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

IMAGINATION.275

devoid of feeling. All my imaginative or creative faculties were busy in presenting to me, in spite of myself, this unhappy, unknown man, surrounded by the phantoms of his prison solitude : I suffered with him, I felt his feelings, I shared his fears; I saw him, forsaken by all the world, discovering that his state was hopeless: for who would ever interest themselves in a prisoner in this land, so distant and so different from ours, in a society where friends meet together for enjoyment, and separate in adversity. What a stimulus was this thought to my commiseration! 'c You believe yourself to be alone in the world ; you are unjust towards Providence, which sends you a friend and a brother." These were the words which I mentally addressed to the victim.

Meanwhile, the unhappy man would hope for no succour, and every hour that passed in his dreadful silence and monotony would plunge him deeper in despair: night would come with its train of spectres; and then what terrors, what regrets would seize upon him! How did I pant to tell him that the zeal >>i a stranger should replace the loss of the faithless protectors on whom he had a right to depend. But all means of communication were impossible : the dismal hallucinations of the dungeon pursued me in the light of the sun, and, notwithstanding the bright arch of heaven above my head, shut me up in dark, dank vaults; for in my distress, forgetting that the Russians apply the classic architecture to the construction even of prisons, I dreamt not of Roman colonnades, but of Gothic subterranes. Had my imagination less deeply impressed me with all these things, I should have been less active and persevering in my efforts in favour of