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

MADAME DE GENLIS.197

country/' continued my indefatigable enemy, never ceasing to scrutinise me with her inquisitive eyes.

This impoliteness was new to me. In general, I had found the manners of the Russians too obliging for the malignity of mind which I could detect under their fine phrases; here I recognised an accord between the sentiments and their expression, that was yet more disagreeable.

"We have among us the inconveniences of liberty ; but we have also the advantages," I replied.

" What are they ? "

" They would not be understood in Russia."

" They can be dispensed with."

" As can every thing else that is not known."

My adversary was piqued, and sought to hide her vexation by suddenly changing the subject of discourse.

"Is it of your family that Madame de Genlis speaks so much in the Souvenirs of Felicia, and of your person in her Memoirs ? "

I answered in the affirmative, and then expressed my surprise that these books were read at Schlus-selburg.

" You take us for Laplanders," retorted the lady, with that tone of acrimony which I had not succeeded in softening, and which began to react upon me, until I had nearly reached the same diapason.

"No, madame, but for Russians who have something better to do than to occupy themselves with the gossip of French society."

" Madame de Genlis is no gossip."

" Yet such of her writings as those in which she does no more than gracefully relate the little anee-K 3