonoiF. Firstly, he had travelled, thus emanci- 
 pating himself from the narrow prejudices of a village ; and 
 secondly, he was an alien, and Demetrius could speak to him 
 without feeling the disgust and repugnance which he always 
 
THE RUSSIA OF TO-DAY. 115 
 
 experienced when he was obliged to address a member of the 
 lower class among his own oily countrymen. 
 
 " Sit down, George," said the young prince ; "sit down, and 
 tell me your news. What do you bring me from St. Peters- 
 burg, most useful of Mercuries ?" 
 
 The young Prussian sat down, though somewhat bashfully, 
 in the deep arm-chair which his master pointed out to him, and 
 took with a somewhat unsteady hand a huge silver beaker of 
 Madeira which the prince filled for him. George Muller had 
 got over his intoxication, for his was a seasoned head, but he 
 still felt somewhat dizzy and confused, symptoms which he 
 tried to the utmost of his power to hide from the heir of Jar- 
 gonoff. 
 
 "What have you brought me?" asked the young prince 
 again. 
 
 "I have brought your excellency the cigars, the hookah, 
 the tobacco, the gloves, and the English saddles," said George 
 Muller, demurely. 
 
 " Is that all ?" said the prince, yawning. 
 
 " There are several boxes of Eau de Cologne, and a great 
 many small articles, and a great portfolio of prints, and the 
 foils and masks from Monsieur Bertrand's," went on the young 
 steward, musingly. 
 
 " I don't care about any of them now, except the cigars and 
 the saddles," answered Demetrius, listlessly gazing at the half- 
 consumed logs. 
 
 " Yes, excellency, that is all," said Muller, " unless 
 
 "Unless what?" said Demetrius, opening his half-closed 
 eyes. 
 
 " Unless the prettiest girl that ever came into this country is 
 to be counted as something," returned the steward's son. 
 
 "What are you talking about ?" asked the prince, drinking 
 off a bumper of his favourite claret, and looking askance at the 
 Prussian. 
 
 " The sweetest maiden that ever was seen in Malorossia," 
 replied George Muller, " Anielka Petrovich." 
 
 The prince fell back in his chair, stretched out his legs, and 
 again half closed his eyes. George Muller watched him 
 anxiously, half fearing lest the glittering bait he proposed 
 should have no temptations for the worn-out old young man of 
 fashion. At last Prince Demetrius rejoined : 
 
 " Anielka Petrovich ! That is one of the daughters of the 
 old trader my father ordered home from St. Petersburg P" 
 
116 THE SEBF-SISTEKS j Ofi, 
 
 " The elder of tlie two," replied Muller. 
 
 "And I suppose she is tolerably well-looking, from what you 
 say," remarked Demetrius ; " some shrill- voiced, parrot-nosed 
 wench, with the manners of a third-rate actress or a milliner's 
 apprentice ; and that crazy goose, Vhalda, who must needs call 
 the girls disguised princesses !" 
 
 " Well, on my honour, highness !" 
 
 The prince's lip curled, but George did not observe it. 
 
 " On my honour, I am not surprised at poor Vhalda's mis- 
 take. Anielka does look like a princess in disguise. She is a 
 dark, slender beauty, such as you do not often see among the 
 peasantry of Russia, and as for her manners, your own noble 
 sister, if you will excuse the comparison, could not surpass her 
 in that respect." 
 
 " Are you telling me the truth?" said the prince, with an 
 eagerness he very seldom displayed, and fixing his black eyes 
 upon the broad face of the steward's son. " But, pshaw !" con- 
 tinued he, as he turned away again; "you have taken me in 
 too often, friend George, with your sham angels and affected 
 rhapsodies, to gull me so easily again. Do you think I have 
 forgotten Sophia Karlovich, or the gipsy damsel at Odessa, or 
 Minna yonder, at Kiew, all of whom you painted in the most 
 glowing colours, but who turned out mere flesh and blood play- 
 things, instead of the sylphides your flattering tongue had 
 portrayed P And if the girl is really such a phoenix as you 
 make her out to be, what kept you from falling in love with her 
 yourself?" 
 
 " To tell you the truth, excellency, I should have done so, 
 though these fastidious damsels are by no means to my fancy 
 in general ; but her sister, Katinka, the youngest of the two, 
 has completely bewitched me, and I trust, my prince, that you 
 will obtain for me Prince JargorioiFs consent to my making 
 her my wife as speedily as possible," said Muller. 
 
 "Aha! good George!" said the diplomatist, suspiciously 
 eyeing his useful myrmidon. " Now I begin to understand the 
 meaning of your marvellous self-denial. So, you have kept 
 the beauty for yourself, have you ? and you have thought me 
 silly enough to be put off with her plainer sister ?" 
 
 " On my word, my prince, I assure you that you are mis- 
 taken," said Muller, in alarm. "Katinka is not at all suited 
 for you, though she is fit enough for a rough farmer like 
 myself, who does not want a wife as cold and haughty as a 
 tragedy queen. Katinka is a little creature with blue eyes, 
 
THE RUSSIA OF TO-DAY. 117 
 
 fair hair, and that clear red and white complexion you think so 
 insipid. I doubt your admitting her to be even good-looking." 
 
 " I never trust to any evidence but that of my own eyes in 
 such a case," answered Demetrius, drily. " I must see this 
 blonde Venus before I decide, that is, unless you have already 
 hidden her away." 
 
 " She is with her father and her maundering old idiot of a 
 nurse, in the cottage where the English gardener lived, and 
 which Prince Jargonoff ordered to be prepared for their recep- 
 tion. I will conduct your highness there to-morrow, or to- 
 night, if you prefer it," added Muller, thinking that Katinka, 
 tired by the journey, and with eyes dimmed by the tears called 
 forth by the sudden parting from her sister and by his own 
 brutal treatment, would look less fascinating if the prince saw 
 her before she was refreshed by a night's sleep. 
 
 " Not to-night," answered the prince. " To-morrow I will 
 send for you, and you shall introduce me to your bride elect. 
 If all you say is true, why my good word to my father shall 
 not be lacking, and we'll arrange for the wedding before the 
 week is out. Though I cannot imagine what makes you on a 
 sudden so anxious to take a wife, especially a poor serf's 
 daughter." 
 
 " Pardon me, your highness," rejoined George Muller, with 
 a cunning glance ; " she is not precisely a poor serf's daughter. 
 The old fellow, Petrovich, has a good house at St. Petersburg, 
 and owns a good deal of property besides, as I learned while in 
 the capital. And though he could not pay such a ransom as 
 sixty thousand roubles, yet when his corn and iron and hemp 
 are sold, there will be a pretty little fortune ready to drop to 
 the share of Katinka's husband." 
 
 " The girls are sure to divide it, share and share alike : the 
 old man would never leave all he had to one daughter, and I 
 should think his savings would scarcely bear partition," said 
 Prince Demetrius, languidly. 
 
 Muller looked still craftier than before. 
 
 "Your excellency," said he, "will be certain to provide libe- 
 rally for Anielka when you are tired of her. She will then 
 want no portion of Petrovich's property, and Katinka will be 
 an heiress." 
 
 " Bravo, George !" cried Demetrius. " Talleyrand himself 
 could not have hit upon a better combination. You should 
 have been a diplomatist, as I have often said. Such talents, 
 mon cher, are thrown away at Khopol," 
 
118 THE SEKF-SISTEKS ; OK, 
 
 "Anielka is with the Princess Beatrice; your excellency 
 may easily see her and judge for yourself," said Muller. 
 
 " And to-morrow we will beat up the quarters of your blue- 
 eyed beauty," said the prince, gaily ; " so for the present, 
 good-night." 
 
 Muller, feeling himself no longer wanted, bowed, and 
 shuffled out. 
 
 " There goes a thorough rascal !" said Prince Demetrius, as 
 the door closed. " But, bah ! all men are rascals !" After 
 uttering this apothegm, he stared moodily for some time at the 
 smouldering logs of the expiring fire, and beat with his var- 
 nished boot upon the carved fender. " My life is going out, 
 like those darkening embers," he muttered, and the hectic spot 
 that burned in his ghastly cheek, and the dull look of his 
 sunken eyes, fearfully corroborated his words. " It is useless 
 to deceive oneself," he went on, still brooding over the charred 
 logs of the fire ; " I know that I am dying, as well as if twenty 
 doctors had told me so. The candle burns lower than ever, 
 but this fuel will keep it alight," and he poured out and swal- 
 lowed a large glass of Cura9oa. " Bravo !" he exclaimed, with 
 a brightening eye ; " I feel some life in my veins still. Vive 
 la joie ! I have time left for one more grand passion before I 
 die. JSTow to see my new toy." And after quaffing a fresh 
 glass of the fiery stimulant, he rose from his chair and left the 
 room with a tottering but a hasty step. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 THE favourite morning-room of the Princess Beatrice partook 
 of the character of dressing-chamber and studio. It was richly 
 and tastefully furnished with all that the experience of a French 
 upholsterer could devise, or the fantastic whims of its owner 
 suggest. The sofas were covered with Lyons brocade, the 
 curtains were of the most costly Genoese velvet, and the arm- 
 chairs were veritable sleepy hollows. Gigantic pier-glasses, 
 and toilet-tables covered with all the paraphernalia of silver 
 dressing-cases, scent-bottles with gemmed stoppers, and all the 
 multitude of valuable trifles which custom renders necessaries, 
 evinced the delight which the princess felt in the adornment 
 of her person. A great embroidery-frame, two or three 
 unfinished landscape-paintings, and a quantity of sketches 
 and caricatures, many of them of great merit, and requiring 
 
THE RUSSIA OF TO-DAY. 119 
 
 but the labour of a half-hour or so to render them perfect, were 
 flung carelessly into corners, pell-mell with rolls of music, 
 pieces of half-executed Berlin wool work, neglected letters, and 
 scraps of original poetry. For Beatrice was an admirable 
 artist, and an accomplished musician ; she could do everything, 
 except persevere. She could have earned her bread in twenty 
 ways, had she not been a princess, but still enjoyed the elabo- 
 rate education she had had forced upon her. She painted, 
 drew, and sang, so well, that she could have made a name either 
 by her pencil or her voice ; she wrote sonnets of exquisite 
 melody, and prose as original and epigrammatic as that of 
 Kinglake. She had composed three-quarters of an opera for 
 the Italian stage, written half a novel in French, that would 
 have set the Parisians raving, had it been printed, got nearly 
 through a German play, and translated part of Shakespeare 
 into Russian. But she had thrown aside these imperfect 
 proofs of a brilliant talent, and preferred to remain a mere 
 princess, peevish, fickle, and discontented. She sat, carelessly 
 renversee, in a soft cushioned beehive chair, with a shivering 
 Italian greyhound, decked with a scarlet cloak, crouching at 
 her slippered feet, an Indian cabinet open behind her, and the 
 hideous monsters it contained grinning with their ivory tusks 
 over her fair head. Before her stood Anielka, pale and 
 embarrassed, with her eyes downcast, and replying from time 
 to time to some question, half curious, half bantering, which 
 the princess addressed to her in French. At the other end of 
 the room stood Yhalda and Skogla, the two attendants of the 
 princess, who were contemplating the new handmaiden who 
 spoke foreign tongues so well, and looked so like a high-born 
 lady, and yet was only a slave like themselves. Yhalda, who 
 had a dash of romance in her nature, heartily admired the new- 
 comer, while Skogla looked on her as an intruder and a sup- 
 planter, more especially as she knew her unforgiving mistress 
 bore her no good will for the affair of the mirror, and feared 
 that if Anielka permanently replaced her as Beatrice's maid, 
 some more severe penalty than mere dismissal to the dairy or 
 the field might be inflicted on the careless Skogla. Anielka, 
 wearied by the long-protracted journey, distressed by the 
 sudden separation from her sister and father, and humiliated 
 at finding that the steward's threats were so abruptly realised, 
 and that she was designed to be the attendant of a dame of 
 whose cruel caprices she had often heard, had felt herself 
 ready to sink under the weight of misery that oppressed her, 
 
120 THE SERF-SISTEBS ', Oil, 
 
 during the walk from the cottage assigned to Jacob to the 
 prince's palace. Her first impulse on seeing the lovely face of 
 her new mistress, was one of gratitude for the fortune that had 
 assigned the mastery over her future fate to a delicate and 
 tender woman, one who must sympathise with the sorrows and 
 feel for the sufferings of one of her own sex. Poor Anielka 
 had pictured Beatrice to herself as a bony, gaunt-featured 
 princess, with stern eyes and an iron will, like our English 
 Queen Elizabeth. She was charmed to see the female tyrant 
 she had imagined converted into a fair and graceful young 
 woman, whose looks had nothing calculated to frighten the 
 most timid suppliant. Anielka saw the beauty of her new 
 mistress, she admired the pliant suppleness and fine propor- 
 tions of the she-panther, her glossy skin and elegant attitudes, 
 but did not suspect the sharpness and tenacity of the talons 
 that lay concealed within those velvet paws. She was sur- 
 prised at the flippant, unpleasing tones in which the princess 
 began to question her about her past life and her accomplish- 
 ments, alternately addressing her in French and German, to 
 test her acquaintance with those languages. But what 
 shocked as much as it grieved her, was the utter heartlessness 
 with which Beatrice, in a half playful, half sarcastic manner, 
 interrogated her upon subjects which revived old recollections, 
 now inexpressibly painful to the exiled and insulted girl, evi- 
 dently caring no more for the wounded feelings of the poor 
 maiden whose bosom she lacerated by every word she uttered, 
 than the angler cares for the writhing of the wretched worm 
 impaled upon his barbed hook. Every question which brought 
 vividly to her remembrance the dear old home she had been 
 torn from, every half-incredulous expression of wonder respect- 
 ing her acquirements, gave pain to the sensitive Anielka, who 
 now saw herself coldly and critically examined, like a horse at 
 a fair, by one who seemed resolved to treat her as a mere 
 machine, whose sentiments were not worth the trouble of con- 
 sulting. Beatricehadbeen struck by Anielka's surpassing attrac- 
 tions in face and form, and was more surprised than pleased 
 by her appearance. Few women have magnanimity enough 
 to pardon her who outshines them in beauty, and indepen- 
 dently of this feeling of jealousy, Beatrice was piqued at 
 finding that the serf's daughter before her was more than the 
 equal, in native dignity and inborn refinement, of the long- 
 descended princess. Beatrice had wished for a clever atten- 
 dant, but not for quite so peerless a being as Anielka, for 
 
THE RUSSIA OF TO-DAY. 121 
 
 whom she could not help feeling in her secret heart an un- 
 defined but most involuntary respect. This instinctive feel- 
 ing was enough to make Beatrice hate the poor girl now so 
 completely in her power. Her pride rose up in arms against 
 the homage which her judgment unwillingly paid to the 
 conscious purity and nobleness enthroned on Anielka's brow. 
 She reminded herself that this maiden, so different from the 
 soubrcttes she was used to, was a slave, and a slave's 
 daughter, a human chattel that she might ill-treat, degrade, or 
 disfigure at her pleasure. She took a cruel pleasure in morti- 
 fying Anielka by a thousand taunting remarks and insinua- 
 tions, and having extorted from her an avowal of the fact 
 that she had been betrothed in St. Petersburg, although no 
 tortures, mental or physical, could have wrung from Anielka 
 the name of him whom she considered as her fickle lover, 
 the princess tormented her victim with so much adroitness 
 on the topic of Klapka's desertion, that Anielka's firmness 
 gave way. 
 
 She burst into tears, and holding out her clasped hands 
 towards the princess, she exclaimed, "Madame, have mercy 
 on me!" in a tone so heartrending and imploring, that it 
 thrilled even the dull-witted Malorossian girls who stood 
 beside the door, and the envious Skogla cast a kinder glance 
 at the intruder who seemed so wretched at the promotion 
 obtained at her expense. 
 
 Had Anielka been but a pretty, common-place young woman, 
 it is possible that Beatrice would have been melted by this 
 appeal, but she looked so beautiful through her tears, and in 
 spite of the distress written on her face, that as Anielka stood 
 with her clasped hands lifted in supplication, and her dark 
 eyes fixed earnestly, wildly, on the face of her mistress, 
 Beatrice answered her prayer by a burst of mocking laughter, 
 so unfeeling, so harsh, so insolent, that it froze the blood in 
 Anielka's veins. The poor girl stood like a statue, her tears 
 flowing fast, and her eyes still fixed on the princess in wonder 
 and dismay. And Beatrice's blue eyes, of hyaena brightness, 
 now gleamed until they looked like those of a beautiful 
 Medusa, changing by her fatal gaze some too lovely rival into 
 stone. Her red lips were drawn back, and her white teeth, 
 small and pearly though they were, sparkled like those of a 
 tigress about to drink the life-blood of her prey. Her glance 
 paralysed Anielka, who stood motionless, like a bird under 
 the fascination of a snake. All that was feline in Beatrice's 
 
122 THE SERF-SISTEKS ; OK, 
 
 vain and showy, but barbarous nature exhibited itself in a 
 moment. She spoke, and the words dropped from her curling 
 lips cold and cutting as an icy wind. 
 
 " So you have betrayed yourself, car a mia I I have found 
 out the truth about your pretended innocence, and your retired 
 life at St. Petersburg. You have been an actress, that is plain 
 enough, my little pet ! That fine bit of tragedy would have 
 told to perfection on the stage. How cleverly you showed 
 your white wrists, and made the most of your pretty eyes ! 
 O you young she-hypocrite! how could you tell me so de- 
 murely about your quiet life and your lover that jilted you ? 
 Your lover ! how many lovers have you had ? Fifty ? sixty ? 
 a hundred ? You ladies of the theatre are seldom at a loss for 
 admirers." 
 
 Shame, anger, indignation, glowed in Anielka's bosom. 
 
 " Princess, you wrong me," said she, as she changed her 
 suppliant attitude for one more composed, and looked at 
 Beatrice steadily ; "your suspicions are as unjust as they are 
 severe. I am as innocent and unstained as yourself." 
 
 What was there in this comparison that made the guilty 
 tell-tale blood suffuse the fair face of the Princess Beatrice ? 
 What remembrance of bygone days lurked festering in her 
 memory that made her haughty face burn and glow with 
 blushing crimson, and dyed her white forehead with the 
 branding flush of shame ? She was of spotless reputation and 
 of illustrious lineage, while the girl before her was her slave, 
 dazzled by her magnificence, awed by her power, helplessly 
 at her mercy, Tier mercy, the mercy of a tiger-cat P But the 
 keen eyes of Beatrice had read in Anielka's face that her 
 story was true. Her cheeks were not reddened by the con- 
 sciousness of sin, but by the holy glow of wronged purity. 
 In the slave Anielka's look, and voice, and gesture spoke out, 
 undisguised, the awful Majesty of Truth, and Beatrice bowed 
 her head as if before a judge. For a moment the fiery remorse 
 that gnawed at the heart of the princess repaid her the 
 thousand sufferings she had caused those whose birth had 
 made them her inferiors and her sport. For a moment 
 Beatrice forgot her coronet, and her title, and her lordly rank, 
 and proud name, and felt, deep in her shuddering soul, the 
 blackness of the stain that made Anielka her superior, and 
 rediiced her, the mighty princess, to a guilty creature cower- 
 ing before the involuntary accusation of a girl her word 
 could crush. Oh, what a difference between the blush of 
 
THE RUSSIA OF TO-DAY. 123 
 
 Anielka, and that of the haughty Beatrice! An instant's 
 reflection had revealed, as the lightning flash shows the Alpine 
 chasms that yawn around the traveller's path, the abyss over 
 which Beatrice hung unconsciously, like some wounded bird 
 whose heavy wings, foul with mire and blood, were no longer 
 able to support it above the gulf that gaped below. But in 
 that instant a light knock was heard at the door, the handle 
 turned, and Prince Demetrius entered. As the warrior, sur- 
 prised by the approach of a foe, snatches up instinctively the 
 armour he has laid aside, so did Beatrice recover her wonted 
 effrontery, and compose her disturbed features, before her 
 brother had had time to observe the unwonted agitation of her 
 usually calm nerves. 
 
 "Welcome, truant !" said she, in a voice so unshaken as to 
 deceive even the young diplomatist, who was accustomed to 
 boast that he judged people much more by their tones than 
 by their looks ; " welcome, brother ! you have not visited my 
 studio for six weeks at least, and I have spoiled a whole 
 sheaf of caricatures that you would have been charmed with 
 they were so like Menschikoff and Osten-Sacken merely 
 because you did not think it worth while to come and look at 
 them." 
 
 "You are too destructive, chere sceur ;" said Demetrius, 
 advancing ; " you seldom give me a chance of admiring the 
 efforts of your genius. Like our Russian peaches, your 
 drawings never arrive at maturity. But what a pretty maid 
 you have got!" continued he, speaking of Anielka with as 
 much assumed composure as if she were a statue of Canova's. 
 Anielka's dark-fringed eyelids drooped beneath the ardent 
 gaze of the prince, a gaze whose purport even innocence could 
 not misunderstand. The aspect of this young man, so frail, 
 so emaciated, yet with a deathly hectic contrasting the pallor 
 of his face, and with flaming eyes that seemed to drink in her 
 every feature, caused her even more alarm than all the coarse 
 ruffianism of George Muller. There was a desperation in the 
 air of the prince, a fierce passion in his regard, that was not 
 insanity, but approached near to it in its terrible intensity, 
 which the instinct of Anielka interpreted at once into a threat 
 as formidable as that which glares forth from the hollow eyes 
 of a famished tiger. Demetrius advanced, and his gaze 
 seemed to devour the faultless beauty before him. Beatrice, 
 watchful as women usually are, saw and appreciated the 
 strange expression of her brother's face ; she knew his cha- 
 
124 THE SEEF-SISTERS ; OR, 
 
 racter well ; Anielka had just unwillingly humiliated her. 
 Beatrice felt an unholy triumph as she thought of the purity 
 before which she quailed, blighted, trampled, and sullied. She 
 had scarcely had time to hate Anielka, and lo! up started 
 an avenger, and that avenger was her brother. It would 
 have gratified Beatrice to have seen any outrage, however 
 odious, perpetrated upon Anielka, which would have degraded 
 her from the pinnacle of unpretending, simple virtue on which 
 she stood, and from which she had a right to look down pity- 
 ingly on the moral quagmire in which the spirit of Beatrice 
 herself was involved. The young prince advanced, his licentious 
 eyes fixed on the trembling form of the maiden before him. 
 
