ng man had been paid so little
that, after liquidating all his expenses, he had lost eight rubles of
his money. As the Count had foreseen, his disappointment made him
surrender his wretched liberty and go back to his master.

The servants are remarkable for their intelligence. I had one who knew
not a word of French, and although I was equally ignorant of Russian
we understood each other perfectly without the agency of speech. By
raising my arm I asked him for my easel, or my paint box, or otherwise
conveyed to him by gesture what articles I wanted. He invariably
seized my meaning, and was of the greatest value to me. Another very
precious quality I discovered in him was his honesty, which was proof
against all temptations. Frequently bank-notes were remitted to me in
payment of my pictures, and when I was busy painting I laid them near
me on a table. On quitting work I constantly forgot to take away the
notes, which sometimes lay there three or four days without his ever
abstracting one. Moreover, he was a man of exceptional sobriety; I
never once saw him drunk. This good servant was called Peter; he wept
when I left St. Petersburg, and I have always sincerely regretted
losing him.

The Russian people in general are honest and gentle by nature. At St.
Petersburg or Moscow not only are great crimes never heard of, but one
never hears of thefts. This good and quiet behaviour, surprising in
men little beyond barbarism, is attributed by many to the system of
servitude they are under. As for me, I believe the reason to be that
the Russians are extremely religious.

Not long after my arrival at St. Petersburg I went into the country to
see the daughter-in-law of my old friend, Count Strogonoff. His house
at Kaminostroff was situated at the right of the great highway
skirting the Neva. I alighted from my carriage, opened a little wicket
giving admission to the garden, and reached a room on the ground floor
whose door was wide open. So it was very easy to enter Countess
Strogonoff's house. Consequently, when I found her in a little
sitting-room, and she showed me her apartments, I was greatly
astonished to see all her jewels near a window looking out on the
garden and therefore within close reach of the high road. This seemed
to me the more imprudent as Russian ladies are in the habit of
exhibiting their diamonds and other ornaments under large cases, such
as are to be seen in jewellers' shops. "Countess," I asked her, "are