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

ARREST OF M. PERNET.271

city prison, and there placed in a cell. Such is the

account which the waiter at our inn gave to my ser

vant, who, after many questions, further learnt that

M. Pernet is a young man about twenty-six years

old, and of feeble frame, which redoubles the fears

that are entertained for him ; that he passed through

Moscow last year, when he stayed at the house of a

Russian friend, who afterwards took him into the

country. This Riissian is now absent, and the unfor

tunate prisoner has no other acquaintance here except

another Frenchman, a M. R, in whose com

pany, it is said, he has been travelling from the north

of Russia, This M. Rlodged in the same hotel

with the prisoner. His name struck me the moment

I heard it, for it is the same as that of the dark man

with whom I dined a few days before at the house of

the governor of Nijni. The reader may recollect that

his physiognomy had been to me a subject for medi

tation. Again to stumble upon this personage, in

connection with the event of the night, appeared

to me quite a circumstance for a novel, and I could

scarcely believe what I heard : nevertheless I imme

diately rose, and sought the waiter myself, to hear

from his own lips the version of the story, and to

ascertain beyond doubt the correctness of the name

of M. R, whose identity I was particularly de

sirous of ascertaining. The waiter told me, that

having been sent on an errand by a foreigner about

to leave Moscow, he was at Ivopp's hotel at the mo

ment when the police left it, and he added that M.

Kopp had related to him the affair, which he re

counted in words that exactly accorded with the

statement of Antonio.