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

110THE HISTORY OF THELENEF.

she was his confidant, although he had confided nothing to her, for he never once complained. Indeed, the treatment of which he had been the victim was a matter of such ordinary occurrence, that no one attached any importance to it: except himself and Xenie no one thought any thing about it.

He avoided, with an admirable instinct of pride, every tiling that could remind him of the degradation he had suffered; but he fled, involuntarily and with a shudder, whenever any of his comrades were about to be beaten; and he grew pale at the sight of a reed or a wand in a man's hand.

It should be repeated that he had commenced life too happily. Favoured by the steward, and, therefore, indulgently treated by all his superiors, envied by his comrades ; talked of as the most fortunate, as well as the most handsome among the men born

on the estate of Prince; idolised by his mother,

ennobled in his own estimation by the delicate and ingenuous friendship of the lovely Xenie, an angel who called him her brother, he had not been duly prepared for the hardships of his lot; and in one day he discovered all his misery. Thenceforward he viewed the obligations of his condition as unjust: lowered in the eyes of men, and yet more in his own, from the most happy he became in a moment the most wretched of beings. What should console him for so much happiness vanished for ever under the rod of the Russian lictor! Affection for a wife ! — could that restore the peace of this haughty slave ? — No ! his past happiness pursued him everywhere, and rendered Iris sense of shame the more insupportable. His sister Xenie believed she should render him again