Short Fiction by Xavier de Maistre (digital e reader txt) 📕

one of her friends in that capital, and promised her that she should find a refuge in her convent, and be received at it as a favourite child, whatever might be the result of her pilgrimage.

Prascovia arrived safely at Moscow. The friend of the Abbess received her with great kindness, and kept her in her house, while she was endeavouring to find her a fellow-traveller, for the journey to St. Petersburg.

The person, to whom she determined to entrust her, was a merchant who travelled with his own horses, and consequently at a moderate rate. In addition to the letters, which the ladies of Yekaterinburg had given her, she had now one for the Princess T., an aged and highly respected lady. Under these auspices, she arrived at St. Petersburg, towards the middle of February, twenty days after having left Moscow, and eighteen months after her departure from Siberia. Her courage was unabated, and her confidence as unshaken, as on the first day of her journey.

She lodged at the merchant’s house on the Yekaterina-canal, and for some time she was at a loss in that vast capital, how to enter on her business, and how she should deliver her letters of introduction.

The merchant was too much engrossed by his own affairs, to care much for his lodger. He had promised her to find out the house of the Princess T.: but before he could do so, he was obliged to depart for Riga, and left Prascovia to the care of his wife, who was very kind to her, but wholly unable to afford her any advice, upon the subject which alone interested her.

The letter which the lady of Moscow had given her, was addressed to a person living on the opposite bank of the Neva. As the direction was very explicit, Prascovia thought that she could find the house, and accompanied by her hostess set out for Vasili-Ostrov;28 but the river was opening, and the passage was prohibited by the police, as long as there was any danger from the floating ice. She returned home, painfully disappointed. In the midst of her perplexity, a friend of her hostess advised her unfortunately, to address a petition to the Senate, to request the revision of her father’s trial, and offered to procure a person who would draw up the paper. The success of that which she had addressed to the Governor of Tobolsk, encouraged her hopes, and she was thus induced to copy an ill-conceived and worse written supplication. Nor could anyone give her the least direction how to present it. She neglected to deliver her letters of recommendation, and in this way lost the opportunity of obtaining timely assistance.

With the petition in her hand, she went one morning to the palace of the Senate, ascended a long staircase, and entered one of the public offices. She was much embarrassed at the sight of the number of persons, who were seated or moving in this large room, not knowing to which of them she should deliver her paper. The clerks, to whom she whispered her request, looked up to her, and then continued to write, without taking any farther notice of her. Some other persons, whom she was about to address, turned aside to avoid her, as they would a pillar which obstructed their way. At last an old soldier, who served as doorkeeper and sergeant-at-arms, and who was hurrying with rapid steps through the saloon, met her, and passing to the right to get out of her way, while she turned to the same side, to make room for him, they came violently against each other. The provoked soldier asked her what was her business. Prascovia, rather pleased with the question, presented him her paper, and desired him to deliver it to the Senate. But he, taking her for a common beggar, seized her by the arm, and dragged her out of the room. She durst not re-enter, and remained the whole morning on the staircase, intending to present her petition to the first Senator whom she should meet. She saw several persons alighting from their carriages, some decorated with stars, some with epaulets, and all in uniforms, in boots, and with swords. She thought that they were all Generals, or officers of the army; and waiting all the time for a Senator, who, from the idea she had conceived of these magistrates, was to be distinguished by something extraordinary, she had no opportunity of delivering her paper. Towards three o’clock, the palace emptied, and Prascovia finding herself alone, left the Senate, in great amazement at not having met with a Senator, among the crowd she had seen that morning. Her hostess, to whom she made that remark, had great difficulty in making her understand, that a Senator was made like any other man, and that the gentlemen she had seen were probably for the most part persons, to any one of whom she might safely have presented her petition.

On the next day, at the hour when the Senate meets, she again took her seat on the staircase, and offered her paper to every person that passed near her; hoping, by this means, to avoid her error of the preceding day, and that she should at last meet with some one of those great personages, of whom she still found it difficult to form any definite idea; but nobody cared to take her paper. She saw, at last, a corpulent gentleman with a red ribbon, and stars on each side of his red uniform coat, and a sword. “If this is not a Senator,” she whispered to herself, “surely I shall never meet with one, in my life.” She advanced towards him, praying him to take charge of her petition; but a liveried servant stepped suddenly forward, and gently turned her aside, while the starred gentleman, who thought she asked alms, murmured a “God help you,” and proceeded on his way.

Prascovia went thus to the Senate for two whole