 " Come, pretty one, sit down and rest yourself. It is a 
 shame to make those delicate feet support you so long," said 
 Demetrius, as he flung his arm rudely around Anielka's waist, 
 and compelling her to seat herself on an ottoman, placed him- 
 self beside her. 
 
 And now a revulsion of feeling took place in the mind of 
 Beatrice. It was not pity, nor the sympathy that makes 
 almost every woman the champion of her sex, nor even 
 offended delicacy. It was a sentiment innate in her childish, 
 vain, tyrannical disposition, that love of property for its own 
 sake which makes the urchin more anxious to rescue the old 
 neglected toy which his brother is playing with, than to amuse 
 himself with his own newer and more gaudy playthings. 
 Anielka was her creature, her chattel, and Demetrius, with- 
 out asking her leave, was taking unwarrantable liberties with 
 that sentient creature, that human chattel. Had he asked 
 permission to insult Anielka, it would have soothed the vanity 
 of her heartless mistress. As it was, her peevish feeling of 
 proprietorship did what compassion and modesty could not 
 effect. 
 
 "Demetrius!" she exclaimed, stamping her small foot 
 furiously on the floor, "have you forgotten that you are a 
 gentleman, that you behave thus insolently in a lady's apart- 
 ment. For shame ! for shame ! this your Parisian breeding ! 
 this your demeanour learnt in the aristocratic salons of Vienna ! 
 Bah ! you act more like a drunken boor brawling among 
 country wenches, than a noble and a prince of Russia." 
 
 The prince rose, vexed and angry, but submission to the 
 caprices of women of his own rank had been his lesson 
 and practice from childhood, and he merely shrugged his 
 shoulders, and assumed a penitent look. " You shall not rob 
 
THE HUSSIA OF TO-DAY. 12o 
 
 me of tliis maid, as you did of Phoebe last year," continued 
 Beatrice, volubly; "you never come here but when you want 
 some selfish advantage. Seek your mistresses elsewhere." 
 
 The bang of the door, which the prince closed after him, 
 drowned the last words. 
 
 CHAPTEE XVIII. 
 
 THE gangrene of slavery is perhaps, of all the social institu- 
 tions of Russia, the most mischievous, and the most adapted 
 for spreading itself over the countries which Russia, like an 
 encroaching sea, periodically absorbs and amalgamates with 
 herself. In fact, the principle of the abject servitude and sub- 
 jection of the great bulk of the population to the tyranny of a 
 -few superiors in rank, is the fundamental basis on which the 
 towering superstructure of the great Sclavonic empire is 
 erected, the supreme government arrogating to itself the same 
 arbitrary powers over the luxurious nobles, that custom and 
 law give to the latter over their unfortunate vassals. It would 
 have been as easy for the Emperor to send his vassal, Prince 
 Jargonoff, to Siberia, as for that petty despot to consign his 
 maimed serf, Gregory, to the darkness of his Polish salt-mines ; 
 nay, still more easy, for in banishing Prince Ivan the Czar 
 would have exercised a prerogative never questioned in Russia 
 by Magnate or peasant, whereas to send a slave belonging to 
 one estate by forcible means to another is an illegal act, in 
 theory at least, and one which has been forbidden by solemn 
 ukase. The Emperor could as readily have punished Beatrice 
 for the impertinence to the Empress that had caused her exile 
 from the court, by handing over that stately princess to the 
 knout of the public executioner, as Beatrice herself could 
 chastise an offending servant, like Skogla, by the dog- whips of 
 her father's grooms and huntsmen. 
 
 At first sight, this graduation of power, which makes the 
 profligate inmates of the palace subject to the same capricious 
 cruelty as they themselves so frequently inflict upon their 
 helpless dependents, seems to contain the germ and elements 
 of a retributive justice. This is not the case, however, for, in 
 practice, the nobles, excepting those suspected of liberalism or 
 detected in flagrant conspiracy, enjoy an immunity from the 
 hourly vexations which harass their worldly inferiors. This is 
 especially the case with the higher and more wealthy of the 
 territorial Magnates, who appear to be tacitly allowed to 
 
126 THE SEKF-SISTEBS ; OE, 
 
 govern themselves and their serfs as they please, provided that 
 the will of the landowner never clashes with the Czar's mandate. 
 Even in those rare instances in which banishment, torture, 
 and confiscation are inflicted on some rebellious or philoso- 
 phical grandee, the effect produced upon the rest is not of a 
 beneficial nature. The Russian noble, never certain that he 
 may not have unconsciously given offence to the Czar or his 
 ruling satraps, never sure that he may not have to exchange 
 his luxurious castle and downy couch for a hut and a bed of 
 leaves at Irkutsk or Tobolsk, and his creaming champagne for 
 the icy water from some Siberian river, lives like a man whose 
 only maxim is to enjoy the feast until it is snatched away. 
 "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die!" might be the 
 motto emblazoned on the carriage panels of many a Muscovite 
 hidalgo. Nor does this vague sense of dread, which every 
 Magnate feels, lest, though the thunderbolt will only strike one 
 head in a thousand, he should be the victim of the imperial 
 displeasure, tend to mollify his feelings towards those whom 
 he holds in a state of villeinage. It'lias b6en often remarked, 
 that the mulatto and negro drivers in the plantations, although 
 slaves themselves, are more wantonly barbarous than even 
 the white overseers can be. The Russian Count and the black 
 driver equally furnish examples to prove how little is the 
 mercy which one slave can expect from another, placed in 
 authority over him. This infernal system originated in Mus- 
 covy, or Northern Russia, where from the earliest ages the 
 people have been serfs, although their masters have usually 
 been of foreign descent. When the Czars conquered Southern 
 Russia, they consolidated their sway by enforcing serfdom 
 upon the hitherto free peasants, and portioning out the estates 
 and the population among the favourite nobles of the con- 
 querors. Moreover, a formal ukase, still in force, divided the 
 entire nation into castes, and solemnly declared that the com- 
 mon people of Russia, "not possessing either honour or good 
 name, could not be deprived of either," thus wilfully and 
 legally degrading the immense majority of the inhabitants of 
 the empire to a condition little above that of a herd of yahoos 
 or other unclean animals, only to be kept in order by the chain 
 and the lash. 
 
 The system, however, works very differently in the Southern 
 and Northern divisions of the overgrown empire. In the 
 North, the Muscovite, naturally tractable, and cowed by the 
 immemorial traditions of slavery, fixed and perpetual for gene- 
 
THE RUSSIA OF TO-DAY. 127 
 
 rations past, crouches like a dog at the feet that spurn him, and 
 humbly caresses the hand that smites him. Nay, he usually 
 even conceives a servile attachment for his lord, such as the 
 hound entertains for the huntsman, whose eye he watches, and 
 whose whip he fears. He addresses his master with awe, and 
 often with affection, and bears the direst wrongs with a pas- 
 siveness that shows how completely all sentiments of personal 
 dignity have been blighted in his mind. The Muscovite was 
 always a slave, and knows no more of freedom than the cage- 
 born songster does of the wild liberty of the breezy moors and 
 rustling woods. When the Muscovite shall be enfranchised 
 (and may the period that breaks his manacles soon arrive !) he 
 will hug his chain, and feel like the captive who had been too 
 long in the Bastille to appreciate the boon which his liberators 
 conferred upon him, when they destroyed the prison walls. 
 
 But with the Malorossian of the South, the case is widely 
 different. Gifted with a strong independence of character 
 more akin to the Teutonic than the Slavonian disposition, the 
 peasant of the South remembers the days of his freedom, and 
 looks upon his owner with the same dogged sense of injustice 
 as that with which the Anglo-Saxon husbandmen were wont 
 to regard their Norman tyrants. There is much obedience in 
 Malorossia, for resistance to the will of a master is idle, but 
 there is little fawning, and no show of love from the churl to 
 the noble. The serf bears buffets and contumely, he drudges 
 -and submits ; but it is grudgingly, and with a secret hope that 
 a day of retribution may arrive. Brutalized by ignorance, by 
 toil, by the absence of honourable ambition, debased by drink 
 and immorality, labouring under the lash, the Malorossian has 
 sunk very low, his intellect is clouded, his comforts are scant ; 
 but with all this humiliation he retains a recollection of the 
 days when his sires were free, and when the peasant could lift 
 up from his work the brow of a man, and not the front of a 
 cowering slave. Every now and then the gyve is clasped too 
 tightly, and it snaps. Human nature is sometimes loaded with 
 a greater burden of wrongs than it can endure, and the injured 
 Malorossian, kept a savage by his master who maltreats his 
 body, and by the Czar who denies him education, rushes to 
 wreak his vengeance on the immediate eause of his woes. 
 Then on a small scale are enacted the horrors of a Jacquerie. 
 Then the neighbouring nobles shudder to hear how some castle 
 has been burnt by the infuriated serfs, and how some land- 
 owner and his family have been put to death, in such frightful 
 
128 THE SERF-SISTERS ; OS, 
 
 torments as scarcely the most ruthless barbarian could devise 
 or execute. And then, comes the news that a Cossack force 
 has marched against the mutineers, that the ringleaders have 
 died under the knout, and that the rest are exiled to the snows 
 of Siberia. And then, the tragedy is forgotten until the 
 smouldering fire breaks forth again. But there are other 
 regions in which Russia appears, not as the originator of serf- 
 dom, but as the rivet of the chain. The nobles of Poland 
 would set free their slaves, if the imperial government would 
 permit such a step. In Livonia, Courland, and Esthonia, 
 within hearing of the cannon from the allied fleets upon the 
 Baltic, the serfs groan still beneath the yoke which, but for 
 [Russia's policy, would have been snapped long ago. "Where 
 the ever-encroaching, ever- devouring frontier of Russia spreads, 
 there spread also the foul blots of caste and slavery. And that 
 frontier will spread, will devour, will absorb, let shallow- 
 brained orators and dandy diplomatists prate as plausibly as 
 they please, unless some barrier firmer than any that now 
 exists be applied in time to check the raging flood. Let no 
 one selfishly presume to say, " The dykes that keep out the 
 rising sea are rotten and frail, but they will last my time !" 
 Such an answer would be as short-sighted as it would be 
 heartless. The waves that wash our feet to-day, will over- 
 whelm our children to-morrow. Every patriot, every parent, 
 every man and woman in Britain and France should remember 
 that the deluge that this generation can stem, if united, must 
 swell by neglect into proportions too gigantic for the next to 
 cope with. Let not our descendants have to curse the blind 
 lethargy that only left to England, like Ulysses in the cave of 
 Polyphemus, the melancholy privilege of being the last to b< 
 devoured. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 ON the morning of the day which followed the arrival of e 
 caravan upon Prince Jargonoff's estate, Jacob Petrovich and 
 Katinka sat together in the hut which Muller had assigned to 
 them. This was a cottage which the English gardener 
 had superintended the conservatories of the Prince had for- 
 merly occupied. When war was declared, the English 
 had returned to his own country, and the hut had rema 
 vacant until the arrival of Jacob and his daughters. The 
 dwelling itself was neater and more spacious than the maj( 
 
THE RUSSIA OF TO-DAY. 129 
 
 of the miserable abodes of which the village consisted; its 
 former inhabitant had trained a grape-vine over a rustic porch, 
 which he had constructed : and the furniture which still re- 
 mained in it, though somewhat scanty, had an air of cleanliness 
 and propriety most unusual in Russia. It was situated at the 
 extremity of the hamlet nearest to t^ie palace, and had an open 
 grass-grown space in front of it, and a small garden, well 
 fenced and tolerably stocked, behind it. It must not be sup- 
 posed that it was from compassionate motives that Prince Ivan 
 and his steward had allotted this cottage, which, next to the 
 bailiff's, was the best house in the village, to Jacob Petrovich. 
 The choice had been made merely in compliance with the 
 customary routine, which assigned this abode, the nearest to 
 the palace, to the head gardener a post which old Jacob, who 
 had a considerable taste for, and knowledge of, horticulture, 
 had been selected to fill. Jacob had been, indeed, the son of 
 the chief gardener at Khopol, at an early date, when the su- 
 perior art of a foreigner was not imperatively called for by 
 Russian fashion ; and Muller, who saw how unfit the old man 
 was for the ruder labours of agriculture, to which Prince 
 JargonofFhad intended to recal him, had determined on giving 
 him at least the temporary superintendence of the pineries and 
 conservatories of Khopol. The poor old man had slept but 
 little on the night which followed his arrival at the village, and 
 when he rose, feverish and unrefreshed, Katinka forgot her 
 own sorrows in the task of attempting to soothe those of her 
 father. Both of them had been much distressed by the abrupt- 
 ness with which Anielka had been torn from them on the pre- 
 ceding evening ; a separation which they had dreaded, indeed, 
 in consequence of Muller's hints ; but which they had not 
 expected to be effected in so sudden and unfeeling a manner. 
 They had scarcely had an hour's rest in the cottage before 
 which their waggon had halted, and into which the driver had, 
 by Muller's orders, inducted them, when the steward and his 
 son arrived, and ordered Anielka to accompany them without 
 delay to the palace. A demand so startling, and so suspicious 
 when coupled with the darkling hour of the night and George 
 Muller's previous brutality, inspired both the sisters and their 
 aged companions with the most lively fears ; Katinka threw 
 her arms around Anielka's neck ; Jacob sank upon his trembling 
 knees, and with folded hands prayed the intruders not to harm 
 his child. It was by absolute violence, in spite of the shrieks 
 of Yaska and Katinka, and the unheeded anguish of the grey- 
 
 K 
 
130 THE SEItF-SISTEES ; OB, 
 
 Leaded father, that Anielka was led away at last in the direc- 
 tion of the palace. It was of some comfort to the afflicted 
 family that George Mailer paid them another brief visit two 
 hours later, and told them, as they sat weeping silently, and 
 crouching together, as if for protection, that the Princess 
 Beatrice had taken Anielka into her service, and that they 
 might make their minds easy, as she was sure to be well taken 
 care of. As to when the Princess would allow them to see 
 Anielka, or Anielka to visit them, he, George Muller, knew 
 nothing about the matter, and cared still less. The unfeeling 
 tone in which this information was given did not prevent the 
 unhappy occupants of the gardener's cottage from experiencing 
 a thrill of joy at the news. Anielka was safe ; she was under 
 the protection of a noble lady, who, for the sake of her own 
 dignity, would guard her from wrong and evil, and who would 
 soon learn to love her for herself. So miserable had been the 
 state of mind in which the old man, the loving sister, and the 
 fond nurse, had been plunged by the terrors of Anielka's situ- 
 ation, that this mitigation of their joint sufferings became to 
 them a priceless boon, just as the most uninviting crust is 
 a dainty banquet to the starving wretch whose limbs have been 
 shrivelled by famine. But on the next morning, when Jacob 
 left the bed on which he had tasted but a few minutes of per- 
 turbed sleep, oft broken and ever haunted by horrid dreams, 
 the old man felt his bereavement with redoubled keenness. 
 Anielka, his child, his pride and ornament, in whose youth and 
 beauty he had seemed to grow young again, and whose lofty 
 nature had seemed by its very contact to strengthen and elevate 
 his own, was gone, was among strangers, was his no longer. 
 It was the first time that her gentle good morrow had failed to 
 greet the old man when he rose to begin the day, the first time 
 her chair had been empty in the circle, and that he had been 
 denied the permission to press his aged lips to her white brow, 
 and bless her as he was used to do. He missed the soft dark 
 eyes that ever beamed so kindly upon him ; he missed the long- 
 accustomed music of that voice which he loved so well ; and 
 sitting down in the lonely room into which he had entered, he 
 hid his head in his hands, and groaned like a victim on the 
 rack. Katinka found him thus, sad and afflicted, weeping 
 scalding tears and calling on the name of his lost daughter. It 
 was long before Katinka's gentle caresses and words of affec- 
 tion could console the mourner sufficiently to enable him to 
 calm his bitter grief, and reply to her anxious inquiries. But 
 
THE BUSSIA OF TO-DAY. 131 
 
 at last she succeeded ; for sympathy is never so dearly wel- 
 comed as in the hour of deep distress ; and what sympathy 
 could be so tender as that of the warm-hearted, fond Katinka, 
 the little blue-eyed beauty who, with her sister, had made the 
 joy of the old man's life, and to whom Jacob had never had to 
 reproach a word, a look, an action, that had in it aught that 
 savoured of ingratitude or unkindness. All the petting she 
 had received enough to ruin fifty children had not spoiled 
 Katinka, nor curdled her sweet nature into sourness or selfish- 
 ness. She had her faults ; she was not quite as perfect as 
 Anielka ; but still there never was a more devoted, innocent, 
 or loving daughter, sitting at the feet of a 'weeping old father, 
 and gradually charming away the dark cloud of despair that 
 brooded over his sorrowful soul, and made his aged eyes rain 
 down unwonted tears. And at last old Jacob removed his 
 hands from the agonized face they had concealed, and allowed 
 himself to be comforted. Katinka suffered him not to relapse 
 into his former paroxysm of misery, but playfully kissed him, 
 and drew his chair nearer to the crackling fire of sticks and 
 turfs, which Yaska had made before she went out on house- 
 keeping matters, and which, though the month was June, was 
 still pleasant in the bleak and chilly climate of Hussia. And 
 then Katinka assumed a cheerful smile, that contrasted with 
 her unusually pale cheeks, and went briskly about the room, 
 preparing their humble breakfast with an immense amount of 
 unnecessary bustling and activity, and gaily singing, like a 
 little blue-eyed hypocrite as she was, short snatches of merry 
 songs, just as if, poor girl, she had had a light heart instead of 
 an aching one in her bosom. And Jacob called her to him, 
 and laying his hand on her shining golden hair, blessed her 
 fervently and fondly, and then turned his face towards a little 
 patch of blue sky that could be seen through the window, just 
 breaking through the grey clouds overhead, and prayed, silently, 
 though his lips moved not, that his children might keep their 
 innocence unspotted in the accursed place to which they had 
 been brought to dwell in servitude. Still, Katinka went on 
 resolutely singing, and running in and out of the room, throw- 
 ing fuel on the fire, placing cups and saucers on the table, 
 which she had covered with a clean but coarse cloth, left for- 
 gotten in a drawer by the last occupant, fetching water from 
 the well, and charcoal to heat the great urn, and, unobserved, 
 in the midst of her feigned hilarity taking an opportunity to 
 dry her eyes, and to hide away, beyond old Jacob's sight, the 
 K 2 
 
132 THE SEEF-SISTEKS ; OK, 
 
 empty chair that would have reminded him of Anielka's absence. 
 Just as the water in the samovar was beginning to boil, and as 
 Katinka was looking out impatiently for Yaska's return from 
 her errand, two men, one carrying a pickaxe and the other a 
 huge wooden stake, sharp-pointed and shod with iron, appeared 
 on the open green in front of the house. With some labour 
 they succeeded in driving the stake firmly into the ground, and 
 then, having assured themselves, by giving it a vigorous shake, 
 of its solidity, they slowly retired. A number of children in- 
 stantly gathered around the spot, with that taste for sight- 
 seeing which characterises the young in all countries, and. a 
 crowd of men and women soon came trooping in all directions 
 across the green, as if some holiday show were about to be 
 exhibited. 
 
 These preparations aroused Katinka's curiosity, but her 
 attention was called from them by old Jacob, who was at- 
 tempting to converse with his usual calmness, and who had 
 begun to express a hope, a very humble hope, that they might 
 be allowed to see Anielka from time to time. Katinka, intent 
 on consoling the sorrows of her father, gave utterance to 
 aspirations about the future which she was far from seriously 
 entertaining, and went so far as to broach the idea that, in the 
 event of Anielka's becoming a great favourite with her new 
 mistress, not only her servitude would be much ameliorated, 
 but the princess would not, after a long term of faithful 
 service, refuse to intercede with her father that the Petrovich 
 family might be once more united, and permitted to return to 
 their own old home in St. Petersburg. Old Jacob was not 
 very sanguine at first, for he knew more of the habits of 
 [Russian grandees than Katinka did; but so eloquent and 
 earnest did Katinka become, inspired by her filial piety, that she 
 not only persuaded her father that nothing was more probable, 
 more certain, in fact, than that the princess must soon feel a 
 warm affection for the good and gentle Anielka, and that in 
 the course of a year or two, at latest, they would all be free 
 and happy again in their dear home, which they would love 
 better than ever they did before their sojourn at Khopol ; not 
 only, I say, did she manage to make old Jacob credit all these 
 day-dreams so implicitly that he dried his eyes and smiled ; 
 but she actually converted herself to the same way of thinking, 
 and believed everything she had said to be true and certain, as 
 enthusiastic prophets and orators very often do. As she had 
 just finished proving satisfactorily that the most prudent thing 
 
THE KUSSIA OF TO-DAY. 133 
 
 for the Petrovicli family to do, was to be as contented and 
 cheerful as possible, and to await the infallible results of 
 Anielka's high favour with the princess, and the kindly friend- 
 ship Beatrice could not help feeling for Anielka, when a shout, 
 or rather yell, broke the silence without, and immediately after- 
 wards Yaska came running in, leaving the door open in her 
 hurry. The nurse's face expressed considerable alarm, but 
 it did not seem to be any apprehension for her own safety that 
 had disturbed her, for she did not close the door, nor manifest 
 any fear lest the crowd now gathering thickly without, should 
 pour in through the open portal. The cause of her dismay 
 seemed rather remote than immediate. 
 
 "O, my dear young mistress!" she exclaimed; "do you 
 know what the stake in front of the house is meant for ?" 
 
 Katinka replied in the negative, but the little colour she had 
 left forsook her face. Old Jacob, to whom the customs of 
 Malorossia were more familiar, began to tremble violently in 
 every limb, and to cast haggard glances of purposeless terror 
 around him. 
 
 " The maid of the Princess Beatrice is to be flogged this 
 morning!" 
 
 Katinka gave an involuntary scream. " Anielka's mistress ! 
 the princess !" she cried, as all her hopes of a happy return to 
 St. Petersburg were shivered at a blow, as remorselessly as 
 the frail foundation of Alnaschar's fortunes. 
 
