hours, he found her note. With the wild delight it had darted into his soul, he flew back to her.
On regaining her saloon a new and terrible vicissitude seemed to sport with his passion: – she was nowhere to be seen. Had the Italian cantatrice fled? Again he was in despair; stupefied with disappointment. As he stood uncertain how to act in the midst of the floor, he heard, as from a distance, an Ave Maria poured forth in tones he half-recognized. The sounds brought back to him a host of recollections; a weeping serf, the garden of his own palace. In a state of new rapture he followed the voice. He traced it to an inner chamber, and he there beheld the lovely singer kneeling in the costume of a Polish serf. She rose, greeted Leon with a touching smile, and stepped forward with serious bashfulness. Leon extended his arms; she sank into them; and in that fond embrace all past wrongs and sorrows were forgotten! Anielka drew from her bosom a little purse, and took from it a piece of silver. It was the rouble. Now, Leon did not smile at it. He comprehended the sacredness of this little gift; and some tears of repentance fell upon Anielka’s hand.
A few months after, Leon wrote to the steward of Olgogrod to prepare everything splendidly for the reception of his second wife. He concluded his letter with these words: – “I understand that in the dungeon beneath my palace there are some unfortunate men, who were imprisoned during my father’s lifetime. Let them be instantly liberated. This is my first act of gratitude to God, who has so infinitely blessed me!”
Anielka longed ardently to behold her native land. They left Vienna immediately after the wedding, although it was in the middle of January.
It was already quite dark when the carriage, with its four horses, stopped in front of the portico of the palace of Olgogrod. Whilst the footman was opening the door on one side, a beggar soliciting alms appeared at the other, where Anielka was seated. Happy to perform a good action, as she crossed the threshold of her new home, she gave him some money; but the man, instead of thanking her, returned her bounty with a savage laugh, at the same time scowling at her in the fiercest manner from beneath his thick and shaggy brows. The strangeness of this circumstance sensibly affected Anielka, and clouded her happiness. Leon soothed and re-assured her. In the arms of her beloved husband, she forgot all but the happiness of being the idol of his affections.
Fatigue and excitement made the night most welcome. All was dark and silent around the palace, and some hours of the night had passed, when suddenly flames burst forth from several parts of the building at once. The palace was enveloped in fire; it raged furiously. The flames mounted higher and higher; the windows cracked with a fearful sound, and the smoke penetrated into the most remote apartments.
A single figure of a man was seen stealing over the snow, which lay like a winding-sheet on the solitary waste; his cautious steps were heard on the frozen snow as it crisped beneath his tread. It was the beggar who had accosted Anielka. On a rising ground, he turned to gaze on the terrible scene. “No more unfortunate wretches will now be doomed to pass their lives in your dungeons,” he exclaimed. “What was my crime? Reminding my master of the lowness of his birth. For this they tore me from my only child – my darling little Anielka; they had no pity even for her orphan state; let them perish all!”
Suddenly a young and beautiful creature rushes wildly to one of the principal windows: she makes a violent effort to escape. For a moment her lovely form, clothed in white, shines in terrible relief against the background of blazing curtains and walls of fire, and as instantly sinks back into the blazing element. Behind her is another figure, vainly endeavoring to aid her, – he perishes also; neither are ever seen again!
This appalling tragedy horrified even the perpetrator of the crime. He rushed from the place; and as he heard the crash of the falling walls, he closed his ears with his hands, and darted on faster and faster.
The next day some peasants discovered the body of a man frozen to death, lying on a heap of snow, – it was that of the wretched incendiary. Providence, mindful of his long, of his cruel imprisonment and sufferings, spared him the anguish of knowing that the mistress of the palace he had destroyed, and who perished in the flames, was his own beloved daughter – the Serf of Pobereze!
III.
My Wonderful Adventures in Skitzland
I AM fond of Gardening. I like to dig. If among the operations of the garden any need for such a work can be at any time discovered or invented, I like to dig a hole.
On the 3d of March, 1849, I began a hole behind the kitchen wall, whereinto it was originally intended to transplant a plum tree. The exercise was so much to my taste, that a strange humor impelled me to dig on. A fascination held me to the task. I neglected my business. I disappeared from the earth’s surface. A boy who worked a basket by means of a rope and pulley, aided me; so aided, I confined my whole attention to spade labor. The centripetal force seemed to have made me its especial victim. I dug on until Autumn. In the beginning of November I observed that, upon percussion, the sound given by the floor of my pit was resonant. I did not intermit my labor, urged as I was by a mysterious instinct downwards. On applying my ear, I occasionally heard a subdued sort of rattle, which caused me to form a theory that the centre of the earth might be composed of mucus. In November, the ground broke beneath me into a hollow, and I fell a considerable distance. I alighted on the box-seat of a four-horse coach, which happened to be running at that time immediately underneath. The coachman took no notice whatever of my sudden arrival by his side. He was so completely muffled up, that I could observe only the skilful way in which he manipulated reins and whip. The horses were yellow. I had seen no more than this, when the guard’s horn blew, and presently we pulled up at an inn. A waiter came out, and appeared to collect four bags from the passengers inside the coach. He then came round to me.
“Dine here, Sir?”
“Yes, certainly,” said I. I like to dine – not the sole point of resemblance between myself and the great Johnson.
“Trouble you for your stomach, Sir.”
While the waiter was looking up with a polite stare into my puzzled face, my neighbor, the coachman, put one hand within his outer coat, as if to feel for money in his waistcoat pocket. Directly afterwards his fingers came again to light, and pulled forth an enormous sack. Notwithstanding that it was abnormally enlarged, I knew by observation of its form and texture that this was a stomach, with the œsophagus attached. This, then, the waiter caught as it was thrown down to him, and hung it carelessly over his arm, together with the four smaller bags (which I now knew to be also stomachs) collected from the passengers within the coach. I started up, and as I happened to look round, observed a skeleton face upon the shoulders of a gentleman who sat immediately behind my back. My own features were noticed at the same time by the guard, who now came forward touching his hat.
“Beg your pardon, Sir, but you’ve been and done it.”
“Done what?”
“Why, Sir, you should have booked your place, and not come up in this clandestine way. However, you’ve been and done it!”
“My good man, what have I done?”
“Why, Sir, the Baron Terroro’s eyes had the box seat, and I strongly suspect you’ve been and sat upon them.”
I looked involuntarily to see whether I had been sitting upon anything except the simple cushion. Truly enough, there was an eye, which I had crushed and flattened.
“Only one,” I said.
“Worse for you, and better for him. The other eye had time to escape, and it will know you again, that’s certain. Well, it’s no business of mine. Of course you’ve no appetite now for dinner? Better pay your fare, Sir. To the Green Hippopotamus and Spectacles, where we put up, it’s ten-and-six.”
“Is
