those who
were brought into close relations with him. The empress alone
triumphed over his outbursts, by dint of unfailing sweetness,
modesty, and patience. She smilingly submitted to the capricious
exactions, distasteful exercises, and excessive fatigues he imposed.
However bitter her sufferings, the serenity of her soul was never
visibly altered. But, in sympathizing with the hardships of her kind
mistress, Sophie early learned to penetrate the secret of noisy pomp
and hidden woes, glittering prosperity and silent tears.

Secretary Soymonof, aware of the precarious tenure by which the
dependents of the court held their prosperity, was anxious to secure
for his daughter a trustworthy protector, and a handsome position in
the future. He cast his eyes on his personal friend, General
Swetchine, a man of an imposing aspect, a firm character, a just and
calm spirit, who had had an honorable career, and was held in high
consideration. Sophie accepted, with her usual deference to her
father's wishes, the husband thus chosen, although he was twenty-five
years older than herself. It cost her many a secret pang; for she was
already in love with a young man of noble birth and fortune, with
rare qualities of mind and a brilliant destiny. She knew that her
affection was reciprocated. But, from a sense of filial duty, she
silently renounced him; and, when he in turn resigned himself to
another marriage, she became the warm and steadfast friend of his
wife. This painful renunciation, in the introspective reflection, and
the dissolution of romantic dreams to which it led, was the first of
those earthly disenchantments, which, shattering and darkening the
empire of social ambition, transferred her interest from material
pleasures and hopes to the imperturbable satisfactions of religion.

The second blow quickly followed. Only a few days after that marriage
which her father thought promised so much security and consolation to
his old age, the Emperor Paul, in a cruel whim, suddenly banished him
from Petersburg. Retiring to Moscow, the galling sense of his
disgrace, the separation from his darling daughter, together with a
frigid reception by a friend on whom he had especially relied,
plunged him into the deepest grief. A terrible attack of apoplexy
swept him away. At the dire announcement, Madame Swetchine sunk on
her knees; and, in the spiritual solitude, unable any more to lean on
her father, turned with irrepressible need and effu