 "JN~o, no!" answered Yaska, mistaking the meaning of 
 Katinka's exclamation; "it is a maid from this country, one 
 Skogla, that is to be punished, not our darling Anielka no, 
 not yet !" 
 
 This " not yet" froze the blood in Katinka's veins. "Not 
 yet r "Was it possible that immunity from cruelty was only a 
 question of time, and that the day would come when a similar 
 chastisement might be assigned to Anielka, her delicate sister, 
 nurtured in the enjoyment of every care and comfort ! How 
 soon, how very soon, do our swelling hopes collapse into nothing ! 
 Five minutes before, Katinka looked upon the chance of her 
 sister's winning the friendship of the princess as a certainty, 
 and now she was anxiously trusting that Anielka might never, 
 at least, be subjected to the torture and humiliation of the 
 lash. 
 
 " Do you know the reason ?" she asked, with white lips, of 
 Yaska ; " it must surely have been some great offence that is 
 to be punished so cruelly and so publicly." 
 
134 THE SERF-SISTERS; OR, 
 
 "All, no, my dear young lady !" answered Yaska, sobbing ; 
 " it is only for breaking a mirror in the princess's dressing- 
 room, at Christmas, as they tell me; and I hear that the 
 princess has only waited to punish her until she had a new 
 maid to take Skogla's place." 
 
 "It is impossible!" said Katinka, indignantly. "No lady, 
 no woman, would so infamously revenge a trifling fault. You 
 must have been deceived." 
 
 Jacob sat trembling over the fire, like a man in a*n ague fit, 
 The scene without had revived still more the slavish fear which 
 had cowed his soul in childhood, and which now subjugated his 
 enfeebled reason. He looked quite a wreck, a shattered wreck 
 of manliness. 
 
 Another yell broke forth from the people without, and in 
 the centre of a fresh throng of peasants appeared Muller, fol- 
 lowed by two of the prince's grooms, armed with long cutting 
 whips. Two more followed, leading along Skogla, whose 
 wrists were tightly bound together with a cord. The poor girl 
 was weeping most bitterly ; her convulsive sobs, and face 
 streaming with tears, contrasting with the dress she wore, 
 a rich blue silk robe, trimmed with deep black lace, a former 
 gift of the Princess Beatrice. 
 
 " And is she really to be whipped P" asked Katinka, 
 tremblingly, of Yaska. 
 
 " It is certain. Nor is that the worst part of the sentence," 
 answered Yaska : " the princess will keep her no longer as her 
 maid, and has ordered her to be made one of the attendants at 
 the vapour-bath of the village. You are too young and too 
 innocent, love, to know what that means. That princess must 
 have the heart of a fiend." 
 
 "I will run to her!" exclaimed Katinka; "I will throw 
 myself at her feet and beg her to show mercy. She is a 
 woman, and must relent." 
 
 Yaska shook her head. " The princess is a woman," she 
 said, " but her heart is of stone for such as us. She would not 
 believe that any peasant girl could suffer as Skogla will do, 
 and would laugh in your face if you begged her to spare 
 feelings she does not credit. It would be useless." 
 
 It shocked Katinka to see how little pity or sympathy the 
 wretched Skogla received from any member of the throng, 
 except one poorly-clad old woman, her grandmother and only 
 surviving relative, who followed with the rest, sobbing as if 
 her heart would break. The people around were all peasants 
 
THE RUSSIA OF TO-DAY. 135 
 
 and slaves, but no community of feeling made them com- 
 passionate the victim before them. Slaves rarely exhibit any 
 sympathy for each other. That sacred quality is the appanage 
 only of the free-born, and not of those whose few enjoyments 
 are gained in a scramble, and whose life is dragged on upon 
 sufferance. There was another reason to account for this 
 indifference, in the fact that there is little communion or 
 friendship between the domestic servants in Russia and the 
 serfs employed in the rougher toils of agriculture. The 
 peasant, as he eats his black bread beside his smoky fire, 
 envies the handsome dress, the dainty fare, and the light duties 
 of the servant, while the latter looks with distaste and con- 
 tempt upon the uncultivated boors of the neighbourhood, and 
 tries to ape those foreign manners in which the more educated 
 Russians delight. Skogla was far from popular ; in her hey- 
 day of prosperity she had been accused by her former friends 
 of pride and arrogance, and in her hour of disgrace, no voice 
 was raised in her behalf, no tears, save those of her aged rela- 
 tive, were shed for her. On the contrary, it was an occasion 
 on which some of the worst features of the debased character 
 of the ignorant Malorossians were exhibited in all their undis- 
 guised depravity. Wherever poor Skogla looked for pity, 
 some hard, unfeeling laugh, or brutal taunt, answered her 
 silent appeal. The women jeered at one whose smart attire 
 had aroused their envy for years ; the children mowed and 
 gibbered at her like malicious elves, and the young boors 
 punished her former pride by loading the unprotected girl with 
 insults and affronts, as her grinning conductors led her slowly 
 along. Her silk dress was in rags by the time that, weeping 
 and breathless, she reached the stake, to which her fettered 
 wrists were instantly chained by Muller. The amateur execu- 
 tioners prepared their formidable whips, twenty rude hands at 
 once seemed to rend Skogla's garments, shred by shred, away, 
 and soon the whips fell heavily, lash by lash, upon her quivering 
 flesh, while at every fresh stroke a fearful scream, a scream 
 only too terribly eloquent, broke from the wretched sufferer. 
 Katinka was half maddened by the dreadful sound. Her 
 first impulse was to rush to the princess and implore her to 
 relent; her second was to break through the crowd that 
 environed Skogla, and tear away the victim from the stake to 
 which she was bound. Both schemes were fruitless, hopeless ; 
 and Yaska restrained her, though with difficulty, from at- 
 tempting an interference whose only result could have been 
 
136 THE SERF-SISTERS ; OR, 
 
 her own punishment. It was horrible to see the interest, most 
 remote from pity, with which the spectators watched the 
 whistling cuts of the whips, and heard the thrilling screams 
 of the sufferer. Most untaught and rude natures delight in 
 witnessing pain and bloodshed. We see this taste strongly 
 evinced by the denizens of our own streets, who lurk about 
 slaughter-houses and flock to executions. The appetite is 
 stronger still in a Malorossian village. Like Homans gloating 
 over the agonies of their gladiators, the peasants grinned as the 
 blood started freely at each stroke of the scourges that, knife- 
 like, lacerated Skogla's flesh. Lash! lash! lash! the pliant 
 thongs hissed like snakes in the air, and then fell heavily, 
 twining around the victim as if they had been serpents indeed. 
 And what fearful cries followed the powerful blows ! Every 
 stroke and scream wrung Katinka's heart, as she listened in 
 horror. Skogla's voice grew hoarse, and sunk into a whisper ; 
 she would have fallen, but she hung suspended by her bruised 
 wrists from the tough stake to which she was chained. At 
 last the cruel sound of the whips ceased. The executioners 
 rested from their toil. It was over. Skogla had not fainted, 
 though the water Muller threw in her face, fancying her in- 
 sensible, revived her. She was dragged to her feet and 
 unchained from the stake, half-naked, blood-stained, exhausted 
 with an agony of pain and shame. Her old grandmother crept 
 timorously up to her, crying bitterly, and, kissing her dark- 
 flushed face, wiped away the stains from her bleeding and torn 
 shoulders, and covered them with her own iron-grey cloak ; it 
 was all she could do, poor soul ; she was only a miserable, 
 wrinkled, blear-eyed old woman ; but to Katinka's eyes she 
 looked as beautiful as an angel, as she accomplished this deed of 
 love and charity. Even this touching li ttle scene did not melt 
 the crowd. They had endured too much themselves not to feel 
 a perverse pleasure in the woes of one they did not at any 
 time like, and who was abandoned to be their holiday sport. 
 Their jeers and laughter were unabashed by what they had 
 seen. For them misfortune had no dignity, and deserved no 
 respect. 
 
 And now the master of the vapour-bath came to claim his 
 apprentice. To the eternal infamy of [Russia, not only women, 
 but young girls of all ages, are, in many districts, employed as 
 attendants in these baths, where, in the midst of the most 
 revolting orgies and spectacles, all delicacy and womanhood 
 are crushed and trampled under foot. Skogla well knew what 
 
THE KUSSIA OF TO-DAY. 137 
 
 a destiny awaited her, as might be seen by the despairing glance 
 she threw around, as she was torn from her old relative, and 
 dragged towards the vapour-bath, where for the future she was 
 to be the servant, jest, and plaything of every ruffian in the 
 country who could afford a few copecks for the national luxury . 
 The crowd understood the look, and answered it by such a 
 laugh as demons might give over a condemned soul. 
 
 CHAPTEE XX. 
 
 THE crowd had scarcely dispersed after the spectacle of 
 Skogla's punishment had terminated, and Katinka had yet the 
 terrible shrieks of the poor creature ringing in her deafened 
 ears, when George Muller made his appearance in the open 
 door-way, accompanied by a young man whose form was 
 shielded from the sharp morning air by a large cloak of the 
 most costly fur that the black foxes of Siberia could supply. 
 The dress, the mien, and the haughty though careless look of 
 the prince at once betrayed his rank to Katinka, and a thrill 
 shot through her as she felt that she stood before the brother 
 of the pitiless Beatrice and the son of the grim Prince Ivan. 
 
 " So, my pretty Anna, Irene, or whatever your name maybe, 
 you know me, it seems, without the ceremony of an introduc- 
 tion," said the prince, wiio had noticed Katinka's start and 
 blush, and who advanced and patted her cheek with con- 
 temptuous familiarity, as he spoke. Katinka coloured deeply, 
 and withdrawing herself from the insolent caress of the prince, 
 she executed a formal reverence, and stood a little aloof, with 
 her eyes fixed upon the ground. 
 
 " And what is your name, pretty one ?" asked the prince, as 
 he scanned the maiden as critically as he would have done a 
 horse offered him for sale. 
 
 "My name is Katinka, my lord," replied the poor girl, 
 keeping her eyes still bent upon the ground to avoid the bold 
 stare of the prince. 
 
 "And whom have we here?" said Demetrius, turning 
 towards the old man and Yaska. 
 
 " I am Yaska, mademoiselle's old nurse," answered Yaska, 
 with a courtesy whose solemnity made the prince laugh. 
 
 "And that old dotard, who sits shaking over the fire, and 
 who has not good manners enough to answer when your 
 
138 THE SERF-SISTERS ; OR, 
 
 highness deigns to speak to him, is Jacob Petrovich ;" said 
 George Muller, rudely twitching Jacob's arm. 
 
 The old merchant rose mechanically. 
 
 "Yes, excellency, I am Jacob Petrovich, your excellency's 
 humble slave," said he, looking at Demetrius with a sort of 
 hopeless fear that seemed to have beset him since his arrival at 
 Khopol. 
 
 " You were a merchant at St. Petersburg, and a rich man, I 
 have been told, though how such a stupid-eyed driveller ever 
 made money passes my comprehension. Can you give me an 
 idea how you managed?" said Demetrius in the sneering tone 
 so habitual to him. Jacob looked at the questioner, and 
 pondered over the question, but his once acute intellect was 
 palsied by grief and fear. Unable to frame a more appropriate 
 answer, or to collect his ideas, he replied, 
 
 " I am Jacob Petrovich, lately a merchant at St. Peters- 
 burg, your highness's slave, ready to obey your gracious 
 commands." 
 
 "I have no commands for you, dotard," said the prince, 
 harshly ; " I may have some for your daughter, perhaps. Will 
 you obey me, pretty one ?" and he drew Katinka towards him, 
 and kissed her repeatedly, while Muller looked jealously on. 
 
 "Bah!" said the prince at last, pushing the struggling girl 
 away from him ; "I forgot my errand till George's long face 
 reminded me of it. I did not come to flirt with you, sweet 
 Katinka, but to warn you to be prepared to marry my trusty 
 George Muller here, as soon as the Emperor gives you leave." 
 
 " The Emperor ! excellency," said Muller in dismay ; " I 
 thought I had my prince's word that the marriage should take 
 place in a week." Katinka gave a scream, and ran to hide her 
 face on her father's bosom. 
 
 "No, George," said the prince, negligently ; " I spoke about 
 it to my father this morning, and he reminded me that as you 
 have the bad taste to be a Lutheran, and the luck to be a German, 
 the Emperor's consent is necessary, before the Papas would 
 dare to unite you to that orthodox little blue-eyed trembler. 
 So I will write to St. Petersburg for the permission, and you 
 must curb up your impatience, George, for six weeks or so, for 
 the Imperial Chancery does not hurry its decisions, I can assure 
 you." George Muller looked the very picture of disappoint- 
 ment and baffled desire. The prince laughed like Mephis- 
 tophiles himself, and having enjoyed for a few moments the 
 confusion and misery of Katinka and the rage of his satellite, 
 
THE RUSSIA OF TO-DAY. 139 
 
 lie again patted Katinka's cheek as carelessly as lie would liave 
 stroked the silken ears of a spaniel, and left the house, fol- 
 lowed by Muller. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 A FORTNIGHT had passed away since the Petrovich family 
 reached Khopol, and a hot and sultry July had succeeded to a 
 somewhat chilly June. Jacob Petrovich had in a great mea- 
 sure regained his former composure of mind, and had entered 
 upon his new duties as head gardener. The old man worked 
 hard, and studied diligently the means of pleasing his masters, 
 since he felt that his success or failure in gratifying the 
 Jargonoffs would redound much to the happiness or misery of 
 his children. He continually sent up handsomer bouquets, of 
 richer flowers, and more tastefully arranged, to the Princess 
 Beatrice, than the English gardener had ever presented her with. 
 Jacob hoped in this manner to propitiate the princess, and 
 earn her indulgence for his child. He had seen Beatrice once 
 and Prince Jargonoif twice, while working among his plants in 
 the grand conservatory. 
 
 Prince Ivan had spoken to him, gruffly and shortly, and 
 turned away ; for, to say the truth, he was only vindictive 
 so long as any dependent appeared inclined to defy his 
 authority, and he had almost forgotten his ancient grudge 
 against Jacob in the deep humility and zealous service of the 
 ex-merchant. Not that Prince Ivan would have consented to 
 restore him to his home. Had he done so he would have felt 
 that he had resigned a privilege, the loss of which diminished 
 his importance. In his younger days Prince Ivan, when he 
 visited St. Petersburg or Odessa, had compelled several of the 
 richest merchants of the place, who were born his serfs, to put 
 on his livery and attend as lackeys at his grand banquets, a 
 practice not unusual with the E/ussian noblemen, who love 
 thus to humiliate the men whose money can buy them every- 
 thing except freedom. If the prince had emancipated Jacob, 
 he would have, felt as if he had parted with a something ab- 
 solutely indispensable to his dignity. He would sooner have 
 set free fifty uneducated slaves than one man who could think. 
 But he had plenty of occupation for his mind, without 
 troubling himself about Jacob Petrorich. 
 
 The allies were at Varna, and the war was going on un- 
 
140 THE SERF-SISTERS ; OK, 
 
 favourably upon the Danube. The brilliant prowess displayed 
 by the Turkish Murat, the brave Ismail Pacha, when he rode 
 into Citate on his white charger, beneath a storm of musket 
 balls, and the profound strategy of Omer Pacha, had taken the 
 [Russians by surprise. Recruits were eagerly demanded, and, 
 to the indignation of Prince Ivan, a fresh and larger levy of 
 conscripts drew away many of the most valuable of the able- 
 bodied men from his vast estates, and his finances were taxed 
 . for the transport and equipment of the soldiers whom he was 
 forced to contribute. Prince Jargonoff disliked the Turks and 
 English, but he hated the Emperor, and detested MenschikofF, 
 " that grandson of a pastrycook," as he always called him. 
 His abuse of the Czar's favourite became so open and violent 
 as to reach the ears of the Governor of Kiew, who politely 
 invited the prince to desist from expressing any sentiments 
 on the subject of the war and its conduct, unless such senti- 
 ments should coincide with the opinions which the St. Peters- 
 burg Journal prescribed for all loyal Russians. 
 
 Klapka and Yanos had been sent with their regiment to the 
 Danube, and were already engaged in conflict with the now 
 victorious Turks. Katinka still dwelt with her father in the 
 gardener's cottage, no menial task having been assigned to her, 
 in consequence of her position as the bride elect of the steward's 
 son. She was frequently annoyed by a visit from George 
 Muller, but would never receive him except in Yaska's pre- 
 sence, and always steadily though mildly refused to consent to a 
 union with one whom she neither liked nor respected. George 
 Muller laughed at her firmness, however, and only occupied 
 himself in chiding the sluggish movements of the Imperial 
 Chancery, whose permission was indispensable for the celebra- 
 tion of a wedding between a member of the orthodox church 
 and a Lutheran. Once Katinka had seen Mark, who had come 
 over from Kiew in his Tartar dress, and had contrived to have 
 an interview with her without exciting any suspicion, the 
 villagers being perfectly accustomed to the sight of Dressing- 
 gown Tartars. Mark, however, had not yet been, able to hear 
 of any safe method of proceeding to the coast, and was about, 
 in his Tartar habiliments, to start for the Dearest port or 
 creek, where a shallop might be hired to convey Katinka, her 
 father, and her sister, to a place of safety. Mark's visit, and his 
 hopeful conversation and buoyant spirits, in some measure 
 cheered poor little Katinka's drooping heart, but when he was 
 gone, and she thought of him, far away on his perilous mission, 
 
THE RUSSIA OF TO-DAY. 141 
 
 in which discovery would be death, the probable fate of her 
 lover gave her a fear and an anxiety the more to add to the 
 load that already nearly crushed her. She had been twice 
 permitted, as well as her father, to see Anielka for a brief 
 space. Anielka looked ill and harassed, but beautiful in her 
 paleness, and she strove to spare a pang to her father and 
 sister by depicting her life in the palace in as favourable 
 colours as possible, an innocent piece of duplicity which threw 
 a species of constraint over the intercourse between those 
 whose hopes and feelings had once been in common and un- 
 disguised. 
 
 Anielka's life was far from being a happy one. Beatrice 
 was a hard mistress. At one tune she would flatter and caress 
 Anielka until the poor girl almost believed that the proud 
 princess was becoming attached to her, would force on her 
 acceptance valuable and brilliant presents of lace, jewellery, 
 books anything that came to hand. At another, she would 
 upbraid Anielka with furious volubility, taunt her with all the 
 ingenious subtlety and heartlessness of her cruel nature, and 
 even strike her with a force of which the princess's slender 
 hand would have seemed hardly capable. But Beatrice was 
 the type of a Russian lady, self-indulgent, petulant, and vin- 
 dictive. She had been used from her childhood to beat her 
 attendants, and to buffet the tall lackeys whose red and white 
 liveries formed the ornaments of Prince Jargonoff's palace-hall 
 in St. Petersburg. During the brief period of her residence at 
 the capital as a widow, her cruelty was severely animadverted 
 upon by several foreigners of rank, and who, not being Rus- 
 sians, could shudder at the torments inflicted upon even their 
 inferiors. Beatrice was pronounced only one degree better 
 than the notorious but lovely monster of barbarity, Katrinka 
 Eostopchin, who amused herself by sticking pins into the arms 
 and bosom of a beautiful female slave (incredible as this may 
 appear, it is matter of history) ; and when during a most severe 
 frost Beatrice kept her carriage waiting for four hours in front 
 of the Cheritoff Palace, while she danced at a ball given by the 
 princess, in consequence of which act of wanton heartlessness 
 one of her postilions, a child of twelve, was actually frozen to 
 death in the street, while the other had his fingers frost-bitten 
 and mortified, a terrible outcry of reprobation was raised against 
 her. The ambassadresses ceased to bow to Beatrice ; no foreign 
 lady would dance in the same quadrille as the daughter of Jar- 
 gonofF: the Empress warmly remonstrated with her on the 
 
142 THE SEEF-SISTEES ; OE, 
 
 scandal she was bringing upon the great names of Russia. 
 Beatrice replied with sarcastic impertinence; the Empress 
 reported her words, and she was banished from court, and 
 denied permission to travel. Her temper had not been mate- 
 rially improved by this episode in her career, and many a 
 broken spirit, and not a few broken hearts, might have been 
 justly charged to the smiling, courteous, highly accomplished 
 Princess Beatrice, who was never at a loss for a reply to the 
 wittiest repartee or most cutting epigram, who fascinated 
 every stranger that approached her, who had been too adroitly 
 discreet ever to give calumny an opportunity for blackening 
 her reputation, and who had seemed to many travellers 
 who did not know her real character, quite a refreshing oasis 
 in the desert of Russian barbarism. Beatrice more than once 
 compelled Anielka to read to her, standing, for hours together 
 through the long night, until the poor wearied girl fainted, 
 with the words of some novel of Sue or Feval, which she had 
 been reading aloud until nature gave way, swimming con- 
 fusedly before her eyes. On these occasions Beatrice would 
 calmly ring the bell, and order Yhalda to remove Anielka, as 
 indifferently as if she had been an actual machine. Anielka 
 was also exposed to worse annoyances in the shape of the odious 
 and incessant persecutions of Prince Demetrius, which became 
 daily more and more insupportable. She studiously avoided 
 his presence, and often vainly implored him to desist from his 
 brutal pursuit of her, but the prince was as hard-hearted as 
 his sister, and never lost an opportunity of insulting the un- 
 happy Anielka. 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 IT was towards the commencement of the second week in July, 
 on one of those fresh and misty mornings whose light vapours 
 usually prove the forerunners of a day of great heat, that 
 Anielka was sitting beside the open window of her room, which 
 was situated at so short a distance from that of the Princess 
 Beatrice that the slightest note of the silver handbell in the 
 latter's chamber could summon Anielka to the presence of her 
 mistress. The princess was a late riser, however, and Anielka, 
 as usual, had no occupation throughout the pleasant hours of 
 morning. Leaning her head upon her hand, she sat pensively 
 gazing from the window, musing upon her old home and her 
 
THE BU6SIA OF TO-DAY. 143 
 
 former life upon the far away banks of the JSTeva, upon her 
 blighted hopes, her simple pleasures withered on their stem, 
 and one other sorrow which she had buried in her own heart, 
 far from human ken or sympathy, the supposed abandonment 
 of IQapka. As she listlessly gazed from the open lattice upon 
 the fair scene below, while her thoughts wandered in a far dis- 
 tant region, her senses all unconsciously imbibed a refreshing 
 and soothing influence from the summer beauty without. The 
 trees of the garden were living domes and pyramids of blos- 
 soms and verdure ; the grass was yet unscorched by a long 
 continuance of fiery sunshine, and every trim shaven lawn 
 shone with the cool greenness of a prodigious emerald. The 
 birds sang sweetly and strongly, hidden as they were among 
 the green leaves, until a poet might have fancied the Eastern 
 fable was realized, and that the trees themselves were giving 
 forth those gushes of song that burst from among their cluster- 
 ing branches. The bright parterres were gorgeous with 
 flowers, glowing rubies, and turquoises, and pearls, and topazes, 
 and blood-red garnets, crowned every slender stalk, around 
 which the bees hummed with the rippling murmur of a water- 
 fall. The light mists were already growing filmier and more 
 filmy, and gradually dissolving into the blue ether, as the 
 grateful rays of the sun acquired redoubled strength. A 
 breeze, the very softest, gentlest zephyr that ever blew from 
 the golden regions of the south, swept through the waving 
 branches of the shrubberies, and toyed with the millions of 
 gossamer-like spider's threads that stretched their almost 
 viewless coils from bush to bush, and from grassblade to grass- 
 blade, looking like silvery nets of fairy workmanship. It was 
 impossible for any lover of nature not to feel, however unwit- 
 tingly, the magic charm which such genial weather sheds 
 around ; and Anielka felt herself comforted as if by an unseen 
 but ever-present friend. The exquisite harmony that pre- 
 vailed around, the happy carol of the birds, the rich odours 
 that streamed upwards from a thousand blooming flowers, half 
 diverted her mind from the gloomy impressions that for some 
 time past had clouded her imagination as with a funeral pall. 
 Her griefs seemed but a speck, an atom, in the contemplation 
 of the vast and widely-diffused happiness of the Creation. The 
 very fountain in the centre of the lawn beneath her window 
 seemed joyful in the increasing sunlight, and tossed its liquid 
 spangles merrily aloft. While Anielka was musing thus, the 
 door of her room opened, noiselessly but abruptly, and Yaska 
 
144 THE SERF-SISTERS; OR, 
 
 entered, and cautiously closed the door. The sound made 
 Anielka start and look around. Yaska put her finger on 
 her lips as if to caution her to be silent, and this gesture, 
 coupled with the signs of strong agitation which marked the 
 old woman's wrinkled features, caused Anielka an involuntary 
 shudder of alarm. There was nothing in itself surprising in 
 the fact of Yaska's visit. She was a native of Khopol, one or 
 two of her relations were servants in the house, and she had 
 easily managed to conciliate the other domestics, and to obtain 
 leave to visit Anielka every day. But the disturbed look of 
 old Yaska and her warning finger were quite enough to arouse 
 the apprehensions of one so unprotected as Anielka. 
 
