djutant of the division, with
whom I spent many hours in playing chess, and this man waited on us,
bringing us tea, or whatever other refreshments we needed.

Fulfilling all his duties to his master not only with ability, but the
greatest fidelity, he was treated with more friendship, and allowed
indulgences denied to others of his class, the humane officer whom it
was his lot to serve, knowing how to appreciate his faithfulness, and
wishing to remove the deep melancholy under which he constantly
labored.

This he was not able to do--for it was caused by home-sickness. He
pined for his rude home in Siberia--for the ice-fields, the marshy
meadows, and the barren steppes of his fatherland--he saw no beauty in
the summer plains of the South, no charm in the cultivated fields, nor
found pleasure in the society into which he was thrown. His sadness
increased every day--he lost his flesh, and at length became incapable
of effort, reduced to the borders of the grave.

In vain did his kind master endeavor to soothe him with comforting
words--as vain the attempt of the garrison surgeon to cure him with
varied prescriptions. His malady grew in proportion with their efforts
to heal it, until it took the form of monomania. He saw no means by
which he could accomplish his return to his beloved country so as to
be able to remain there in safety,--did he leave his kind master and
fly, it would be of no avail, for the same power that had at first
compelled his forced service, would exact it anew and with greater
vigor. He, therefore, took the desperate resolution to get himself
banished. This he could not do except he committed the crime of
murder, and an opportunity soon offered itself.[A] The victim was a
young girl, a servant in the same house with himself. She was of a
taunting, irritating disposition, and disputes were constantly
occurring between them--he resolved she should be the sacrifice to his
home-sickness, and accordingly in the next provocation he received
from her, he gave her a blow which killed her. He was imprisoned,
tried by military law, and his judges not knowing him to be a
Siberian, and never guessing his motive for the deed which he
acknowledged he had committed, passed sentence of banishment for life
to Siberia.

But this decree was only to be fulfilled after a preliminary
punishment had been inflicted--a punishment of which he had not
thought, and which embittered, if it did not destroy, the hope of
seei