Russia in 1839 -Empire of the Czar: A Journey Through Eternal Russia

necessary to pursue this dreadful life, are not in favour.

The empress said to me the other day, in speaking of a very distinguished but delicate woman, " She is always ill!" The tone and manner in which this was spoken convinced me that the fate of a family was decided. In a sphere where good intentions are not sufficient, an indisposition is equivalent to a disgrace.

The empress does not consider herself more excused than others from paying her personal court. She cannot for a moment bear that the emperor should leave her. Princes are made of iron ! This high-minded woman wishes, and at moments believes, herself free from human infirmities; but the total privation of physical and mental repose, the want of a continuous occupation, the absence of all solid conversation, the acquired necessity of excitement, all tend to nurse a fever which is sapping life. And this dreadful mode of existence has become as indispensable as it is fatal. She cannot now either abandon it or sustain it. Atrophy is feared, and, above all, the winter of Petersburg is dreaded; but nothing can induce her to pass six months away from the emperor.*

in observing her interesting though emaciated figure wandering like a spectre through a scene of festivity celebrated in her honour, and which she will perhaps never witness again, my heart sunk within me, and, dazzled as I may have been with human pomp and grandeur, I turned to reflect on

* The following year, the waters of Ems restored the health of the empress.