 "Hush!" said the old nurse, approaching her young mis- 
 tress with the utmost precaution against letting her footfalls be 
 heard; "hush, dove of my heart ; they think I have gone home 
 the servants think so, I mean and they must not know that 
 *I am with you, if I would still hope to slip out unperceived." 
 
 "What do you mean, dear Yaska?" said Anielka, rising and 
 taking the old woman's hand kindly. 
 
 " Is she asleep ?" asked Yaska, in a whisper, as if she feared 
 to be overheard. 
 
 " The princess," said Anielka. 
 
 Yaska replied by a nod. " She never rises before noon 
 at the earliest. She sleeps but little during the night, and 
 never wakes till mid-day," answered Anielka. 
 
 "O my nursling, my dearest young mistress!" exclaimed 
 Yaska in an under-tone, but very earnestly, "you and I, and 
 your father, and your sister, and all who love you, have great 
 cause to be thankful to heaven this day." 
 
 " You frighten me, Yaska ! what has happened ? my father 
 is not ill, I hope, nor Katinka? Tell me, for the love of the 
 Panagia, what is the matter!" said Anielka, whose heart now 
 fluttered like a bird alarmed by a hawk. 
 
 "Thanks be to Heaven!" answered Yaska, "I came across 
 the demesne this morning to the palace, instead of going as 
 usual by the road. Had I come by my usual path, my child, 
 O what, what would have become of you ! But good Saint Vla- 
 dimir was merciful, and led me where I could hear of the 
 intended villany in time to baffle it." 
 
 It was with some little difficulty, partly owing to her own 
 and partly to Yaska's agitation, that Anielka succeeded in 
 obtaining from her old nurse a coherent account of what 
 she had heard, and when the story was told, the anguish 
 
THE KTJSSIA OF TO-PAY. 14-) 
 
 and terror of the poor maiden became so distressing, that 
 it was long before the earnest prayers of Yaska could induce 
 her to compose herself. It appeared that Yaska had on 
 that morning chosen to traverse the beautiful demesne of the 
 palace, instead of taking the common and more direct route 
 by the road. She had entered the park by a side gate, and 
 was passing across a plot of velvet turf, shadowed by a clump 
 of oaks, in preference to the broad gravelled walks, when she 
 suddenly heard a voice she knew well, that of the detested 
 George Muller, pronounce Anielka's name. Ever watchful 
 when the safety of her darling nurslings was concerned, 
 Yaska had crept noiselessly to the edge of a dark thicket, 
 where in a recess, formed by cutting away a number of thorny 
 branches, and which had thus been made into a living arbour, 
 two persons were conversing. These were George Muller and 
 his patron, the young Prince Demetrius Jargonoff. Yaska 
 crouched down among the thick shrubs that formed an almost 
 impervious circle around the speakers, and, unobserved herself, 
 was able to watch their gestures and catch every word they 
 uttered. The conversation she thus overheard caused her the 
 utmost alarm. It concerned a villanous plot against the honour 
 of Anielka, which had been devised by Muller, and which 
 the prince was resolved to put into execution at once. Yaska, 
 Dot having lost a word uttered by the chief conspirator or his 
 accomplice, was enabled to warn the terrified Anielka that 
 her chamber was to be changed that very night, and that her 
 sleeping apartment was to be assigned in a remote wing of the 
 palace, entirely uninhabited, and where even a cry for aid 
 would be most unlikely to reach any human ear. In this 
 Manner, Anielka would be entirely at the mercy of the prince, 
 and it needed but the remembrance of his brutality, inde- 
 pendently of the words which Yaska had heard fall from his 
 lips, to prove to her how slender was the hope of appealing to 
 Ms pity or forbearance. 
 
 " And does the princess know of this infamy ?" askedAnielka, 
 er colourless lips quivering with emotion. 
 " I should say she knew nothing of it, from a chance remark 
 of her brother's," answered Yaska. " The prince is to tell her 
 lie wants to give your room to one of a large party of officers 
 ifom Kiew, who are to dine and sleep here to-night." 
 
 " If I were to go to her, and claim her protection ?" said 
 . tnielka, irresolutely. 
 
 " I would not trust her !" answered Yaska, shaking her 
 L 
 
140 THE SERF-SISTERS ; OR, 
 
 head; " I dare say, more from whim than from kindness, she 
 would protect yon if you slept, as at present, so near her. 
 Indeed the prince seemed to fear that his sister might over- 
 throw all his plans, were you left in this apartment. But I do 
 not believe that she would clo anything but laugh at you, were 
 you to remonstrate against your chamber being changed, and 
 if you told her of the plot, she would declare you had dreamt 
 or invented it." 
 
 ''What then can I do?" said Anielka, looking despairingly 
 at Yaska. 
 
 " You must fly, my dearest mistress, fly with your faithful 
 old Yaska, who held you on her knee when you were a lisping 
 child, and to whose love and care your poor mother confided 
 you when she died," answered Yaska, earnestly, and grasping 
 Auielka's hand between her tanned fingers. 
 
 " Fly ! and whither P" asked Anielka, hopelessly, for she felt 
 the same inability to escape that a sparrow feels when the cold 
 green eyes of some feline prowler are glaring on him with their 
 mesmeric fascination. 
 
 " To the fens, my own dove ! to the fens, whose trackless 
 morasses and reedy forests have shielded many a hunted slave 
 from the lash and the branding iron ! I know them well. I 
 was born within a mile of Khopol, and every path is as familiar 
 to me as to the hunters and fishers. Hemeniber, in a few brief 
 hours it will be too late. Once in that desolate wing of the 
 palace, where there are sliding panels and trap-doors as I have 
 heard, and where every room can be entered by the aid of the 
 prince's pass-key, what chance of safety can you have ? If you 
 barricaded your chamber it would be useless, for no door can 
 stand the axe, and the prince and Muller are not men to 
 hesitate because an inch or two of wood is in their way." 
 
 "I will fly, then!" cried Anielka, springing hurriedly 
 towards the door, " let us lose no time, dear Yaska. Let me 
 hide myself, were it in the grave !" 
 
 To an immediate departure, however, Yaska strongly ob- 
 jected. She recalled to Anielka's remembrance that the 
 princess would soon awake and summon her, that if she were 
 not to be found, suspicion would be aroused, and a search set on 
 foot before the fugitives could gain a place of security. The 
 best plan which Yaska could devise, was that she herself 
 should at once leave the palace and return to the cottage, that 
 Anielka should remain quietly all day in her chamber, ful- 
 filling her duties as usual, and being careful by no word or 
 look to in,.cate her design or her fears to her mistress or 
 
THE RUSSIA OF TO-DAY. 117 
 
 the servants of JargonofF. At dusk, while the prince and his 
 military guests were at dinner, Anielka could by the exercise 
 of a little coolness and ingenuity quit the house without at- 
 tracing notice, as if to stroll through the palace gardens, and 
 then, gliding unobserved from clump to clump, from shrubbery 
 to shrubbery, could reach the side gate of the demesne, where 
 Yaska promised to await her, to act as her guide and pro- 
 tector. To this scheme, after some natural trepidation, Anielka 
 gave her assent ; but it was a less easy matter to persuade her to 
 agree not to give her father and sister any indications of her in- 
 tention, and neither to wish them farewell nor to communicate to 
 them the place of her retreat. Yaska urged, however, that her 
 old master, though he had in a great measure regained his 
 faculties, was still much aged and shaken, that his dread of the 
 power of the Jargonoffs was excessive, and that, if interrogated, 
 he would be unable to keep the secret of his daughter's hiding- 
 place. With regard to Katinka, Yaska told Anielka for the first 
 time of the frequent annoyances she had to endure from George 
 Muller, of her anxieties about Mark Forster's fate, and of her 
 continual tremors lest she should actually be forced to become 
 Midler's wife, a destiny she looked on with loathing, and the 
 old woman prayed Anielka not to add to Katinka's difficulties 
 by entrusting her with a secret which she would not betray, 
 but could not conceal her knowledge of, in which case the most 
 unscrupulous means of extorting a confession would be resorted 
 to. At last Anielka yielded this point, and Yaska, again cau- 
 tioning her to be circumspect, left the room, carrying with 
 her under her cloak a small bundle of such necessary articles 
 as Anielka would require in her hiding-place. 
 
 The prince's dinner-hour was seven, and at half-past seven 
 Anielka was to be at the gate of the demesne, where Yaska 
 had promised to await her. Yaska had not long been gone, 
 when the silver hand-bell sounded from the chamber of the 
 princess, and Anielka hastened to answer the summons. 
 During the long process of the toilet of Beatrice, Anielka 
 endured positive tortures. Every idle remark of the princess 
 seemed to her distempered fancy an indication that Beatrice 
 had overheard her conversation with Yaska, and was deter- 
 mined to frustrate her plan. She feared lest the occasional 
 blush that suffused her face, the uncontrollable trembling of 
 her limbs, even the loud beating of her fluttering heart, should 
 be remarked by the princess, and cause suspicion, and with it 
 the ruin of her hopes. She shunned the searching blue eye of 
 
 L 2 
 
148 THE SERF-SISTERS; OK, 
 
 Beatrice, as if she dreaded lest her mistress, like a fairy queen, 
 should possess the power of reading her thoughts and di- 
 vining her intentions. And the more anxious she felt to appear 
 cool and composed, the louder was the beating of her rebellious 
 heart, as if, like a treacherous spy in a beleaguered city, it 
 was resolved to betray her agitation to the cruel princess. 
 Fortunately, however, Beatrice was in a good humour, and 
 everything appeared to her couleur de rose. She was more 
 indolent and less acute than usual, for, with her, penetration 
 and shrewdness were merely weapons to serve her ordinary 
 perversity of temper. It was with a sigh of inexpressible 
 relief that Anielka saw her capricious mistress, fully arrayed, 
 sail down the marble stairs in all her pride of beauty, like a 
 milk-white swan upon a lake. Anielka was next summoned to 
 partake of the usual midday repast in the great hall set apart 
 for the domestics of Jargonoff. Here she had less difficulty 
 in playing her part than might have been supposed, for the 
 servants treated her with considerable respect, both as the 
 principal attendant of Beatrice, and as the object of the 
 pursuit of Prince Demetrius, and considered her as a personage 
 who might one day possess great influence in the household. 
 No one, therefore, remarked that she only feigned to eat, while 
 she was able to remain silent without attracting observation, 
 being known to be of a retiring nature. Anielka was leaving 
 the hall, at the end of the repast, when an inferior hand- 
 maiden was sent to her by the important housekeeper, to 
 tell her that her room was needed by a young officer, one 
 of the prince's expected guests, and that another chamber 
 had been provided for her in the western wing, to which she 
 must transfer her slender wardrobe at once. Anielka set 
 about this task immediately, aided by the girl who had 
 brought her the message ; and, when she was fairly installed 
 in her new apartment, and the female who had carried up her 
 valise had withdrawn, she looked fearfully about her, like some 
 timid native of the woods, suddenly caught in a trap. The 
 room was a large one, with a sort of ghostly, dusky look, and 
 very old furniture, quaint and dark, and strongly contrasting 
 with the modern decorations of the other part of the palace. 
 The walls were hung with moth-eaten tapestry, that flapped to 
 and fro as if some one w r ere hiding behind it, and stealthily 
 creeping out. There were three doors, and several large 
 cupboards and presses half filled with miscellaneous lumber. 
 The windows, however, looked out on the park and a portion 
 
THE BUSSIA OF TO-DAY. 149 
 
 of the garden, and the cheerful prospect without was some 
 compensation from the sombre air of all within. But the room 
 was one of those strange old rooms that always have a look of 
 gloom, and mystery, and sadness ; and Anielka shuddered as 
 she gazed around it. The rustling of the tapestry alone was 
 sufficiently alarming. A horrid idea seized on her mind the 
 idea that Demetrius was perhaps lurking behind the faded 
 arras, or concealed in some other hiding-place, ready to pounce 
 upon his wretched prey. She trembled in every limb, and 
 could not withdraw her eyes from the tapestry, while she 
 dared not boldly examine the various places of concealment 
 which abounded in the room, lest she should rush upon the 
 danger she sought to avoid. The breeze ceased to blow, and 
 the tapestry rustled no more. All the long afternoon Anielka, 
 her nerves somewhat calmer than when she first found herself 
 alone in the lonesome chamber, sat by the open window, often 
 starting as a rat would run along the deserted corridors, or a 
 distant footfall appear to approach her apartment. The fresh 
 bright day had grown insupportably hot and sultry, large 
 copper-coloured clouds floated lazily along, through whose 
 fringes the red sun glared luridly, and the stillness of the 
 parched air, heavy and oppressive, caused Anielka to feel a 
 gradually-increasing languor and despondency. 
 
 The birds had become silent, the deer in the park had lefb 
 the lawns for the dense coverts, and the peacocks came in 
 stately file towards the house, as if for shelter. All things 
 presaged a storm, and a deadly silence reigned over the 
 country, while the flowers that decked the trim parterres like 
 living jewels dropped their thirsty heads, and felt the powerful 
 sway of the coming thunderstorm. The officers from Kiew, 
 whom Prince JargonofF, at his son's instigation, had invited, 
 now came gaily cantering up the park, their showy uniforms 
 and gold lace glinting back the fiery rays of the sun. Anielka 
 fancied that there was something unnatural in the sight of 
 these jovial and handsomely-clad horsemen careering merrily 
 along, with song and jest that floated through the heavy air, 
 and reached the lattice where the lonely maiden sat, contrasting 
 with the formidable stillness that formed the prelude to the 
 tempest, and jarring with the depression which every animal 
 and every plant felt, as the metallic-tinted clouds came rolling 
 down in their gloomy phalanx. Still, the outburst of the 
 tempest lingered, and the fury of the coming storm seemed to 
 await its time. Anielka pressed her hand to her throbbing 
 
150 THE SEKF-SISTEEB ; OK, 
 
 temples, and a thousand wild thoughts succeeded each other 
 in her aching brain. In every smothered sound she heard the 
 approach of Demetrius, while her vivid imagination conjured 
 up innumerable obstacles, rising, like the waves of the sea, to 
 prevent her flight. At last a footstep was heard in the cor- 
 ridor, a hand tapped at the door. Anielka's pulsations were 
 checked by terror ; she gazed upon the opening door as the 
 poor exhausted hare gazes upon the bloodthirsty hounds that 
 leap and howl around her, but to her relief she found that the 
 visitor was only Vhalda, come to tell her that the princess 
 would not need her services in dressing for dinner. This was 
 a fearful ordeal spared her. Anielka was wild with joy, her 
 heart throbbing, bounding, as Vhalda retired, and slie thought 
 of her escape, now become more facile and more probable. 
 The dinner-bell sounded at last, and as every deep reverberation 
 that sounded from the belfry turret made the roof vibrate, 
 Anielka felt as if it tolled the knell of her own burial. Direful 
 fears, starting up like spectres, assailed her. How if Yaska 
 had been seen by those whose conference she had overheard ! 
 how if some spy had listened to her conversation with Anielka ! 
 how if Demetrius or Muller were hidden in the gardens, lying 
 in ambush among the thickets of the park or the corridors of 
 the palace, or lurking in some recess of her very room ! She 
 dared not turn her head, so agonizing were her terrors, lest she 
 should see the licentious eyes of Demetrius, or the satyr-like 
 face of Muller, glaring over her shoulder. While the guests 
 of Prince Jargonoff were feasting merrily around his board, 
 what torments was one unhappy girl, and she the purest, 
 gentlest, sweetest, inmate of the palace, enduring in her distant 
 chamber. But the storm burst. The lightning flashed far and 
 near across the illumined horizon, and flung a blue pale gleam 
 into the room where Anielka sat; the roll of the majestic 
 thunder made the palace rock as if an earthquake were abroad; 
 and the big drops of hail and rain came driving against the 
 casements with a fast-rushing roar. Anielka rose, threw her 
 mantle over her shoulders, drew the hood over her raven hair, 
 and, mustering all her courage, hastened from the room, 
 fearing, as she left it, to feel a restraining hand gripe her 
 shoulder, and to hear a mocking laugh fill her affrighted ear. 
 But she met with no obstacle. The stairs and passages were 
 deserted, and without meeting any one, or hearing any sound 
 but that of her own tread, she reached the door. She glided 
 out into the storm; the rain beat fiercely upon her, the 
 
THE KUSSIA OF TO-DAY. 151 
 
 liglitning dazzled her, but through the crashing thunder and 
 the bursting hail she steadily made her way, pressing valiantly 
 on, guilt, infamy, and splendour behind her; before her. 
 penury and innocence. She hurried on, past grove and 
 thicket, past shrubbery and lawn, through the garden and 
 through the park, and stood breathless, at length, beside the 
 wicket where Yaska was waiting. Together they quitted the 
 demesne, and made their way as rapidly as possible towards 
 the morasses of the Borysthenes. Yaska was perfectly fami- 
 liar with the route, and adroitly contrived to avoid the village ; 
 and, without encountering any one, the fugitives arrived in a 
 lonely tract of country, whose marshy meadows were inter- 
 sected by numerous brooklets. Still advancing, they arrived 
 among the weedy meres and enormous beds of reeds which 
 marked the borders of the huge river. Yaska selected a 
 narrow path, and plunged into it without hesitation, in spite of 
 the pelting of the rain, and the shaking of the treacherous ground 
 beneath her feet. Anielka followed, and they passed swiftly 
 on through yellow jungles of marsh reeds, and perfect forests 
 of broad flag-rushes, the brown soil of the morass quaking 
 fearfully as they trod it, and the turbid water oozing up from 
 among the turfy hillocks, and obliterating their footprints in 
 an instant. As the shades of evening were darkening like a 
 veil around them, Yaska and Anielka reached a low-built hut, 
 erected at the head of a narrow creek, whose bulrush-fringed 
 banks led down to the mighty river. The hut was a poor abode, 
 built of turfs and thatched with reeds, but its windows were 
 glazed, its door was perfect, and a couple of canoe-like skiffs 
 were moored in the creek hard by, w r hile the nets and eel- 
 baskets under a neighbouring shed proclaimed it the dwelling 
 of a fisherman. 
 
