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

98THE HISTORY OF THELENEF.

which no man in the district could dispute with her, the power of reason over brutish minds.

Even her father, violent as he was both by disposition and habit, felt the influence of her benevolent nature, and too often blushed to find himself checking the violence of his wrath through fear of giving pain to Xenie. Like a tyrannical prince, he blamed himself for his clemency, and accused himself of being too easy. He gloried in his angry passions, to which

he gave the title of justice : the serfs of Prince

called them by another name.

The father and daughter resided in the castle of Vologda, which was situated in a widely extended plain, whose scenery, for Russia, is very pastoral. The castle was built on the border of a lake, which surrounded it on three sides. This lake, whose banks are fiat, communicates with the Volga by several tributary streams, which, in their short and gentle course, wind through the plain, deeply embedded in the soil, and are discoverable to the eye from afar, only by the lines of stunted willows and other sickly shrubs growing here and there along their borders. They intersect the prairie in every direction, without beautifying or enriching it; for the flowing water does not improve the marsh}'- soil.

The appearance of the mansion had a certain air of grandeur. From the windows of one side the eye stretched over the lake, which reminds one of the sea, for its even and dark edges disappear, morning and evening, in the mists of the horizon ; from those of the other side, over vast pastures, intersected by ditches, and abounding with osiers. In these pastures, which are never mown, consist the chief riches