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

this treatment; the blood of their wounded heads, left upon the stairs, has furnished hideous proofs of the ferocity of the Rus-`ian soldiers : I ought to observe also, that sometimes an officer was present at these brutal executions. Such things I and my companions saw daily without making any protest; so greatly does misery brutalise men ! It will be my fate to-morrow, I thought; and this community of danger put my conscience at rest, and favoured my inertia."

" It appears to me still to continue, since you could be witness of all these facts, and remain silent for twenty-eight years."

" I employed the two years of my captivity in carefully writing my memoirs. I completed two volumes of the most curious and extraordinary facts that have ever been printed on the subject; I described the arbitrary system of which we were the victims; the cruelty of the tyrannical noblemen who aggravated our miseries, and who surpassed in brutality the common people; and the consolations and relief we received from benevolent noblemen ; I showed chance and caprice disposing of the lives of prisoners as well as of natives: in short, I said everything."

k' Well ? "

" "Well! I burnt my narrative before passing the Russian frontier, when I was permitted to return to Italy."

" It was a crime to do so! "

•· I was searched : had my papers been seized, I should have been condemned to the knout, and sent to finish my life in Siberia, where my misfortune would have no better served the cause of humanity than my silence serves it here."

" I cannot forgive you for this resignation."

" You forget that it has saved my life, and that my dying would have done good to nobody."

" But you might, since your return, have again written out your narrative."

" I could not have done it with the same exactitude : I no longer believe in my own recollections."

" Where did you pass your two years of captivity ? "

" As soon as I reached a town where there was a superior officer, I asked permission to serve in the Russian army; this was to avoid the journey to Siberia. My request was noticed;