 "My nephew, Stefann, lives here. You may trust in his 
 fidelity," said Yaska, as she lifted the latch, and ushered 
 Anielka into the humble tenement. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 THE hut in which Anielka had taken refuge was one which had 
 been erected for the convenience of one of those fowlers by 
 whom not only Prince Jargonoff's table, but also the markets 
 of Kiew, were supplied. Its present tenant was Stefann, 
 Yaska's nephew, a good-natured young man, who was em- 
 
152 , THE SEBF-SISTEBS ; OK, 
 
 ployed as a fisherman and wild duck shooter by the prince, 
 and who led a solitary life in the fens. Stefann was of a good 
 disposition, was willing to befriend one whom his aged relative 
 so tenderly loved, and, moreover, felt as much compassion for 
 Anielka as could be reasonably expected from a boor who had 
 lived always among untaught companions. He was a free 
 man, too, having bought his freedom from Prince Jargonoff, 
 who seldom objected to emancipating an ignorant, rough serf, 
 who could pay for his freedom, though he would not have con- 
 ceded their liberty to Dante or Michael Angelo, had they been 
 unlucky enough to have been born on his estates. Altogether, 
 Stefann, who ran no risk of being arbitrarily flogged by Prince 
 Ivan in case Anielka was discovered, was not unwilling to give 
 her shelter and protection. He repaired every morning to a 
 lonely farm in search of such simple provisions as form the 
 food of a Russian peasant, and contrived, without exciting 
 suspicion, to obtain an additional black loaf for the maintenance 
 of Anielka and Yaska. Every day his nets and lines produced 
 a large supply of fish, both from the river and the meres ; and 
 as he seldom entered Khopol, and drank but little brandy, the 
 risk of his mentioning the whereabouts of the fugitives in 
 some drinking-bout of the young serfs, was but small. Still, 
 the time hung heavily on Anielka's hands, though old Yaska 
 endeavoured to enliven the hours by narrating such legends of 
 the country as she had not told her nurslings at St. Peters- 
 burg. Still, Anielka had no books, no music, none of those 
 graceful feminine occupations which make the flight of time 
 so pleasant and imperceptible ; nothing to do but to listen to 
 the hoarse croaking of the bull-frogs, the boom of the bittern, 
 or the shrill pipe of the marsh-bird, or to watch the sun go 
 down and stain with a ruddier hue the yellow waters of the 
 Borysthenes, and dye the weedy pools and inky meres with a 
 sullen, blood-red radiance, 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 THE summer of Russia, although short, is generally intensely 
 hot, and as the days dragged on, long and scorchingly sultry* 
 the slight shade which the reeds afforded could not keep off the 
 burning rays of the sun, which fell with all their force on the 
 turf hut, and called up reeking vapours, mephitic and subtle, 
 from every plashy pond and muddy creek. The bull-frogs 
 
THE liUSSIA OF TO-DAY. - 153 
 
 croaked louder than ever, but the song of the birds was seldom 
 heard in the miry fens. The fisher's nets and eel baskets 
 were gorged with slimy spoil. Bed and flaming, the almost 
 tropical sun sank ever in the west as night came on. And 
 when the sun sank, there rose up from the stagnant pools 
 white, ghastly mists, that hovered like sheeted ghosts above 
 the unwholesome meres that bred them, and blue lights 
 danced with a phosphoric gleam over the dull waters, making 
 Yaska and Stefann cross themselves and pray, for they thought 
 that unblessed spirits were abroad in those fantastic meteors. 
 
 Without exercise or occupation, Anielka drooped more and 
 more every day. Like a plant transplanted far from its native 
 soil, she withered in the ungenial atmosphere, the foul miasma 
 of the marsh, and looked daily more pallid and more frail. She 
 never left the hut, for independently of the peril of walking in 
 that tremulous morass, where a single false step might lead 
 into some fathomless pit of slime, or some quagmire of mud and 
 deep water, there were other dangers to be apprehended in 
 that desolate district. 
 
 Th^ majority of English readers may not perhaps be aware 
 that a species of very large and voracious snake, whose habits 
 appear to assimilate closely to those of the gigantic Mexican 
 and South American reptiles which the Spaniards call the 
 " Matatoro," or Bull-killer, is to be found among the reeds of 
 the Borysthenes, and other rivers of Southern Russia. These 
 serpents, of whose length, ravages, and tenacity of life a 
 thousand legends are current among- the peasantry, and 
 anecdotes respecting whose devastations are to be found in 
 various standard books of information on Russia, and especially 
 in the works of Kohl, have not apparently attracted the atten- 
 tion of naturalists, and we are in possession of no data respect- 
 ing then" size or structure, save the semi-fabulous reports 
 derived from the unlearned serfs of Malorossia. That these 
 huge monsters exist, however, in small numbers, that they 
 destroy quantities of sheep and oxen, and that the populations 
 of whole villages often assemble for the chase and slaughter of 
 a single one of these reptiles, is as undoubted as that there are 
 crocodiles in the Nile, or sharks in the harbour of Port Royal. 
 A serpent of this formidable tribe had appeared in the fens 
 near Khopol, had done much damage among the flocks, and 
 was known to have his lair among the marshes. Stefann 
 brought back from Kliopol the news that the tracks made by the 
 bulky snake, and the stains of blood proceeding from a strangled 
 
154 THE SERF-SISTEKS ; OR, 
 
 lamb lie had carried away, were distinctly visible through 
 the long grass through which the rep tile had dragged his prey. 
 Stefann added that Prince JargonoiF was about to organize 
 a snake-hunt on a grand scale, intended to comprise the whole 
 of the able-bodied males of the district, and designed, if possible, 
 to track the gorged monster to his lair, and put an end to his 
 devastations and his life. Stefann had also heard that Anielka's 
 flight had caused a most energetic search for her, though the 
 pursuit had been chiefly directed towards Kiew and the other 
 neighbouring towns since no one could imagine that so delicate 
 and fragile a being could have taken refuge in the pestilential 
 swamps of the fen district. Stefann added that Prince 
 Demetrius had headed the search after Anielka, had offered a 
 reward for her capture, and was said to be in the state of a 
 man possessed by an unquiet demon, unable to rest, always on 
 horseback, and scouring the country, visiting every farm and 
 hamlet for miles around. Jacob and Katinka, though greatly 
 alarmed by Anielka's disappearance, were in a measure con- 
 soled by the thought that Yaska was with her nursling, and 
 they had soon been dismissed by the prince, who had at first 
 sent for them and subjected them to a strict interrogation, but 
 who had directly convinced himself that they were as ignorant 
 of Anielka's place of refuge as himself. 
 
 On the tenth evening ' after her arrival at the fisher's hut, 
 Anielka complained of headache and illness. Her pulses 
 throbbed with unnatural quickness, her eyes looked brighter 
 than usual, her hand was dry and hot, and her temples burned 
 like fire. Yaska became alarmed. She did not dare to send to 
 Kiew, where the nearest physician lived, and her medical skill 
 was slight. Still she could see that her young mistress was likely 
 to become dangerously ill, and her faithful heart bled to think 
 that her unhappy position debarred her from all the comforts 
 and assistance so needed in the hour of sickness. The next 
 morning, Anielka's eyes were still more brilliant, and looked 
 disproportionably large from the wanness of her rapidly 
 hollowed cheeks : her lips, too, were white and feverish. She 
 had scarcely slept, and complained of the continual aching and 
 throbbing of her burning head, which she laid on Yaska's lap, 
 moaning like a sick child. Faster and faster did her pulses 
 beat, as the day wore on, and all Yaska's simple remedies and 
 fond nursing produced no good effect, save the sickly but 
 grateful smile with which Anielka rewarded them. When the 
 hot day drew near to its close, Anielka's condition became still 
 
THE KUSSIA OF TO -BAY. 155 
 
 worse ; her hands were hot, and nevertheless her sldii was as 
 parched as that of a wayfarer among the sandy deserts of 
 Africa ; and she complained that a sound like the hum of bees 
 grew louder and louder, and filled her ears with its murmur. 
 Yaska raised her up, and laid her on her lowly bed, and 
 having smoothed the rude pillow on which her patient's 
 beautiful head reposed, she sat down beside her, and covered 
 her withered face, weeping silently, so as not to disturb Anielka. 
 
 All her worst fears were realized ; the poison of malaria had 
 fastened on its victim ; her darling had caught the marsh fever, 
 so deadly even to the seasoned inhabitants of the fens. 
 
 Evening gradually darkened around the hut, the last rays of 
 the sun vanished below the horizon, and the whoop of the owl 
 and the croak of the marsh reptiles seemed to unite in ominous 
 chorus. Yaska sat still, hoping that Anielka was asleep, and 
 that the slumber would refresh her, for the old nurse still 
 clung to hope. 
 
 Soon after dark, Anielka stirred for the first time; she 
 feebly moved her arm, and in a weak voice asked for Katinka- 
 Old Yaska flew to her side, and addressed her in the same 
 tender tone that had soothed her childish griefs. The faithful 
 nurse was shocked to hear a hollow, ringing laugh, the very 
 mockery of mirth, reply to her. There was foam on Anielka's 
 lips, her eyes glared vacantly, and words wildly strung 
 together fell in rapid incoherence from her tongue. Anielka 
 was delirious, and in that state she remained throughout the 
 live-long night, pillowed on Yaska's aged breast. Her ravings 
 were terrible, and Yaska trembled as she saw the gentle being 
 before her, now convulsed with all the fiery energy of a 
 Pythoness, and uttering maledictions that sounded doubly 
 awful when proceeding from one whose nature was so tender 
 and forgiving, now pleading in tones of the most touching 
 entreaty, and imploring mercy with a fervour that a savage 
 might have been moved by. At one time she upbraided 
 Klapka for his cowardly desertion of his aifianced bride in the 
 hour when she most needed a friend, at another she blessed 
 and forgave him with the sweet placability of a dying martyr. 
 Then she would fancy herself in the grasp of Demetrius, and 
 would beg of him to spare her in such accents of agony, in such 
 earnestness of supplication, that Stefann, who sat beside the 
 fire in the outer chamber, wiped from his eyes the tears so 
 rarely shed by a dogged Malorossian serf. And then it was 
 not Demetrius, but the snake, that had clasped her in its fatal 
 
156 THE SERF-SISTEKS ; OK, 
 
 folds, and she struggled and screamed in that horrible embrace, 
 until the scene changed, and she would address words of fond- 
 ness to old Jacob or Katinka, which would give place again to 
 the most fearful curses on the race of JargonofF, on the 
 oppressors of her family, and the monarch under whose rule 
 such deeds were done. 
 
 CHAPTEE XXV. 
 
 AN hour after daybreak the paroxysm ceased, and Anielka fell 
 into a feverish slumber. She still muttered to herself at in- 
 tervals ; but the words were so low and indistinct that they 
 did not reach old Yaska's ears. Leaving her on her humble 
 couch, with her dark hair streaming in tangled luxuriance over 
 the pillow, Yaska stole on tiptoe into the next room, where 
 Stefann the fisherman, seated on an oaken settle, was engaged 
 in mending a net. 
 
 "What do you think should be done?" asked Yaska, in a 
 whisper. 
 
 Stefann shook his head moodily. " There is nothing to be 
 clone," he replied, in a tone almost as subdued as that of 
 Yaska. " Those whom the marsh fever is to kill, die always on 
 the third day." 
 
 " And those who recover ?" said Yaska. 
 
 "They begin to mend on the third day," answered the fisher, 
 with a firm conviction that communicated itself to Yaska ; 
 " the third day decides it all." 
 
 "But she should have remedies; if she could but see a 
 doctor, his medicines might cure her easily," said Yaska, 
 wringing her hands in perplexity. 
 
 Stefann put on that incredulous stare with which a peasant 
 generally receives an opinion opposed to his prejudices. 
 
 " Doctors may do some good to the folk of the towns," said 
 he ; " they are useless in our fens. All the drugs in the world 
 could not save one person from the marsh fever. Those who 
 are to recover will recover, and those that are to die, will die !" 
 
 This reply, uttered positively and dogmatically, puzzled 
 rather than convinced Yaska. She had lived too long in St. 
 Petersburg not to have lost much of her faith in the dogged 
 fatalism which the Russians have perhaps derived from the 
 belief of their Asiatic conquerors in former ages ; and she had 
 seen instances in which lives had been unquestionably saved 
 
THE RUSSIA OF TO-DAY. 157 
 
 by medical skill. But no .man, perhaps, ever thoroughly shakes 
 off his dread of the superstitions that frightened him in his 
 nursery days ; let his reason develop as it may, the old phan- 
 toms lord it to the last over his secret soul, and few of the 
 most daring sceptics would fancy the ordeal of being com- 
 pelled to pass a moonless night among the yews and headstones 
 of a country graveyard, or shut in among the stone ladies and 
 marble Templars of a grey old church, rich in tombs and 
 monuments. 
 
 It was not surprising that an untaught old woman, bred up 
 among a benighted race of beings, and schooled in childhood 
 into the belief in a sort of vague and irregular predestination, 
 which is common to the peasants of almost all remote and little 
 visited countries, should feel herself affected by the fatalistic 
 arguments of her nephew. But her love for Anielka triumphed 
 over the stolid inertness of the credences of her. youth. 
 
 " Stefann," she said, in a tone of authority, " you are my 
 sister's son, and the last of my family. I charge you, as you 
 value my blessing, to hasten to Kiew for a physician to save 
 my darling." 
 
 The ties of kindred are much regarded in Russia, and the 
 young fisherman was not unwilling to give up his own ideas, 
 and take what he considered a needless trouble, for the sake of 
 his old relative. But as he was laying aside his net and the 
 ball of twine with which he had been repairing the defective 
 meshes, another objection struck him. 
 
 " Prince Ivan will find out where she is hidden," said he. 
 
 " And what has she to fear now ? What harm can Prince Ivan 
 or his son do to my darling now?" asked Yaska, indignantly. 
 
 "Well!" rejoined the fisher, "I will get my skiff ready at 
 once, and row as fast as I can to Kiew ; and I promise you I'll 
 bring back the doctor in my boat. It's a long way, but I will 
 do my best for you, aunt Yaska, and the poor young lady." 
 And Stefann resolutely stowed away his fishing gear in a corner, 
 took up his felt cap, and prepared to sally forth. 
 
 " When shall you return? Hemember, every hour is worth 
 a gold mine !" said Yaska. 
 
 " Not much before evening," answered the fisher, as he left 
 the hut ; "it is a hard pull against the current coming back 
 from Kiew, and my skiff will be overladen. Not that the doctor 
 can be of much use. I fear the poor young creature is dying." 
 
 Low as these words were spoken, they fell upon Anielka's 
 sensitive ear as distinctly as if they had been shouted through 
 
158 THE SEBI'-SISTEES ; Oil, 
 
 a speaking-trumpet. She started from lier troubled sleep like 
 one who hears the summons of Azrael. 
 
 "Dying! who said I was dying?" she cried; "am I really 
 dying P I am very young to die." 
 
 Yaska rushed sobbing into the chamber, and flung herself 
 down on her knees by the bedside. Stefann, abashed and 
 frightened, made the best of his way to the creek, jumped into 
 his light skiff, cast the frail craft loose from the rope that 
 moored her, and seizing the oars, rowed as he had never rowed 
 before, forgetting all his prejudices, towards Kiew in search of 
 a physician. Soon far away down the favouring current, and 
 darting like an arrow between the reedy banks of the stream, 
 did the skiff plough on through the waters of the Borysthenes, 
 and the fisher plied his oars with all the force that his rude, 
 kind heart could lend to his sturdy arms, as he sped upon his 
 errand of mercy. 
 
 But not all the leechcraft of Christendom could avail to 
 succour Anielka now. Even Yaska's eyes saw it plainly ; the 
 angel of death had set his mark upon her forehead. She lay 
 helplessly upon her rustic bed, her dishevelled black hair float- 
 ing around her like the tendrils of a wild vine. There was a 
 flush on her usually white cheek, that came and went, ebbed 
 and flowed, as the blood rushed rapidly to and from the 
 citadel of life ; and when Yaska took her hand in hers and 
 clasped her wrist, Anielka's pulse was weak and slow, as if it, 
 too, were wearied out, and longed to be at rest. All day the 
 dying girl remained in the same state, now moaning deliriously, 
 now slumbering from sheer exhaustion. Late in the afternoon 
 the burning of her veins and the madness of fever abated ; her 
 hands became cooler, her ravings ceased, and she feebly com- 
 plained of thirst. 
 
 "You are better, dearest!" said Yaska, as she held to her 
 nursling's lips a glass of a cooling draught which she had dis- 
 tilled from herbs ; " you are better, and will soon be well." 
 
 Alas ! while Yaska forced herself to speak thus cheeringly, 
 she knew it was only " a lightening before death." Anielka 
 knew it too, and the sadness of her smile, so sickly, yet so kind, 
 made Yaska's heart ache. 
 
 "Come here, my own Yaska!" said Anielka, in a voice so 
 feeble as to be almost inaudible. " Nay, you need not pretend 
 to be cheerful it is of no use, dear old nurse ! I know that I 
 am dying. Listen to me now, for I feel that I have but little 
 breath left, and my tired eyes are growing dazzled." 
 
THE RUSSIA OF TO-DAY. 150 
 
 Yaska bent over her nursling, and the tears fell fast from 
 her old eyes. 
 
 " You will love my father the better for my sake, when I am 
 gone. Will you not, dear Yaska?" said Anielka. 
 
 Yaska's assent was inarticulate perhaps, but it was satis- 
 factory. 
 
 "And Katinka, my own loved sister," said Anielka ; " che- 
 rish her as you have cherished me. Guard her from evil, good 
 Yaska, as you have guarded ine from shame. Be unto her a 
 watchful mother in the hour of danger, as you have been to 
 me." 
 
 And Yaska bowed her aged head, and promised what her 
 dying darling asked. Anielka's breath now came thickly and 
 with pain ; her bosom heaved convulsively, and her eye grew 
 more brilliant with a strange and sudden light. 
 
 "And Eugene, Eugene Klapka! tell him, should you ever 
 see him, my Yaska, that his Anielka loved him to the last, and 
 forgave him, and blessed him with her dying breath. And oh, 
 if he should be true ; if it was not by his own will that he failed 
 me in my direst need, oh tell him, dear Yaska, that I prayed as 
 I died that my spirit might meet his among the starry thrones 
 of heaven. If Eugene has not deserted me, we shall meet 
 again, where oppressors rule not ; and tell him, oh tell him, 
 that by this thought, this hope, my death is robbed of half its 
 bitterness." 
 
 Anielka's breathing became more and more difficult. She 
 fixed her eyes on the blue sky, and prayed silently, while a tear 
 rolled from among her dark eyelashes. 
 
 " Yaska !" she whispered, " what your love has done for me 
 will not be lost. Blessings on you, dear nurse ; your recom- 
 pence is sure. God will reward you when all the wealth of 
 Prince Jargonoff shall be as dust in the balance. Be good, I 
 pray you, to my poor, poor old father!" 
 
 She murmured then some words of a bright and glorious 
 vision that floated radiantly before her dim eyes, from which 
 all the sights of earth were fading as a breath fades from the 
 surface of a mirror. And so, with a heavenly smile upon her 
 beautiful upturned face, Anielka died. 
 
 Yaska wept and knelt long, speechless and awe-struck, 
 beside the deathbed of her whose pure soul had taken wing to 
 seek its true home beyond the skies. At last the old woman 
 rose, and with trembling hands proceeded to compose the 
 limbs of the dead maiden into the statuelike and rigid repose 
 
160 THE SERF-SISTERS ; OB, 
 
 that befits the departed. She placed her own silver cross upon 
 Anielka's breast, arranged four lighted tapers around the bed, 
 covered the feet of the corpse with white drapery, and again 
 knelt and prayed earnestly. Then she rose from her knees, 
 and fearing lest on Stefann's return some report of the death 
 of Anielka should be spread abroad, and be communicated with 
 unfeeling bluntness to Jacob and Katinka, she determined at 
 once to set off for Khopol, and apprise them of the sad event, 
 with such simple art as her untaught mind could devise to save 
 pain and trouble to those she loved. She set off at once by 
 the usual path across the fens, leaving, in the pre-occupation of 
 her thoughts, the door of the hut open. Yaska had nearly 
 reached the limits of the morass, when she was alarmed by the 
 report of firearms, and the shouts and trampling of a great 
 company of people, who were beating the bushes and reedy 
 thickets of the swamps. Turning to the left, she succeeded in 
 eluding the approaching party, and made her way with all the 
 speed of foot she could command towards Khopol. Not only 
 in her hurry and agitation had she omitted to secure the door, 
 but she had not seen the grim head that raised itself above the 
 rushes as she left the hut, and peered with glittering eyes i 
 the interior of the dwelling. 
 
 CHAPTEE XXVI. 
 
 THE troop of persons whose halloos and musket-shots ] 
 caused Yaska's alarm, consisted of a hundred peasants, an 
 with spears, clubs, and axes, and headed by Prince Jargo: 
 himself, who carried a double-barreled rifle in his hand. De- 
 metrius accompanied his father, but with an air of c 
 temptuous lassitude. Several officers from Kiew were ; 
 among the advancing troop. This assemblage had been ( 
 vened by Prince Jargonoff for his long projected snake hi 
 The serpent which lurked among the swamps had done gi 
 mischief to the cattle, and it was with the double inducen 
 of ridding the country of a pest and of affording an aniuseir 
 to his military visitors, that Prince Jargonoff had set the e? 
 dition on foot. The reptile had been surprised in the vici 
 of a sheepfold, had been pursued, and slightly wounded, 
 had escaped into the fens. Determined that such a scourg 
 the district should not elude them, the hunters steadily 
 vanced into the morasses, beating the reeds as they proceei 
 
THE RUSSIA OF TO-DAY. 161 
 
 and keeping cautiously to the paths that, like causeways in a 
 lake, bridged the foul pools and tenacious mud of the fens. 
 The track of the wounded reptile was plainly visible in a long 
 streak of blood and slime that tinged the rank grass of the 
 hillocks, and stained the brown moss and sable peat of the 
 morass. Deep, deep into the rush-grown waste, the hunters 
 pushed on, shouting and laughing, and easily following the 
 broad trail of the bleeding snake. Thus they proceeded, until 
 they came within sight of the hut of the fisher, Stefann. The 
 same dark-red streak was visible upon the threshold of the 
 open door. It was evident that the monster had taken 
 refuge there. There was a halt among the hunters, and all 
 their clamour and loquaciousness was hushed. Those who had 
 been hitherto the foremost, now shrank from the task of 
 entering the hut, and grappling with their formidable foe in his 
 chosen lair. No one stirred. The officers, who had previously 
 regarded the chase as a mere diversion, now looked serious, 
 and drew their swords as they approached the door, which 
 they still hesitated to pass. But Demetrius, with his usual 
 sneer curling his lip, sauntered forward, carrying a fowling- 
 piece in his hand so carelessly as to show that he had only 
 taken it up in compliance with the prevailing fashion for en- 
 gaging in the armed pursuit of a creature he affected to despise. 
 He gave an expressive shrug and a scornful look at the hesi- 
 tating crowd, turned on his heel, and entered the hut alone. 
 Prince Ivan strode towards the threshold ; the others were em- 
 boldened and followed him. But a frightful cry burst from the 
 interior of the cottage, and Demetrius rushed wildly out, drop- 
 ping his gun, which exploded in its fall. The young Prince 
 staggered out into the open air with starting eyeballs and con- 
 vulsed face, like those of a murderer confronted with his 
 v ; ctim. He caught hold of a peasant's arm to support himself, 
 d pressed his hand to his forehead" It is too horrible !" he 
 sped out, in reply to the numerous questions addressed to 
 m. Prince Ivan's courage was roused, and, followed by a 
 ;eam of peasants and officers, he rushed into the hut, and pe- 
 D -trated into the inner chamber, when a cry of horror broke 
 om every breast. Pale and calmly beautiful, Anielka lay 
 >on the bed, her gentle eyes closed, and a smile, such as 
 raphs might wear, upon her sweet face. But upon the bed 
 so, encircling the body with its huge coils, lay the enormous 
 ;ake, with its hideous head upraised, its red eyes flaming on 
 '. .e intruders, and its wide jaws distended as if in the very act 
 
 31 
 
162 THE SEEF-SISTEES ; OE, 
 
 of devouring the corpse. Disturbed by the shout of the 
 new comers, irritated by its wound, and fairly brought to bay, 
 the lengthy reptile unwound with marvellous rapidity the folds 
 of its body that had encircled the dead maiden, and sprang, 
 hissing and open-mouthed, among its clamorous enemies. The 
 struggle was afearful one. The windows were broken bythe sharp 
 report of the fire-arms, the room was filled with smoke, and 
 the flashing of the hatchets and sword-blades was for some mo- 
 ments incessant. The resistance of the dying reptile was 
 amazing; it writhed and twisted among its foes, hissing 
 angrily, twining around the limbs of all within its reach, biting 
 furiously at those who hacked it down, and lashing the ground 
 with its powerful tail. Several men were severely injured 
 before the serpent's despairing efforts were vanquished, and 
 even when hewed to pieces, its mutilated fragments dragged 
 themselves, bloody and quivering, along the floor. By the or- 
 ders of Prince Jargonoff the body of Anielka was placed upon 
 a litter roughly constructed of boughs and poles, and borne, 
 covered with white drapery, by four of the peasants to the 
 village of Khopol, where Yaska had long since arrived to bear 
 her melancholy tidings to the bereaved father and sister. 
 
