The Project Gutenberg EBook of Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home, by
Bayard Taylor

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Title: Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home

Author: Bayard Taylor

Release Date: June 29, 2008 [EBook #292]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, AND ***

Produced by Mike Lough

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST

AND TALES OF HOME

By Bayard Taylor.

CONTENTS.

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST
THE STRANGE FRIEND
JACOB FLINT'S JOURNEY
CAN A LIFE HIDE ITSELF?
TWIN-LOVE
THE EXPERIENCES OF THE A. C.
FRIEND ELI'S DAUGHTER
MISS BARTRAM'S TROUBLE
MRS. STRONGITHARM'S REPORT

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST.

A STORY OF OLD RUSSIA.

I.

We are about to relate a story of mingled fact and fancy. The facts are
borrowed from the Russian author, Petjerski; the fancy is our own. Our
task will chiefly be to soften the outlines of incidents almost too
sharp and rugged for literary use, to supply them with the necessary
coloring and sentiment, and to give a coherent and proportioned shape
to the irregular fragments of an old chronicle. We know something, from
other sources, of the customs described, something of the character of
the people from personal observation, and may therefore the more freely
take such liberties as we choose with the rude, vigorous sketches of the
Russian original. One who happens to have read the work of Villebois can
easily comprehend the existence of a state of society, on the banks of
the Volga, a hundred years ago, which is now impossible, and will soon
become incredible. What is strangest in our narrative has been declared
to be true.

II.

We are in Kinesma, a small town on the Volga, between Kostroma and
Nijni-Novgorod. The time is about the middle of the last century, and
the month October.

There was trouble one day, in the palace of Prince Alexis, of Kinesma.
This edifice, with its massive white walls, and its pyramidal roofs of
green copper, stood upon a gentle mound to the eastward of the town,
overlooking it, a broad stretch of the Volga, and the opposite shore. On
a similar hill, to the westward