odolia, on the Turkish frontier. His ostensible object was to settle
there as a teacher of languages, and on the strength of his British
passport he obtained the necessary permission from the police before
their suspicions had been roused. He also gained admission at once
into the society of the place, where, notwithstanding his pretended
origin, he was generally known as "the Frenchman," the common nickname
for a foreigner in the Polish provinces. He had soon a number of
pupils, some of them Poles--others, members of the families of Russian
resident officials. He frequented the houses of the latter most, in
order not to attract attention to his intercourse with his
compatriots. He spoke Russian fluently, but feigned total ignorance
both of that and his own language, and even affected an incapacity for
learning them when urged to do so by his scholars. Among the risks to
which this exposed him was the temptation of cutting short a difficult
explanation in his lessons by a single word, which would have made the
whole matter clear. But this, although the most frequent and
vexatious, was not the severest trial of his _incognito_. One day,
while giving a lesson to two beautiful Polish girls, daughters of a
lady who had shown him great kindness, the conversation turned upon
Poland: he spoke with an indifference which roused the younger to a
vehement outburst on behalf of her country. The elder interrupted her
sharply in their native language with, "How can you speak of holy
things to a hare-brained Frenchman?" At another Polish house, a
visitor, hearing that M. Catharo was from Paris, was eager to ask news
of his brother, who was living there in exile: their host dissuaded
him, saying, "You know that inquiries about relations in exile are
strictly forbidden. Take care! one is never safe with a stranger."
Their unfortunate fellow-countryman, who knew the visitor's brother
very well, was forced to bend over a book to hide the blood which
rushed to his face in the conflict of feeling. He kept so close a
guard upon himself that he would never sleep in the room with another
person--which it was sometimes difficult to avoid on visits to
neighboring country-seats--lest a word spoken in his troubled slumbers
should betray him. He passed nine months in familiar relations with
all the principal people of the place, his nationality and his designs
being known to but very few of his countrymen, who kept the secret
with rigid fidelity. At