 CHAPTEE XXVII. 
 
 No description can paint the agonizing grief of Jacob Petro- 
 vich and Katinka, when old Yaska told the melancholy tale of 
 their beloved Anielka's sufferings, and the death that had 
 relieved her from them ; nor their anguish, when, shortly after- 
 wards, the bearers of the rude litter arrived at the cottage 
 with their sad burden. The sorrow of the doting father and 
 fond sister was so profound and heartrending that it was 
 respected by the most rugged of their uncultivated neighbours, 
 and even George Muller felt ashamed for a time to intrude 
 upon the sacred privacy of their grief. Prince Jargonoff, hard- 
 hearted though he was, could not help being much shocked at 
 the horrible circumstances of the event, and he treated the 
 mourning sister and parent of Anielka with more humanity 
 and consideration than he usually exhibited. Indeed, when, a 
 month later, the imperial permission arrived for the marriage of 
 George Muller to Katinka Petrovich, Prince Ivan postponed 
 the compulsory wedding until some weeks more should have 
 elapsed, and Muller, though discontented, was compelled to 
 
THE EUSSIA OF TO-DAY. 163 
 
 submit. Meanwhile the war went on, with the same results as 
 before, and the triumph gained by the Turks at Silistria, 
 together with the anticipated expedition of the allies against 
 Sebastopol, bade fair amply to avenge the massacre of Sinope 
 and the seizure of Wallachia. 
 
 Mark, on several occasions, had visited the neighbouring 
 towns, and once had reached the sea-coast, but without having 
 been able to discover any available means of escape from the 
 country. He visited Katinka, however, as often as was con- 
 sistent with his and her safety, and most cordially shared in 
 her sorrow and that of her afflicted father. Anielka was 
 buried beneath a cypress tree in the small cemetery of Khopol, 
 and every evening old Jacob and Katinka repaired thither to 
 place a fresh garland of flowers on the green turf over her 
 grave. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 IT was the first of November. Jacob and Katinka were sitting 
 silently over the peat fire in their quiet cottage. Yaska sat 
 nearer the door, busily plying one of those primitive distaffs, 
 the form of which has been handed down unchanged from 
 classical tunes, such as Lucretia used, and such as were repre- 
 sented in the pictures of the Eumenides. The weather without 
 was not of a nature to inspire cheerful thoughts. Every few 
 minutes a strong gust of wind would rush howling through the 
 groves, stripping off such of the brown leaves as yet clung to 
 the withered boughs, and tossing around the dead branches 
 and broken twigs that lay at the feet of the bare, melancholy 
 trees. The sky was leaden and dull. The clouds that covered 
 bhe heavens with a grey canopy, save where the feeble sun was 
 attempting to break their phalanx, looked lowering and dark, 
 and seemed as if fraught rather with snow than rain. The 
 short autumn of Russia was evidently over, and the iron reign 
 of winter was about to begin. Katinka looked wretched and 
 lespondent. Time had blunted in some degree the poignant 
 grief caused by Anielka's death, and chastened the paroxysms 
 of woe into a calmer sense of sorrow and regret ; while the hope 
 and confidence Katinka felt that her separation from that 
 Lamented sister was but for a few brief years, had soothed the 
 pangs she had felt, by the prospect of an eternal re-union with 
 bhe lost one. But poor Katinka had afflictions of her own. 
 The clemency of Prince Jargonoff was exhausted : he had 
 M 2 
 
164 THE SERF-SISTERS ; OK, 
 
 refused to allow any longer delay, and in a few days George 
 Muller was to claim his reluctant bride. Hope had deserted 
 Katinka. Mark Forster had not appeared during the last 
 month, and escape from the hateful marriage in store for her 
 seemed an idle dream. Already the women of the village were 
 making those elaborate preparations for the cumbrous feast 
 and wearisome ceremonies which accompany a wedding among 
 all semi-civilized nations, and which gradually vanish and fall 
 into disuse as education dissipates the taste for the barbarous and 
 the grotesque. But while Katiuka sat, hopeless, but silent and 
 uncomplaining, the hour of deliverance was at hand. A quick 
 step was heard without ; the latch of the outer door was sud- 
 denly lifted, and a man dressed in the coarse garb of a herds- 
 man entered. Yaska let fall her distaff with an involuntary 
 cry, as she recognised the features of Mark. Katinka sprang 
 up to greet her lover, and Jacob rose slowly from his chair, 
 and held out both his trembling hands to his young friend. The 
 young Englishman was radiant with joy ; and as soon as he 
 had communicated to the father and daughter the good news 
 he had brought, the almost extinct light of hope beamed in 
 Katinka's eyes. Yaska became positively incautious in her 
 vociferations of delight, and a faint tinge of colour mounted to 
 old Jacob's ashen cheek. Mark had at last succeeded in hiring 
 a small Greek coasting craft, which lay moored four miles below 
 the town of Nicholaev, in the broad embouchure formed by the 
 Dnieper as it mingles with the waters of the Black Sea. The 
 captain of this little vessel had agreed, for a bribe of forty gold 
 imperials, to transport the whole party of fugitives to the 
 Crimea, and to place them safely on shore at Balaklava, where 
 the allied army would afford them an efficient protection, and 
 whence they could easily procure a passage on board some 
 transport or merchantman, homeward-bound, and reach Eng- 
 land by Christmas. England ! even old Jacob's heart throbbed 
 high as he thought of soon treading that free shore, and leav- 
 ing for ever behind him the empire of slavery and wrong, the 
 empire whose laws sanctified the murder of his spotless child 1 
 And Katinka smiled through her tears, like a glimpse of spring 
 sunshine, as Mark spoke of the future happy days in store for 
 them in his native land, and the safe and pleasant English 
 home that should teach them to forget their sufferings in 
 Hussia. But there was one object in Khopol from which it 
 was as hard for Jacob or Katinka to tear themselves away as 
 if their very heart-strings haji been riveted to it Anielka's 
 
THE RUSSIA OF TO-DAY. 165 
 
166 THE SERF-SISTEKS ; OE, 
 
 more to take a lingering glance at the deserted tomb, and to 
 breathe once more a farewell to the spot. And it seemed to 
 them as if the wailing boughs of the cypress tree responded 
 with a murmuring sound. In a brief space Katinka and her 
 aged companions reached the place where Mark awaited them. 
 Two of the lightest of the basket-work cars of the country, 
 each drawn by two strong ponies, and conducted by a reckless- 
 looking horse-herdsman, were hidden behind a thorny grove. 
 Each of these cars could only hold two persons besides the 
 driver. Jacob and the old nurse were placed in one of these 
 vehicles, while Mark and Katinka occupied the other. It had 
 been agreed upon, that, to avoid creating unnecessary suspicion, 
 in case an alarm should be spread of their flight among the 
 towns of the Borysthenes, the waggons should travel by dif- 
 ferent routes. Jacob and Yaska were to proceed by the most 
 direct road, crossing the river near Borispol, and hurrying on 
 towards the sea. As they were certain to reach Nikolaev some 
 hours before Mark, who was to travel by the more circuitous 
 road of Zolotonocha and Elisavetgrad, it was settled that on 
 reaching the beach where the boat of the coaster was to be in 
 waiting, Jacob should give the word, " lagMlterra!" go on 
 board at once, and await in safety the arrival of Mark and 
 Katinka. The herdsmen who drove the cars, and whom Mark 
 had bribed handsomely, had engaged to find, among the 
 stations of their comrades, continual relays of fresh horses, and 
 to travel with the utmost rapidity possible upon the rough but 
 level roads of the steppe. 
 
 The whips cracked, the stalwart shaggy ponies galloped 
 furiously off, and the light cars bounded swiftly along the 
 rugged way. The journey of Mark and Katinka was a rapid 
 and fortunate one. The horses, full of fire and agility, seldom 
 slackened their swinging gallop, and when one pair of ponies 
 announced by their reeking coats and panting sides that 
 weariness had overcome their wild strength, some herd of 
 half-savage steeds was sure to be near, from which a few 
 roubles, and the freemasonry prevailing among herdsmen, 
 contrived to procure a couple of fresh animals, ready to resume 
 the headlong pace which their tired compeers were unable any 
 longer to keep up. 
 
 Carefully avoiding Elisavetgrad and the other large towns, 
 where the want of passports would have caused the arrest and 
 detention of the fugitives, Mark and Katinka pursued their 
 way unchallenged and unchecked, only occasionally halting for 
 
THE EUSSIA OF TO-DAY. 107 
 
 an hour to partake of such humble refreshment as the cottagers 
 of the steppes could afford them, and dashing on, through the 
 shades of night and through the light of day, at a speed, and 
 with a perseverance, rarely surpassed by even the imperial 
 couriers. The cold was considerable upon the bleak steppes, 
 swept as they were by a keen north wind, but Mark's thought- 
 fulness had provided a quantity of furs and warm wrappings, 
 and Katinka suffered but slightly from the increasing incle- 
 mency of the weather. Yet she was nearly worn out by the 
 incessant fatigue, when they at last skirted the long-looked-for 
 walls of Nicholaev, and approached the bay in which the 
 Greek vessel was lying. Leaving the road, the car now tra- 
 versed a species of open down, and suddenly stopped upon the 
 verge of a steep and lofty cliff of limestone, that towered over 
 the rippling water of the bay, where, not a quarter of a mile 
 from the shore, lay a small craft, whose white sails hung lazily 
 festooned around their yards, while the striped Greek flag 
 floated at her mast-head. Touching the narrow beach, into 
 whose shingles her bow was driven, lay a boat, in which there 
 sat two red-capped sailors, listlessly leaning on their oars. 
 Mark sprang out, assisted Katinka to alight, and giving the 
 driver his promised recompence, thanked him heartily for his 
 diligence and fidelity. It was a hard task for Mark to descend 
 the slippery flight of stairs that led down the face of the lime- 
 stone cliff, bearing the slender baggage in one hand, and with 
 the other aiding the steps of Katinka, who was timid and 
 frightened, never having so much as seen a hill in her whole 
 life before, spent as it had been among the interminable levels 
 of Russia. They had just readied the beach, and Katinka, 
 leaning on Mark's arm, was picking her way among the 
 rocks and shingles, when the galloping of horses and a loud 
 shout made the lovers turn their heads and look up. On the 
 cliff above them appeared a patrol of Cossack horsemen, bran- 
 dishing their steel-pointed lances above their heads, and 
 uttering yells of rage and disappointment. These wild riders, 
 with their vindictive gestures, and strange garb, and their 
 chargers' rough manes streaming in the wind, looked like a 
 band of mounted goblins, as they stood out in bold relief against 
 the red sunset. And among them glared, like that of a baffled 
 demon, the furious face of George Muller. The shouts of 
 the Cossacks made the sailors in the boat start up and grasp 
 their oars in alarm. 
 
 "Q.uick, quick, my lads!" cried Mark, running towards 
 
168 THE SERF-SISTERS ; OK, 
 
 them, and flinging Katinka's valise into the boat : " Inghilterra ! 
 Inghilterra !" 
 
 The men forbore to push off, and stood staring alternately at 
 Mark and the pursuers, two or three of whom had dismounted, 
 and were descending the cliff. Mark caught up Katinka like 
 a feather in his arms, placed her in the boat, pushed the light 
 skiff so vigorously that it shot two or three fathoms from the 
 shore, and rushing into the sea, scrambled on board and 
 clutched the tiller. The sailors bent to their oars, and the 
 boat flashed away through the rippling water like a sword-fish. 
 A howl from the Cossacks greeted this manoeuvre, and several 
 musket-shots were discharged in rapid succession. Four or 
 five balls whizzed over the boat, and one leaden messenger 
 lodged itself in a plank between Mark and Katinka. The 
 Greeks were alarmed, and but for Mark's resolute demeanour 
 would have pulled for the shore and surrendered, as the Cos- 
 sacks shouted to them to do. But Mark, encouraging them to 
 the utmost of his power, and swearing to stab the first man 
 who should offer to obey the mandate of the soldiers, the 
 sailors pulled on, through a shower of balls that splashed 
 thickly around the boat. The skiff advanced, and seemed to 
 be fast getting out of gunshot range, when George Muller, who 
 was a very expert marksman, took a musket from a Cossack, 
 aimed coolly and steadily, and fired. The bullet passed through 
 Mark's cap, grazing his temple so closely as to draw a few 
 drops of blood. Katinka gave a scream, believing her lover to 
 be seriously wounded. But Mark, whose elasticity of character 
 was now restored, stood up in the boat, and scornfully waved 
 his cap pierced by the ball, in signal of farewell. Muller 
 threw down the gun with a savage curse. In a minute or two 
 more the fugitives stood on the deck of the Greek vessel, where 
 the crew were toiling at the capstan. The captain, a grizzly- 
 bearded Hydriote, welcomed Mark and Katinka on board, and 
 then turned to the men and urged them to be quick with the 
 anchor. The Cossacks had dispersed. Some were galloping 
 along the cliffs, three or four were descending the heights in 
 the direction of a fishing hamlet, probably in search of a boat, 
 and the rest were busied around one of those tall beacons 
 which are erected along the seaboard to spread an alarm in 
 case of invasion. The anchor was weighed at last, and the 
 sails were shaken out as rapidly as possible. 
 
 "You were just in time, signore !" said the captain, with a 
 grim smile, as he pointed to the soldiers. 
 
THE BUSSIA OF TO-DAY. 169 
 
 "Just in time !" answered Mark, cheerily; "but we may as 
 well go below. We shall find the other passengers in the 
 cabin, I suppose ?" 
 
 " The other passengers ! what are you talking of, siguore ?" 
 said the Greek. 
 
 " This lady's father, and the old nurse, to be sure," answered 
 Mark, much disturbed. " The old man and the woman who 
 must have arrived here this morning, and gave the word, 
 * Inghilterra ;' you know." 
 
 " No one has come, except yourself, signore ; ask my mate or 
 the crew, if you like, whether we have seen a living soul this 
 day before you came !" replied the Hydriote. 
 
 "O my father! my poor father!" cried Katinka with a 
 piercing scream ; " he has fallen again into the hands of his 
 enemies, and what will become of him ! My poor, poor 
 father! reft of both his daughters! I will go back; Mark, 
 loose me ! let me go ! I will return. Let them treat me as 
 they will, my father shall not be left alone to suffer on the soil 
 of slavery !" And the frantic girl would have thrown herself 
 into the sea in the wild impulse, at all risks, to sacrifice herself, 
 rather than desert her father, had not Mark gently but firmly 
 restrained her. The vessel began to glide through the water 
 like a wild duck. " Wait ! Oh ! at least wait for him here, 
 dearest Mark !" shrieked Katinka, struggling to get free from 
 her lover's hold; "do not desert him. He and Yaska may 
 arrive yet." 
 
 But just at that instant the Cossacks fired the beacon, and a 
 tall column of red and quivering flame rose boldly up against 
 the darkening horizon. " There is not a moment to be lost!" 
 exclaimed the captain ; " in a couple of hours that light will 
 have brought down a gun-boat from Nicholaev upon us. Be 
 quick, be quick, men ! every stout pull at a rope is worth a life 
 just now !" 
 
 Mark caught up Katinka in his arms. "We cannot stay 
 here longer," he said ; " and if we remain to be taken by the 
 [Russian cruisers, do you not think that your father's sorrows 
 would be rendered more bitter by your own recapture ? We 
 cannot aid him now, save by prayer. Come, dearest ; hereafter 
 you will thank me for this violence." So saying, he carried the 
 maiden down the narrow companion-ladder as easily as if she 
 had been a child, and placing her in the cabin, where she sank 
 gobbing on a couch, he returned to the deck. 
 
 The light craft spread her white sails to the favouring breeze 
 
170 THE SERF-SISTEBS ; OE, 
 
 as a bird expands his wings, and soon the rushing and foaming 
 of the water resounded merrily around her gliding prow, while 
 the figures of the Cossacks, who galloped and shook their lances 
 in the red glare of the beacon fire, became gradually more and 
 more fantastic and indistinct, and at last disappeared alto- 
 gether, as the vessel emerged into the open sea, and ploughed 
 the trackless waters in the direction of the Crimea. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 IT is now time to return to Yanos and Klapka, who, with the 
 division to which they were attached, had been throughout the 
 summer engaged in hostilities upon the Danube. When the 
 beaten army that had besieged the Turkish fortress of Silistria 
 was forced to make a hasty and ignominious retreat, the Pole 
 and the Esthonian were among those who fell back through 
 the pestilential morasses of the Dobruscha, and recrossed the 
 Danube in dismay. Yanos, though with the instinct of a free- 
 man he had shrunk from the long servitude of the Russian 
 military career, was a soldier of Nature's making, and bore the 
 hardships of the campaign as stoically as he confronted its 
 dangers. Bred a hunter, inured to the greatest exertions and 
 the most complete exposure to rough weather, the Esthonian 
 laughed at fatigue and privations, while in the day of battle 
 his indomitable valour far surpassed the sullen courage of his 
 comrades. Yanos would have been promoted, had it not been 
 for the singular haughtiness and independence of his character, 
 which not all the discipline of the imperial service could 
 crush into the stereotyped mould of its machine-like servility. 
 The Esthonian gave continual cause of complaint to the officers 
 of his regiment, who hated to see a soldier retain any senti- 
 ment of manliness and self-respect, and it needed all the pres- 
 tige of his remarkable daring and strength to save him from 
 being flogged. As it was, the colonel determined to wait till 
 the war should be over, and bravery no more at a premium, 
 before having the peculiarities of Yanos eradicated by the 
 agency of a few hundred strokes of the executioner's knout. 
 Klapka, on the other hand, knowing himself wronged and 
 humiliated, and feeling the instinctive disgust for his coarse 
 and brutish comrades which his own superior education and 
 finer feelings inevitably caused, was utterly miserable, taciturn, 
 and passive. He fought, but it was 'as an automaton fights, 
 
THE KUSSIA OF TO-DAY. 171 
 
 without fear, but without either dash or spirit. His mind was 
 continually distracted by his natural fears for Anielka's safety. 
 He had remained in garrison at Kiew during a part of the 
 time which the Petrovich family spent on Prince Jargonoff's 
 estate, but had been too closely watched, and too jealously con- 
 fined to the barracks, to have been able either to visit Khopol 
 or to write to Anielka. The first opportunity which presented 
 itself for leaving the army was, when the [Russians, beaten and 
 discouraged, fell back from the siege of Silistria. Then 
 IQapka deserted. Anxious to learn the fortunes of Anielka, 
 and firmly resolved to repair to Khopol, and persuade her, at 
 all hazards, to become his wife and fly with him to some 
 foreign country, the Polish noble set off on foot, almost penni- 
 less, haggard, shoeless, and in tattered garb, yet animated by 
 strong love and a firm purpose to return to Kiew, and thence 
 to reach IQiopol. At Galatz, however, the count was arrested, 
 recognised as a deserter, and tried before the summary tribunal 
 of a court-martial. Here, for the first time, his birth did him 
 service. The punishment he had incurred was that of death, 
 but his judges demurred to ordering the execution of the chief 
 of one of the most illustrious families of Poland. The respon- 
 sibility was one they were unwilling to charge themselves with. 
 Eugene IQapka bore a great name. His Imperial Majesty, 
 Nicholas, might want him as a tool some day ; the knout and 
 the bullet were chastisements fit only for those from whose 
 services the Czar had nothing to hope. Such was the reasoning 
 of the judges ! IQapka was spared these, therefore, but was 
 sent, as a criminal, to work in irons upon the fortifications of 
 Odessa. And on the ramparts of Odessa, loaded with chains, 
 clad in rags, hungry, beaten, and linked to a degraded wretch 
 whose crimes have brought him to the same level as IQapka's 
 virtues, does Eugene IQapka still live and labour among galley- 
 slaves and the refuse of the army and prisons. And yet, in 
 this scene of suffering, want, and shame, his spirit remains 
 unbroken, his eye retains its brightness, and his heart its 
 courage ; for, totally ignorant of the fate of the merchant's 
 family, and of the sad death of his promised bride, he hopes on 
 still, patiently and bravely, never relinquishing his trust that 
 he shall see Anielka again, and claim her for his own. Poor 
 fellow ! he may see her again, but it must be in another and a 
 brighter world. Still let him hope on ! and may no one unde- 
 ceive him, or take from him the last solace of his weary life ! 
 Yanos, the Esthonian, was one of those soldiers attached to 
 
