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

222ANECDOTE OF A POLISH LADY.

charming wit, related it to me herself. The graces of her conversation and the solid culture of her mind cause her to be much courted in the higher circles, notwithstanding the misfortunes of her country and her family. I say notwithstanding, for whatever may be said or thought, misfortune is little compassionated in society, even in the best; on the contrary, it stands greatly in the way of the individual's other recommendations. It does not, however, prevent the woman of whom I speak from being considered as one of the most distinguished and amiable of the day, both in London and Paris. Invited to a large, ceremonious dinner party, and being placed between the master of the house and a stranger, she soon grew weary, and had long to continue so; for, although the fashion of everlasting dinners is on the wane in England, they arc still longer there than in other lands. The lady, making the best of her misfortune, sought to vary the conversation, and, whenever the master of the house allowed her a moment's respite, she turned towards her right-hand neighbour; but she invariably encountered •a face of stone : and notwithstanding her easy manners as a woman of rank, and her vivacity as a woman of wit, so great an immobility disconcerted her. The dinner passed under these discouraging circumstances ; a gloomy silence followed : gloom is as necessary to English faces as uniform is to soldiers. Later in the evening, when the men again joined the ladies in the drawing-room, she who told me this story no sooner perceived her neighbour, the stony-visaged man of the dinner-table, than he, before venturing a word, hastened to find the owner of the house at the other end of the room, to