to this. Is there no God
in heaven to punish such despotic cruelty?" My mistress was not dead,
and the surgeons were ordered to pay her every attention, that she might
recover; and I thought this attention on the part of the emperor in some
measure made amends for his barbarity. But, God in heaven! she was
restored to life that she might be more cruelly punished; for no sooner
was she able to bear this infliction, than they cut out her tongue, and
then banished her to Siberia.

Thus, O pacha! was my beautiful mistress treated upon mere suspicion,
for guilty she never was. I had been permitted to see her previous to
her latter punishment, and she fancied, poor thing, that the emperor's
wrath had been appeased, and that she would have been permitted to
return home, but her tongue was cut out without her receiving any
warning of the second punishment which awaited her, and after that I was
refused admittance, and I never saw my beautiful and ill-treated
mistress any more. It was from the officer who had the charge of her
that I learnt this cruel intelligence, and I went back to my lodgings
with a heart bursting with grief and indignation.

I was resolved that, if possible, I would escape from a country where
women's tongues were cut out; but how to manage it I knew not. I had
still some money and valuables, which had been left in my possession by
my unfortunate mistress, and I made inquiry about the means of
proceeding to Constantinople, where, at least, I should be in a
civilised country. At last a Jew, who heard that I wished to go to the
southward, offered to take me with him as soon as the snow was on the
ground, for which I bargained for five hundred roubles. In a fortnight
the winter had set in, and we got into a drotski, and went away. We
arrived at Moscow, and from thence we at last gained Constantinople. On
my arrival I selected my luggage, that I might pay the sum agreed; but
it was snatched from me by the old rascal, who saluted me with a kick in
the body which half-killed me. I was locked up in a room, and in half an
hour a slave-merchant came, and I was sold for a low sum and taken away,
remonstrating in vain against the injustice. My beauty was now gone, I
was more than thirty years old, and hardship had done the rest.

My subsequent life has been nothing but a series of changes and
disasters. I was sold to a pastrycook, and broiled by standing over the
oven. I grew obstinate and was punished by blows, but