172 THE SEEF-SISTEES : OE, 
 
 General Dannenberg's corps d'armee, who were hurried on, as 
 rapidly as post-horses could draw across the steppes the light 
 waggons full of armed men, to reinforce Prince Menschikoff in 
 the Crimea, and to attempt to exact a bloody reckoning for the 
 Russian defeat at the Alma. 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 IT was after dark on the evening of the fourth of November 
 that the Greek vessel which bore Mark and Katinka approached 
 the Crimean shores. The lights that burned in the town and 
 in the citadel were unusually brilliant, as the schooner neared 
 Sebastopol. A far- distant sound of choral melody stole over 
 the waters, and reached the bark as she approached the shore, 
 Mid afterwards a faint shout was heard. That shout proceeded 
 from the throats of sixty thousand Russian soldiers, maddened 
 by a lavish ration of brand} r , stimulated by the presence of two 
 young archdukes, two princes of the sacred race of Romanoff, 
 and inflamed by the harangues of their priests, who promised 
 them a paradise as the reward of their exertions in the ap- 
 proaching attack upon the unguarded post commanded by the 
 veteran Sir De Lacy Evans. The schooner neared the land, 
 and hove to, while the captain ordered the boat to be lowered. 
 Mark strenuously objected to this, that the bargain had stipu- 
 lated that the fugitives should be landed at Balaklava. The 
 captain rejoined that Russian steamers were continually 
 emerging from the narrow channel left in the harbour ; that in 
 the event of his anchoring and remaining where he was till 
 daybreak, he would run great risk of being overhauled by some 
 cruiser from Sebastopol ; while, if he sailed for Balaklava, he 
 should be in danger of being fired upon by the allied ships of 
 war, or of being run down by one of the many transport 
 steamers. He concluded by giving Mark the option of land- 
 ing at once, or not at all, since his intention was to stand out 
 to sea without delay. Mark's natural impatience prevailed 
 over his caution, and in half an hour more he stood with 
 Katinka upon the Crimean beach, while the sailors pulled away 
 towards the vessel again. There were a half-dozen of Tartar 
 cottages nestling in a little ravine near the spot where the fugi- 
 tives had landed, and Mark, who had acquired a smattering 
 of the language of this strange people, soon found a Tartar 
 guide, who promised, for a dollar, to conduct the wanderers 
 
THE RUSSIA OF TO-DAY. 173 
 
 safely to the English, camp. The Tartar threw the light 
 baggage of the fugitives upon his shoulders, and set off at a 
 round pace through the darkness that hovered over the steep 
 and stony valleys. The journey was a long one, however, and 
 either from ignorance or stupidity, some hours after midnight 
 found Mark and Katinka following their uncertain guide 
 through the swampy valley of the Tchernaya, and at no very 
 great distance from that silent city of the forgotten dead, 
 which has since become a name of pride and terror in every 
 English home Inkerman. Katinka was worn out with 
 fatigue, and would have sunk, but for the support which 
 Mark's firm shoulder afforded her. So they advanced, wind- 
 ing and turning, until in a stony glen they came unexpectedly 
 upon a line of red watch-fires, around the largest of which a 
 picquet of infantry were resting on their arms, while sentinels 
 were dimly seen stretching in faintly-dotted line along the 
 valley. The weapons and accoutrements of the soldiers of the 
 picquet shone brilliantly in the glowing fire-light, which fell 
 also on their stern faces and flat-topped bonnets of felt. 
 
 "Yonder the Ingliz !" whispered the Tartar guide, with all 
 the triumph which a stupid man assumes when he has suc- 
 ceeded in an enterprise. 
 
 Mark, supporting Katinka, advanced towards the central 
 fire, eager to be among his countrymen. In his haste he over- 
 looked a sentinel who was pacing to and fro, near where a small 
 heap of thorny bushes and roots were blazing brightly. 
 
 " Who goes there P" cried the soldier, not in English, but in 
 Russian. 
 
 Mark and Katinka felt the life-blood rush rapidly to their 
 hearts. They were among the wolves of the Emperor. The 
 sentinel challenged again. " Who goes there?" he asked, and 
 the click of the gun-lock followed as he brought the long, 
 bright-barrelled piece to his shoulder. 
 
 Mark threw himself before Katinka, but not before the 
 sentinel had caught sight of her features, just visible within 
 the illumined circle. With marvellous presence of mind he 
 resumed his solitary walk, and shouldered his rifle. 
 
 " Pass, friend, and all's well !" he exclaimed in a loud, steady 
 tone ; and several of the soldiers of the picquet, who had started 
 forward in apprehension of a surprise, now listlessly fell back 
 to their former positions, never dreaming of suspecting any 
 trick from so stout a comrade as bold Yanos, the Esthonian. 
 The Tartar guide, perceiving his blunder, had flung himself on 
 
174 THE SERF-SISTERS ; OR, 
 
 the ground, and crawled away like a lizard along the ravine. 
 Mark and Katinka stood still. After a few instants, Yanos 
 approached them. The fire shone upon his lion-like face, and 
 they knew him well. "Katinka Petrovich," said the Estho- 
 nian, in a smothered tone, " is this man your husband, that 
 you are with him here by night, without father, brother, or 
 sister?" 
 
 Katinka blushed, but replied composedly, " No, Gospodin 
 Yanos, Mark is not my husband, but but ! 
 
 " He soon is to be?" said Yanos, in an under tone, but still 
 a stern one ; " and if so, where is your father? I left him in 
 an hour of trouble." 
 
 " He is in the hands of his persecutors ; at least I fear so," 
 answered Katinka, with a sob of irrepressible grief. 
 
 "And his child has left him so, and left her sister too, for 
 the sake of a young English spy ?" said Yanos, sneeringly. 
 
 Mark's blood boiled " Yanos," he said, angrily, " you are 
 here in the midst of your comrades, among whom the folly of 
 a blind guide has led us. In a moment you will doubtless call 
 aloud to the ruffians sitting round yonder fire, to seize on 
 Katinka, and to bind or kill me, I care not which, if I am to 
 be torn from my betrothed wife. Now I tell you to your face, 
 Esthonian, that what you meditate is a foul and treacherous 
 deed, but not so foul or base as to asperse the motives and 
 actions of Katinka, or to brand me with the name of spy." 
 
 The broad breast of Yanos heaved painfully. His eagle 
 eyes were fastened on the Englishman's face as if to search for 
 some sign of shame or fear. But they saw none. The Estho- 
 nian turned to Katinka. " If you are without blame, and your 
 lover is no spy, tell me how are you here?" 
 
 Then, hurriedly, but in moving accents, Katinka told her 
 tale, of their sufferings at Khopol, of Anielka's flight and death, 
 and of Jacob's probable recapture, along with Yaska. 
 
 Yanos heard the story with some signs of emotion. "I 
 saved your life last spring upon the Neva. Will you speak a 
 word with me now alone?" said he, in a guttural but broken 
 voice. 
 
 Katinka assented, and moved a few paces on in the gloom, 
 while Mark watched her with jealous eyes. For some moments 
 the soldier did not speak. Then he looked Katinka full iti the 
 face. "I love you!" said he. Katinka started. "I love 
 you," went on the Esthonian ; " I loved you from the hour 
 when I saved you from a cold grave beneath the icy Neva. I 
 
THE RUSSIA OF TO-DAY. 175 
 
 have dreamed of your image for months ; in battle and in 
 bivouac, in the forest and in the field, have I thought of your 
 blue eyes and your sunny smile. Now choose, Katinka 
 Petrovich, between Yanos the Esthonian hunter, and yonder 
 Englishman. I am but a poor woodsman, it is true," he added, 
 and there was something very touching and sweet in the sad 
 music of that deep, powerful voice. " I cannot speak to you 
 in foreign tongues, nor talk to you of the lore of books. I 
 know nothing. I have nothing !" and the form of the Estho- 
 nian dilated into still grander proportions as he spoke, and 
 with his flashing eyes and Titan face he looked the very type 
 of a hero. "But I am a man!" he continued, and he spoke 
 proudly: "I am a man; I have a heart to offer that never 
 knew either fear or guile, and I have strength enough of arm 
 and soul to place her whom I love high above scorn and 
 injury. Choose between me and yonder Englishman. To- 
 morrow we fight with his countrymen. Accept me, and I will 
 leave the battle, an officer, or not leave it at all ! Refuse me, 
 and " The Esthonian hesitated, his chest heaved, and he 
 fixed his eyes on Katinka with an ardour that frightened her. 
 
 "Dear, dear friend!" she exclaimed, "Yanos, do not make 
 me curse the day on which you saved me from death ! Do not 
 make me wish that I had been laid, cold and dead, beneath the 
 ice of the Neva, rather than lived to fall into the hands of him 
 who saved me befere. Spare me, Yanos ! have mercy on me. 
 Others have been very hard with me. I love Mark ; nay, 
 frown not. I loved him long before I saw you, and it is unjust 
 to hate him for what is not his fault. Be noble as of old, 
 Yanos ! be generous ! We have suffered very much. You 
 saw us in our happy home, on the last night on which we were 
 at peace. My sister is dead, my father is a slave ; I have been 
 very wretched ! O be merciful to me, Yanos, and I will ever 
 love and bless you as a friend and a brother." 
 
 It was terrible to see the tempest of warring emotions that 
 shook the strong man in whose hands lay Katinka's fate. He 
 trembled like an aspen, and his face was wellnigh convulsed as 
 the meaner and the nobler passions strove for the mastery in 
 his mind. At last he looked up and relaxed his frowning brow. 
 From his quick blue eyes flashed the radiance of untaught, 
 inborn honour of such native chivalry as would have graced 
 the proudest paladin. Silently he led the way back to where 
 Mark stood. " Follow me, both of you !" said he. " You are 
 free ! Hist ! not a word. Your lives depend upon your 
 
176 THE SEKF-SISTERS ; OB, 
 
 silence." Yanos led the way, guided the lovers over the bridge 
 that spanned the Tchernaya, passed on across the valley, and 
 finally stopped at the foot of a hill covered with loose rocks 
 and slabs of slaty stone. High up the slope burned some faint 
 watch-fires. " Those are the English lines !" said Yanos. As 
 he spoke, the sound of wheels, and something like the deep 
 rumble of artillery, drawn along a road, came feebly up the 
 valley, and the Esthonian looked disturbed. " Once there, you 
 are safe !" said he, pointing to the heights; "it is near dawn 
 now too near ! Linger not, I warn you, on your path, for 
 you know not what is behind you !" 
 
 He waved his hand and turned away. Katinka caught his 
 hand, and kissed it gratefully. 
 
 " Blessings on you, kind friend," she said ; " I will pray for 
 you to the last day of my life." 
 
 "Pray for me to-morrow night, then," said Yanos, in a 
 strange tone, "if your Church commands prayers for the dead. 
 Farewell." And, cutting short Mark's thanks by the abrupt- 
 ness of his departure, the Esthonian strode away into the mist. 
 
 To scale the hill that intervened between them and the 
 English outposts, was for Mark and Katinka no easy task. 
 The loose blocks of stone and the dim light made their progress 
 necessarily very slow ; and before they were half way up the 
 hill they distinctly heard the rumbling of the tumbrils and 
 gun-carriages along the Tchernaya road renewed. They had 
 nearly crested the cliff, when Mark stopped short, and listened 
 intently. On the Tchernaya road, winding through the valley, 
 was distinctly audible the tramp of a great body of marching 
 men. The sound approached nearer and nearer to the foot of 
 the hill ; and the smothered voices of a number of people con- 
 versing in a subdued tone were heard, mingling with the low 
 metallic clank of arms and accoutrements. 
 
 Then Mark started from the repose he had indulged in 
 a few minutes. "Quick, my Katinka!" he exclaimed; "the 
 bloodhounds are behind us, but there are friends at hand." 
 
 Half leading, half dragging the wearied girl up the st< 
 brow, Mark approached the nearest watch-fire. 
 
 "Who goes there?" challenged a sleepy sentry, start 
 from the rock against which he had been leaning, and bring 
 his musket to his shoulder. 
 
 " A friend an Englishman !" answered Mark. 
 
 "Give the countersign!" answered the sentinel, cocking 
 rifle. 
 
THE KUSSIA OF TO-DAY. 177 
 
 ' I don't know it. I have but just escaped from the enemy," 
 answered Mark. " You may see there are only two of us one 
 man and one woman. Call your officer ; I have important 
 news to tell him." 
 
 ' Then tell it, and be quick," said a man, wrapped in a long 
 great-coat, which he unbuttoned to show his epaulettes, as he 
 advanced towards Mark. 
 
 Mark could hardly believe that the speaker was a British 
 officer. A torn red coat, stained by mire and clay to a dozen 
 mingling hues, regimental trovvsers patched with scraps of 
 blanketing, a frowsy foraging-cap, a pair of muddy highlows, 
 and a ragged sash, gave the leader of the party more the look 
 of a bandit than of anything else ; and there was little but the 
 frayed and tarnished bullion on his shoulders to vouch for his 
 rank. Mark hastily told his tale, and declared his conviction 
 that a great attack was preparing, and that a very powerful 
 Russian column was advancing by the Tchernaya road to take 
 the English by surprise. The officer hear^ these tidings with 
 amazement, but instantly took the precaution of sending off 
 one of his men to announce the movement in the valley to the 
 general in command. Before, however, the messenger had 
 proceeded many yards, a challenge, a cheer, and a few dropping 
 shots, were followed by a rattling volley of musketry, and the 
 loose stones rolling down the slippery hill-side, increased the 
 dm and confusion. 
 
 The English were awakened, and though taken by surprise, 
 fought with that cool, indomitable courage that has never yet 
 failed them, while the Russians, swarming like bees up the 
 steep, endeavoured to overpower the enemy by the weight of 
 numbers. The officer in command of the outpost had scarcely 
 time to thank Mark for his warning, when the whole line was 
 hotly engaged. Mark withdrew Katinka from the immediate 
 scene of the action, and placed her in a hollow between rocks, 
 on the edge of a lonely bluff at some little distance, and where 
 no stray bullet could easily reach her. Standing beside her, 
 he leaned upon a projecting stone, and looked eagerly down 
 into the glens below. The darkness had now given place to 
 the glimmering light of dawn, and Mark could distinguish 
 column upon column of the sombre-looking Russian infiwitry, 
 scaling the hill with a vigour and audacity that boded ill for 
 the assailed. While the platoon firing of musketry, the 
 dropping shots of sjdrmishers, and the roar of cannon, mingled 
 with the shouts of sixty thousand infuriated men, Mark strained 
 
178 THE SEEF-SISTEES ; OBj 
 
 Ms eyes in vain in the attempt to catch sight of the coming 
 succour which it seemed could alone save the handful of British 
 troops that crowned the heights from being swept away by the 
 torrent. The [Russians mounted the hill in masses, yelling 
 like raging wolves. Mark looked on them, and trembled for 
 his few devoted countrymen, on whom it devolved to check this 
 fierce assault. 
 
 But the task was gallantly and gloriously fulfilled. As fast 
 as the enemy mounted the hill the murderous fire of the Minie 
 rifles thinned his ranks, and a line of steady bayonets received 
 and bore back those who ventured to engage in closer combat. 
 But still, as if each man bore a charmed life, did the Russians 
 pour on. Confiding in their enormous superiority of numbers, 
 deluded by their generals into the belief that they were con- 
 tending, not with the English, but with the Turks, mad with 
 drink, and blind with fanaticism, they sprang upon the thirsty 
 points of the bayonets, and pushed on as if the rifle balls had 
 been a shower of hailstones. Every instant through that 
 eventful morning, long, long after the twilight of dawn had 
 been succeeded by the misty dimness of a rainy and lowering 
 day, did Mark gaze upon the struggle with compressed lips 
 and throbbing heart. He scarcely dared to hope for victory, 
 and every instant he expected to see his unfaltering country- 
 men give way, borne down by the furious shocks of the massive 
 columns that successively charged them. As the tide of battle 
 ebbed and flowed, as the ammunition of the English became 
 exhausted, and their men worn out by hunger and fatigue, and 
 Mark saw the Russians brutally transfixing the wounded with 
 their bayonets, or savagely braining with their clubbed musket- 
 buts every bleeding sufferer they fell in with, his indignation 
 nearly overpowered him, and he was hardly able to resist the 
 impulse to snatch a weapon from some dead man's hand, and 
 plunge into the battle. But still, nobly, staunchly, and steadily, 
 did the weary survivors of the little English force withstand 
 the attacks of the enemy. Deeds of heroism were everywhere 
 enacted, that, singly, would have won immortal praise, but 
 which at Inkerman were eclipsed by the brilliancy of the 
 courage which every humble soldier exhibited on that death- 
 less day. Among the Russians who again and again assailed 
 the position of the English Guards, fighting hand to hand with 
 stabbing steel and crushing musket-stock, and obstinately 
 renewing the bayonet- charge over and over again, Mark 
 noted one man who was conspicuous alike by his stature and 
 
THE RUSSIA OF TO-DAY. 179 
 
 his courage. Towering above his sturdy comrades, and rivalling 
 in bulk and height the tallest of the English grenadiers, this 
 Russian was a target for countless rifle balls, and an object of 
 repeated personal assaults. But, as if his breast were invul- 
 nerable, he passed on, scathless, amidst a hail of bullets, and 
 in every fresh encounter his powerful arm seemed nerved to 
 increased efforts. There was no mistaking his identity. Yanos 
 was recognised by Mark at once. A pang shot through the 
 generous breast of the young Englishman. He thought that 
 it was the Esthonian's hopeless love for Katinka that was 
 urging him on to tempt death, for it was evident that 
 no ordinary impulse prompted Yanos, ever the first to 
 attack, ever the last to retire from, the unbroken living 
 rampart of the English Guards. At last a change took place 
 in the order of the Russian masses, and for a while Mark saw 
 Yanos no more, but watched the current of the fight, as it went 
 on, unquenched, unslackening. Suddenly a loud cheer broke 
 forth on the flank of the English. A French division, brought 
 up rapidly to the rescue by General Bosquet, came hurrying 
 down the hill, shouting, and firing upon the Russians. 
 
 The fire was withering and murderous on both sides for a 
 moment, but the gallant French charged hotly with the 
 bayonet, and the Russians broke, and retired in disorder, but 
 still sullenly, and disputing every inch of ground. Resisting, 
 but beaten, gathered in crowds rather than in squares, the 
 Russians were driven down the hill with their faces to the foe, 
 and slaughtered in numbers at every halt. The carnage be- 
 came ghastly. In the valley the retreat became a panic. The 
 bridge over the Tchernaya was choked with fugitives ; the 
 young archdukes and their mounted staff recklessly trampled 
 down their own men in their haste to escape ; the dead and 
 wounded fell like grass before the scythe. In the midst of the 
 confusion and slaughter, Mark plainly distinguished one noble 
 form that rose above the heads of the crowd, and boldly 
 fronted the pursuers. At the head of a knot of Russians who 
 seemed resolved to sell their lives dearly, was again seen 
 Yanos the Esthonian. Like a rock among raging waves, the 
 giant stood in advance of his comrades, and sternly eyed the 
 Zouaves as they rushed cheering down the slope. Mark 
 watched him with an intentness amounting to agony; he 
 shouted to him to surrender, for Heaven's sake, but the words 
 were drowned in the roar of battle. For a few moments Mark 
 saw the Esthonian, all his comrades cut down beside him 
 N 2 
 
180 THE SEEF-SISTEES ; OB, 
 
 struggling* single-handed, against a crowd of foes ; bleeding, 
 tottering, pierced by twenty wounds, but fighting still, like a 
 lion against a herd of furious wolves. At last he fell, and the 
 tide of war flowed on over his body. When the battle was 
 over, Mark, having deposited Katinka in a place of safety, pro- 
 ceeded to the spot where the Esthonian lay. Yanos was quite 
 dead ; his tawny hair floated over his forehead, and his blue 
 eyes were open, but there was no ferocity on his rigid features, 
 where a strange smile rested ; and clasped to his wounded and 
 bleeding breast was a little glove of white leather, one which 
 Katinka had dropped the evening before. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 INKEBMAN, that sad, but glorious battle fought against fearful 
 odds, amid mist and rain and twilight, and which had con- 
 trasted by its gloomy terrors with the magnificent spectacle of 
 the Alma, and the chivalric pageant of Balaklava, was over 
 at last. 
 
