when, a year after, I also returned home, I
learnt the fate of his whole house. They
had been exiled. Why, was, as usual, a
secret."

"I pity him," said the governor. "He
will not avail himself of the mercy of the
Emperor."

"Why do you suppose so?"

"A man who has fallen from such a lofty
station becomes, after exile, wholly unfit for
society. Count Paul feels this, and, if I do
not err, he keeps, on a black tablet over his
bed, a rigid reckoning. My daughter and I
have carefully watched him. In the two first
years of his exile, he constantly placed his
bare breast against the cold snow—to cool, as
he said, his burning heart, while his tears
melted the frozen earth; he refused his food;
with the greatest rashness he encountered
the fiercest of the wild beasts. In the third
year, he asked for ink and paper, which he
covered with aimless designs, and with the
words fatherland, death, vengeance. One
night, in the fifth year of his captivity, he
collected and burnt the whole of these scraps,
together with his portable library; from that
hour he has never more read, written,
complained, sighed, nor wept. He is not an
accountable being."

"Of all his writings," said the daughter,
"I have one leaf only, which he gave
me from his diary four years ago, at the
time when he did not avoid our
companionship."

After six hours in bed, I melted with my
breath the ice on the panes of my window,
which gave me a view of the country whence
Paul would return from the chase. I
examined every living being who went by,
until at length, about ten in the forenoon,
I saw Count Paul returning to the hut with
slow and weary steps. He threw down
the bag with the dead animals, and his large
fur boots, before the door. With his gun
directed downward, he then walked into the
hut.

About the same time as on the day before,
I again stood in his presence. He lay half
dressed on the bed, and stared vacantly on
the bare walls. On the table stood his
unprepared meal, near his head was his gun,
there was no fire in the chimney. I knelt
down by the bed, and taking his hand, called
him by his name: his lips moved convulsively,
but his eyes did not move.

"Paul! the world is again open to thee.
Here is the Emperor's pardon." His lips
moved again. He opened and shut his eyes
quickly to repress the last—the only—tear,
and said, "Too late!"

At this moment my eyes fell on the black
stone tablet over his bed. As I looked at it
he hastily drew away his hand out of mine
and closed his eyes. The tablet was divided
into three columns. In the first, was the
month of January, with its number of weeks
and days; in the second, the month of
February; in the third, the month of March, to
the eighth; from this, there was nothing, to
the twenty-first, which was written in large
letters. Under this line the whole part of
the third column was white, so that from
the twenty-first nothing more could be
written on the tablet.

"Thy mother and Amalie have sent thee
tokens of their unchanged love, and also
Prince Annoskoi has confirmed his kindness
in his own handwriting. Can we not, my
dear Paul, begin our journey—Home!
tomorrow?"'

Without saying a word he rose up from
the bed and wrote on the tablet, "March
the ninth." His look seemed to tell me
this would be the only answer to all I said.
He then turned his face to the wall and
signified that he wished to be alone. I placed
the letters on the table near the bed, lighted
the fire, and, full of anguish, quitted the
hut.

The governor was waiting outside, and I
related to him what had happened.

Early the next morning—about two o'clock
—I saw him steal out of his hut. He appeared
weak and languid. At my request, the
governor hired a man to watch him.

He did not return until two in the afternoon.
He was exhausted, and was without
any game. He immediately fell on his
bed.

When I entered, his eyes were closed, and
his face with its fixed stern expression was
turned towards the chimney. The letters
and the knots of ribbon remained untouched.
At nine in the evening he opened his eyes,
took the tablet and wrote on it the day of
the month—the tenth—and signed to me to
go away. On the eleventh, towards midnight,
he arose to go as usual to the chase, but fell
back on his bed. With great difficulty he
arose again, about the middle of the day,
and placed the prescribed number of skins
in order for the delivery; wrote on the
tablet "the eleventh;" and staggered back to
bed.

He lay, during eight days, stolid,
immovable, rejecting all help from human hands.
In vain I wept and prayed, kneeling by his
bed; in vain the soft voice of the governor's
daughter; in vain the physician and the
priest.

I dreaded the twenty-first; his self-appointed
death-day. Dreaded or not dreaded,
any day will come in its course. At five in
the afternoon, he lay at the last extremity;
around his bed stood the governor, his daughter,
and the physician; I stood at his head.
He still breathed; his eyes were closed.
Shortly before six, his eyelids opened with
the last flash of life's fire; his lifted hand
made a sign for the rest to go away. They
went, and I remained; he saw me not; about
five minutes afterwards, he suddenly rose
half up in the bed, drew a heavy, deep
breath, and fell back. I closed his eyes and