 The arrival of their brave allies had saved the exhausted 
 English, and the Thermopylae of the nineteenth century was 
 won over the frantic hordes of a despot who spared no artifice 
 that cunning could dictate, to urge his drunken soldiers on to 
 conquest and to carnage. But the victory had been paid for 
 in a costly manner. Many French, very many English, lay 
 cold and gory among the rocky ravines, among heaps of 
 slaughtered Muscovites. Several generals, and many officers 
 of the highest distinction and promise, were numbered among 
 the dead, and the fatal list contained the names of those who 
 had served their country during half a century, and of those 
 whose youthful valour and ardent aspirations had seemed to 
 forbode great deeds and great triumphs for the future, which 
 were now to be buried with them in the reeking pits upon 
 the battle-field. The white-haired colonel, on whom his 
 soldiers looked with the affectionate respect due to a father, 
 lay beside the beardless ensign, who had for the first time 
 carried the colours of the regiment under fire, and whose 
 blooming cheek and boyish courage had been thus early 
 withered by the same stroke of death that had beaten down 
 his aged and valiant commander. The veteran general, whose 
 exploits in the rude warfare of South Africa had thrown a 
 romance even over the desolate mountains of Caffreland, had 
 
THE RUSSIA. OF TO-DAY. 181 
 
 fallen in those dark valleys, among mounds of dead and dying 
 men, some dressed in the sombre livery of the Czar, and some 
 in the scarlet uniform of England. Ship after ship sailed for 
 the distant hospitals of Scutari, each laden with a terrible 
 cargo of mangled sufferers ; party after party of tired soldiers 
 roved over the wide-spread scene of the late conflict, to succour 
 the wounded that lay groaning among bushes and rocks, and 
 every tent and house held some ghastly sacrifice to the stern 
 necessity of war. Mark had found in Balaklava a secure 
 refuge for Katinka, and had busied himself in inquiring for 
 some vessel about to sail for the west, in which a passage 
 might be engaged. He succeeded at last in obtaining what 
 he sought, room for Katinka and himself on board a large 
 merchant vessel, which had come to Balaklava deeply laden, 
 and was going back in ballast. The captain agreed to accept 
 Mark and Katinka, in whose story he took a compassionate 
 interest, as passengers to Southampton, and it was announced 
 that in a few days the vessel would weigh anchor and sail for 
 England. Before the voyage, however, Mark felt that he had 
 a duty to fulfil. Although his conduct towards Katinka during 
 the whole journey from Khopol had been characterised by a 
 scrupulous delicacy and respect, which could have been 
 equalled only by that with which a brother would have treated 
 a sister, he still felt that in the eyes of the world a farther 
 delay of their marriage might be misconstrued, and he was 
 resolved that no breath of suspicion should ever rest upon the 
 reputation of his beloved Katinka. Accordingly, in the midst 
 of the mournful scenes of patient suffering that made Balaklava 
 horrible, the double ceremony that was rendered necessary by 
 the difference of religion between the lovers, was performed 
 by an English chaplain and a Greek Papas. It was a sad 
 wedding, and one whose solemn and unjoyous air matched 
 well with the melancholy that pervaded the spot near which 
 so frightful a holocaust had been offered up to war. Mark 
 himself, usually so gay and buoyant, looked anxious and 
 depressed, while poor Katinka wept as if her heart would 
 break, as she thought of her dead sister and deserted father, 
 and reproached herself for being thus free and united to the 
 bridegroom her heart had chosen, as if her comparative good 
 fortune had been a wrong done to those whom she so dearly 
 loved, and with whose sorrows and dark fate even a fitful 
 gleam of happiness and sunshine so forcibly contrasted. 
 At last the day which preceded the departure of the ship 
 
182 THE SEEF-SISTEES ; OB, 
 
 which was to convey the young wife and husband to England 
 arrived, and in the afternoon the captain sent a boat on shore, 
 and the coxswain came into the town to warn Mark of the 
 necessity for immediately going on board. The vessel was to 
 sail by daybreak the next morning. 
 
 The preparations of the young pair were few and soon over, 
 and an hour later Mark and Katinka found themselves on 
 the deck of the ship, which was a fine three-masted vessel of 
 considerable tonnage. 
 
 Katinka, who had never before been on board of any large 
 craft, was, for the first time since her departure from 
 Nicholaev, amused and delighted by the novelty of the objects 
 around her. She took the greatest interest in everything con- 
 nected with the ship, and walked for hours about the deck by 
 Mark's side, asking innumerable questions about the rigging, 
 making all sorts of guesses respecting the use of the strange 
 nautical gear around her, and laughing at her own blunders 
 with something of the mirth of former days. Mark, though 
 pleased to see his little wife regaining a portion of her former 
 innocent merriment of character, and though he seemed to 
 become more fond of Katinka, and more careful of her safety 
 and happiness every day, still felt a load upon his mind. Since 
 the day of Inkerman he had experienced the influence of a 
 vague sense of gloom and apprehension, that was not exactly 
 a presentiment of coming evil, nor yet the mere effect of the 
 hideous slaughter he had witnessed, but; partook of both these 
 characters, and which dejected him in spite of himself. 
 
 He was not ill, certainly. He was tired, harassed, careful, 
 but not ill. And Katinka's health was not such as to cause 
 Mm doubt or anxiety. On the contrary, now that she was 
 relieved from the tormenting cares and the ceaseless terrors 
 that had beset her since she left St. Petersburg, her colourless 
 face had regained much of its former bloom, and her blue eyes 
 had begun to resume their laughing and sunny brilliancy. 
 But however causeless his dejection might be, Mark could not 
 shake it off; and even when he trod the deck of the good 
 English ship, bound for his native shore, and with his darling 
 bride leaning on his arm, instead of dissipating itself as he had 
 hoped it would do at the very contact of his foot with tough 
 planks of British oak, and at the very flutter of the British 
 bunting at the mast-head above him, the shadow thickened into 
 deeper blackness. As Katinka was merrily prattling about 
 sails and yards, and blocks and cordage, Mark answered 
 
THE RUSSIA OF TO-DAY. 183 
 
 mechanically, but never smiled, although Katinka prettily 
 chided his melancholy. Night came down, and the darkness 
 gradually sank brooding over the waters, while the sable hulls 
 and tapering spars of the vessels anchored in the roads loomed 
 indistinctly through the hazy atmosphere. The lights of the 
 town began to twinkle. 
 
 Katinka, tired of talking, and pouting like a spoiled child 
 at Mark for his depression, had relapsed into silence, and they 
 both stood looking over the bulwarks at the dim outline of 
 the shore. Mark's fancy, distempered by the burden that 
 oppressed his mind, now assumed a more lugubrious character, 
 though he feared to distress Katinka by relating its workings. 
 He imagined that the masts of the vessels around, with their 
 white sails hanging carelessly in festoons from the yards, 
 resembled a funeral procession of gigantic spectres, rocking 
 themselves up and down in the mist, and grimly beckoning 
 with their neshless arms. JNTor was this all, for the dark hulls 
 loomed through the shades of night like a long train of mourn- 
 ing carriages, while the huge merchantman, on whose deck 
 they stood, and which was moored farthest from shore, bore 
 to Mark's eyes the boding appearance of the hearse that led 
 the weird march. 
 
 An undefined fear came over Mark, usually so bold and 
 confident, and he would have given much if Katinka and him- 
 self ^had been on shore again ; but the fear of ridicule, the 
 sense of shame we all feel when unable to give a valid reason 
 for our conduct, and the wish to arrive in England with 
 Katiijca as soon as possible, prevented his even mentioning 
 his involuntary wish. Katinka expressed herself sleepy and 
 tired, and Mark led her down to the cabin which had been 
 assigned to them, and having remained with her for half an 
 hour, he then reascended to the deck. Walking to the stern, 
 he leaned over the taffrail and contemplated musingly the 
 dark water that danced and eddied around the rudder. 
 The sea was calm enough, to all appearance, and yet Mark, 
 who had been when a boy very familiar with the signs of the 
 ocean, was not entirely satisfied with its aspect. The sea 
 heaved up its mighty breast at intervals like some suffering 
 monster panting in its giant pain, and those long swelling 
 motions of the surging water seemed to become more frequent 
 by degrees ; while the ship, moored by two anchors, stem and 
 stern, rose and sank with a slowly rocking motion like that of 
 the pendulum of a clock. The light wind scarcely raised a 
 
184 THE SERF-SISTERS; OR, 
 
 speck of foam upon the surface of the deep, but it moaned and 
 sighed as mournfully as the spirit of Cassandra may have 
 wailed around the ruined walls of that Troy which had 
 neglected her warnings. Mark, he knew not why, attached a 
 meaning to the sorrowful voice of the breeze, and felt a vague 
 sense of danger stealing more and more over his mind. He 
 looked out anxiously to windward, and narrowly scanned the 
 horizon, but could discover none of the usual signs of a storm. 
 The second mate and two or three seamen were on deck, but 
 they evidently saw nothing unusual or menacing in the 
 weather, and Mark began to persuade himself that he was 
 totally mistaken. 
 
 Hours passed away, and no change succeeded. Perhaps the 
 plaintive notes of the wind were pitched in a little higher key, 
 but all around looked calm and peaceful. Katinka was asleep 
 below, and Mark would have sought a refuge from his annoying 
 thoughts in slumber, but he could not close his eyes. A sin- 
 gular wakefulness took possession of him, and he returned to 
 the deck, when the captain, who was at supper in his cabin, 
 sent the boy who waited on him to invite Mark to share his 
 repast. Mark, who was restlessly pacing the deck, complied 
 at once, and was soon seated at the cabin table. He tried to 
 eat, but his appetite was gone ; and the good-natured captain 
 soon observed his depressed spirits. 
 
 " Come !" said the captain, jovially, as he finished mixing the 
 punch, and filled Mark's glass and his own, " come, cheer up, 
 lad ! A youngster like you, healthy and strong, with such a 
 pretty little wife into the bargain, ought not to be in the 
 doldrums. Pitch your melancholy overboard, my boy, and 
 let's drink to our happy vo} r age to England; for a happy and 
 a prosperous voyage it will be, I dare swear !" And the honest 
 seaman pushed over one brimming glass towards Mark, and 
 lifted the other to his lips. 
 
 Mark could not help answering the captain's jolly laugh by 
 his old frank smile, as he took up his glass and gaily pledged 
 the toast. But just as he was in the act of drinking, he 
 uttered a loud exclamation, and the glass fell from his hand 
 and was broken to shivers. 
 
 "What the devil!" ejaculated the captain, upsetting his own 
 tumbler, and starting to his feet. 
 
 Mark stood staring like one who fancied he beheld an appa- 
 rition. 
 
 "What's the matter with you, lad?" gasped out the captain, 
 
THE RUSSIA OF TO-DAY. 185 
 
 half suffocated by the scalding liquor he had hurriedly swal- 
 lowed. 
 
 " The barometer ! the barometer !" cried Mark* as he pointed 
 with an outstretched finger to the great weather-glass that hung 
 in the cabin, and which had caught his eye as he was in the 
 act of drinking the toast the captain had proposed. 
 
 " What ails it ?" demanded the old mariner, wiping and ad- 
 justing his spectacles. 
 
 " Look for yourself!" cried Mark ; " see to what a point the 
 mercury has fallen ay, and in an instant. I saw it suddenly 
 sink in the tube myself, and I need not ask so old a seaman if 
 he knows what that omen means." 
 
 " Why, if we were in the West Indian latitudes, now, my 
 lad, I could read the riddle easy enough," answered the 
 puzzled captain. " In the hurricane seas, one would know 
 well enough that one must dowse sail and trim the ship for 
 scudding, when one saw such a sign. But then, you see, out 
 here " 
 
 The sentence was never finished. The ship bounded like a 
 frightened horse, rising with one quick rush to the crest of a 
 mountainous wave, and then fell crashing into the hollow 
 trough of the sea. And then the might of the tempest struck 
 her with awful force, and made her reel throughout her length, 
 and heel over fearfully, while a mass of white and foaming 
 water poured like a cascade over her bulwarks. 
 
 "This is a hurricane, if ever I felt one," cried the captain, 
 as, bareheaded, he ran up on deck, his speaking-trumpet in 
 his hand. Mark followed him at once, but, on reaching the 
 deck he found the violence of the wind scarcely left him the 
 power to stand, and he was obliged to cling to a shroud, to 
 prevent the water that swept the deck from carrying him over- 
 board. 
 
 The old captain, clinging to the rigging, his grey hair 
 tossed by the wind, was shouting through his trumpet orders 
 which no one attended to. The crew came rushing up, but 
 they looked stupefied, and merely held on to the weather 
 shrouds. The ship careened over in a frightful manner, and 
 lay helplessly on her side. 
 
 "Get axes !" roared the captain; "cut away the masts ; all 
 our lives depend upon it." 
 
 The first mate ran below, and brought up three or four axes, 
 but no one volunteered to mount the rigging. 
 
 "Cut away the topmasts!" shouted the captain. "For 
 
186 THE SERF-SISTERS ; OE, 
 
 Heaven's sake, Mr. Forster, bear a hand! Those cursed 
 cowardly lubbers will drown us all." 
 
 Mark sprang forward, and caught an axe in his hand. All 
 his courage and energy were restored when he could meet and 
 combat the danger. " Follow me, lads, and do as I do," cried 
 he, in a loud cheery voice, that made the paralysed sailors start 
 to their duty. Mark boldly flung himself into the rigging, 
 went up it with the agility of a practised seaman, and his axo 
 soon fell, with quick sharp blows, upon the maintopmast. The 
 men swarmed up after him, for sailors and soldiers will do 
 anything for a leader who says "come!" instead of "go!" 
 Hatchets and knives were plied with zeal and vigour, while 
 the white seething sea poured like a cataract over the weather 
 bulwarks, and the whole side of the ship to port was buried in 
 the waves. Over went the topmasts at last, with all their 
 clinging cordage and yards, cut away by the axes, and blown 
 by the fierce wind into the sea. A long loud cry of exultation 
 followed, as the ship righted triumphantly. Every man came 
 safe down by the stays and shrouds, and the vessel, though 
 strained and crippled, floated once more, a ship, and not a 
 wreck, upon the waters. Mark scarcely stayed to receive the 
 rough grip of the captain's hand, and hear his homely thanks 
 for the service rendered, but hurried down to Katinka, whom 
 he found half distracted with terror. * The poor girl was 
 alarmed and terrified, and clung to her husband, imploring 
 him not to leave her. Mark soothed her agitation to the 
 utmost of his power, but thinking that in such a tempest the 
 cabin was the most dangerous part of a ship, as offering the 
 least chance of escape, he persuaded her to come on deck with 
 him. 
 
 Dressed in a loose morning wrapper, her fair hair dishevelled 
 and falling in golden coils to her waist, Katinka accompanied 
 Mark to the deck. The scene around was one to make the 
 stoutest heart quail. The sea was as white as milk, except 
 where the hollows between the huge waves yawned darkly; the 
 surges rose like volcanic mountains; the wind blew with a fury 
 that flung large sheets of foam high into the troubled air. The 
 fleet had dispersed; signals were made, and minute-guns were 
 fired on every side, in signal of distress ; but there was no help 
 at hand; so cannon roared, and Bengal-lights burned, in vain. 
 Some ships had dragged their anchors, others had broken or 
 cut their cables, and drifted ashore ; others, again, were riding 
 out the gale, storm-tossed and shattered, Some of the largest 
 
THE BUSSIA OP TO-DAY. 187 
 
 and heaviest war- vessels of England and France, floating 
 citadels, with oaken ramparts, formidable artillery, and crowded 
 garrisons, were vainly striving with the hurricane, and driving 
 towards the shore. Mark and Katinka saw no signs of help, 
 no immunity from peril, save far away, where the lights of 
 Balaklava burned peacefully upon the solid shore. How the 
 ship tossed and rocked, and laboured with creaking timbers 
 and leaking ribs in the strong sea ! All her chance of safety 
 lay in her two stout cables, and all night long they bore the 
 strain that racked their fibres. 
 
 The cold grey morning came at last ; the wind that had flat- 
 tened down the waves abated, but the sea rose higher, and the 
 ship tossed fearfully. Far and near the barren coast was 
 strewn with wrecks, and many a stately vessel lay, helpless 
 and dismasted, buffeting the shore. Mark looked around him 
 for comfort, but saw none. One of the cables that had been 
 the safeguard of the vessel, snapped with a noise like a cannon- 
 shot. The ship now rode only by the bow-anchor, and it was 
 terrible to see the strain upon the cable, now taut as an iron 
 bar. She heaved and pitched, and tossed and bounded, that 
 gallant ship, like a wild horse with a lasso round his neck; and 
 every time that the cable checked her, she dipped her bows 
 under water with a force that threatened her destruction at 
 each successive plunge. 
 
 " We must cut her loose," said the captain, in Mark's hear- 
 ing, to the chief mate ; " she cannot stand this knocking about 
 for many minutes. Set the storm-jib ; shake out a reef of the 
 foresail, and stand by to cut away the cable." 
 
 The mate hurried forward, but scarcely had the sails been 
 set, when the cable snapped with a thundering report. 
 
 "Put up your helm !" roared the captain to the steersman. 
 But the ship lurched heavily over, and scudded, as helplessly 
 as a drifting log, before the furious gale. She would no longer 
 obey her helm. The captain ordered more sail to be put upon 
 her; but no sooner had the jibs been set and the mainsail 
 shaken out, than the bowsprit was carried away and the main- 
 sail was rent into ribbons. The ship drifted past the harbour 
 of Sebastopol on, on, nearer and nearer the land. 
 
 Several transports, French and English, were in distress 
 among the rocks and near the beach. Some were absolute 
 wrecks, some aground, some still trying to weather the gale. 
 A swarm of mounted Cossacks galloped along the cliffs, 
 making prisoners the few who reached shore in safety, and 
 
188 THE SERF-SISTERS; OR, 
 
 pitilessly firing upon the crews of tlie vessels yet afloat. 
 Katinka fixed her blue eyes imploringly on her husband's 
 face, and clung to him with the instinct of desperation. Mark 
 was very pale, but he looked coolly round him for the means of 
 safety, while his arm encircled Katinka's waist. The ship now 
 neared the breakers, and the sheets of tumbling foam and the 
 jagged rocks were very near her bows. Three seamen strained 
 at the wheel, but the helm was useless, and the ship hurried 
 unresistingly to destruction. 
 
 " Try the boats, captain !" said Mark. 
 
 "It is child's play! no boat could live!" answered the 
 captain despondingly. 
 
 "Never mind, lower away, and try!" said Mark. The 
 boats, the only two that were sea-worthy, were lowered. One 
 was swamped and stoved in at once by the angry waves. The 
 other was launched. " Now, my Katinka !" whispered Mark, 
 catching up his little wife in his arms, and preparing to place 
 her in the boat. Pour men leapt into it, and grasped the oars. 
 A rush of the alarmed sailors took place, and the boat was 
 laden till she sank gunwale deep. " Cowardly hounds !" cried 
 Mark ; "come back, half of you ; we may all be saved if you 
 will have the courage of men." Two or three of the best sea- 
 men obeyed, the rest tried to push off. In a moment the boat 
 was overtopped by a white-crested wave. She filled, and went 
 down. The drowning cry of the mariners rang horridly for an 
 instant. In the next moment, the ship struck on the rocks. 
 A huge billow swept her decks, carrying away four men. 
 Mark clasped Katinka to his breast, and held on to the nearest 
 shroud. The masts quivered, snapped, and fell over the side. 
 The deck blew up with an echoing report, the white waves 
 came boiling up through the gaping timbers. The ship was a 
 wreck. Masts, beams, rigging, and corpses, were the sport of 
 the storm. The scattered planks were separated, and the vessel 
 was gone. "With one fearful scream, every human being sank 
 at once below the surface. Mark was among the first who 
 emerged from the bubbling surf. He was a powerful swimmer. 
 Clinging to a floating spar he glared around for Katinka. She 
 came to the surface at last. Her pale, beautiful face and long 
 hair appeared for an instant, and then the sea sucked her down 
 again, the golden hair alone floating amid the foam for an 
 instant. Mark dived, and soon re-appeared, supporting 
 Katinka. He lifted her fair head by a great effort above 
 the sea, and her blue eyes fastened despairingly on his face. 
 
THE KUSSIA OF TO-DAY. 189 
 
 " Save me, Mark, save me!" she cried in gurgling accents, 
 as she clasped him in her arms. Mark strove to swim. But 
 Katinka, wildly clinging to him, prevented his limbs from 
 having free play, and they both sank. They emerged again. 
 
 " Loose me, Katinka ! dearest love, be calm. I will save 
 you if I can move, but by clinging thus you will drown us 
 both," gasped Mark, faintly, as he caught at a spar. But fear 
 can rarely be persuaded : Katinka was deaf to his voice ; in 
 her terror she entwined her limbs with his, and again they 
 sank into the deep and surging water. Mark re-appeared for 
 an instant, but, missing'^Katinka, he boldly dived again, though 
 faint and exhausted, but he rose no more above the seething 
 flood. During the afternoon, the bodies of Mark and Katinka, 
 locked in each other's arms, and covered with tangled sea- 
 weed, were flung upon the beach by the waves. 
 
 CHAPTEE XXXII. 
 
 IN the most squalid hut which the village of Khopol contains, 
 in a low-raftered room, wellnigh bare of furniture, and 
 blackened with smoke, sits over a smouldering turf-fire a 
 miserable old man, who croons to himself, as he spreads his 
 shrivelled hands before the fire, " Childless ! childless ! and 
 alone!" This is Jacob Petrovich, who was captured by a 
 patrol of gendarmes in his fruitless attempt to escape, when 
 Mark and Katinka succeeded in eluding their pursuers. At a 
 village forty miles from Khopol, Jacob had been stopped by a 
 party of soldiers, his passport demanded, and himself arrested 
 and led back to Khopol. Prince Jargonoff placed him in the 
 most wretched hut in the hamlet, and meditated on some new 
 species of torture to punish the old man for his own flight and 
 that of his daughter. But the news of Katinka's death, derived 
 from a soldier who had seen her at Khopol before he was 
 drawn for the conscription, and who had recognised her fea- 
 tures as her corpse lay cold on the Crimean beach, had reached 
 Khopol ; and old Jacob Petrovich was beyond the power of 
 Prince Jargonoff. Even the petty tyrant of Khopol dared not 
 torment with scourge and dungeon the victim of mental aliena- 
 tion. All day long the poor old man sits over the feeble peat 
 fire, tended only by the faithful Yaska, whose tenderness and 
 care towards him are unceasing, and without whom he would 
 
190 THE SERF-SISTEES. 
 
 have ere now died of hunger, like a houseless dog. All day he 
 utters at intervals the plaintive cry, "Childless! childless! and 
 alone !" the only words he is ever heard to speak, except the 
 names of his lost children, which he at times repeats in a low 
 voice. Yaska alone can soothe his grief, which occasionally be- 
 comes a paroxysm of convulsive strength, and her he obeys like a 
 child, though no other voice can elicit from him reply or recog- 
 nition. Yaska watches him as carefully as if the love she bore 
 to her dead nurselings could now alone be proved by her kind- 
 ness towards their bereaved father, her kind master of earlier 
 days. Every morning when the sun shines, she leads old 
 Jacob to Anielka's grave beneath the rustling cypress tree, and 
 here the old man seems happier than elsewhere, as if he felt 
 himself once more in the company of his child. And after a 
 time Yaska takes his hand and draws him away, and he follows, 
 meek and docile as an infant, with a childish obedience that it 
 makes Yaska's heart ache to witness, yet often looking wist- 
 fully back at the grave around which his thoughts seem centred. 
 And then he quietly enters his hut, and sits before the fire, 
 still moaning feebly to himself. Of those who sat around the 
 happy hearth of Jacob Petrovich not many months ago, the 
 only survivors, save the traitor Paul Vlad and his daughter 
 Thekla, are Eugene Klapka toiling in his clanking chains, yet 
 ignorant of Anielka's fate, and poor old Jacob himself, who 
 mutters ever his sad lament, " Childless ! childless ! and 
 alone!"