nent. His expression had something strange in it that reminded me of the man whom I had seen climbing the tree; but was it likely, I asked myself, that Count Szémioth would clamber up trees at night?

His forehead was high and welldeveloped, though rather narrow. His features were very regular, only his eyes were too near together, and it seemed to me as if there was not the width of an eye between his lachrymal glands, as the canons of Greek sculpture exact. His glance was keen, and our eyes meeting more than once, we looked away again with some embarrassment. All of a sudden the Count burst out laughing, and said, "You have recognized me."

66

Recognized you?"

and rare books; I read scarcely any but modern works. But we will look for it, Professor. Will you let them bring our tea here ?"

While we drank tea, the conversation turned on the Jmond language. The Count found fault with the manner in which the Germans printed Lithuanian, and he was right. "Your alphabet," he said, "does not suit our language. You have neither our j nor our 7, nor our y nor our ë. I have a collection of dainos published last year at Koenigsberg, and I had an infinity of trouble in making out the words, they were printed SO strangely."

*

"Your Excellency is alluding, no doubt, to Lessner's dainos." "Yes. It is flat stuff, isn't it?" "Perhaps he might have found

"Oh, Count!"

"I had spent the whole day in pain, shut up in my study. In the evening I found myself better, and went out for a walk in the garden; I saw the light in your room, and yielded to an impulse of curiosity. I ought, of course, to have told you who I was, but the position was so ridiculous, I was ashamed, and ran away. Will you forgive me for having disturbed you in the middle of your work?"

He tried to say all this in a bantering manner; but he coloured, and was evidently ill at ease. I did all I could to persuade him that this first interview had left no unpleasant impression on my mind, and to cut the subject short, I asked him if he was really the owner of Father Lawicki's Samogitian Catechism.

"I may have it, but, to tell you the truth, I do not know much about my father's library. He liked old

it stands, his collection has only a philological interest. I believe that by hunting carefully much better specimens might be found among your popular poems."

"I doubt that, in spite of my patriotic feelings."

"A few weeks ago, at Wilno, I was given a really lovely historic ballad. The poetry of it is remarkable. Will you let me read it to you? I have it in my portfolio."

"I shall be delighted."

The Count lay back in his armchair, after having asked leave to smoke. "I can only understand poetry when I smoke," he said.

66

This is called The Three Sons of Boudrys.'

"The Three Sons of Boudrys ?"" cried the Count with a movement of surprise.

"Yes, Boudrys, as your Excellency knows, better than I do, was an historical character."

The Count looked hard at me with his peculiar glance; something

indescribable; at once timid and stern, which produced a painful impression on the mind, when one was not used to it. I hastened to escape from it by reading.

"You

"Bravo, Professor!" cried the Count, when I had finished. pronounce Jmond famously. But who gave you that pretty daina?"

"A young lady whose acquaintance I had the honour of making at Wilno, at Princess Katazyna Pac's." "What was her name?" "The Panna Jwinska."

"Mademoiselle Joulka!"* cried the Count." The little madcap! I ought to have guessed it! My dear Professor, you know Jmond, and all the learned languages; you have all the old books by heart, but you have been mystified by a little girl who has only read romances. She has translated more or less correctly into Jmond, one of Miçkiewicz's pretty ballads, that you of course have never looked at because it is not older than I. If you wish I will show it to you in Polish; or, if you prefer it in Russian, I will give you Pouchkine."

I confess I was staggered. What a triumph it would have been for the Dorpat Professor if I had published the daina of the Sons of Boudrys as an original.

Instead of enjoying my discomfiture, the Count hastened, with charming politeness, to change the conversation.

"So you know Mlle. Joulka ?" he said.

"I have had the honour of being introduced to her."

"And what do you think of hercandidly ?"

"I think her a delightful young lady."

"You are good enough to say so."
"She is very pretty.'
"Oh!"

"What? Has she not the most splendid eyes you ever saw?" "Yes."

"Herskin is most extraordinarily white. I recollect a Persian song in which a lover extols the beauty of his mistress's skin. 'When she drinks red wine,' he says, 'you can see it flowing down her throat.' The Panna Jwinska made me think of those Persian verses.

"Perhaps the same phenomena may be apparent in Mlle. Joulka's case, but I am not sure whether she has any blood in her veins. She has no heart. She is white as snow, and just as cold!"

He stood up and walked about the room without speaking, and, as it seemed, to hide his emotion. Then stopping, he exclaimed all of a sudden, "I beg your pardon. We were talking, I think, of popular poetry."

"Yes, Count."

"I must allow that she has translated Mickiewicz very prettily. Those words, 'Playful as a kitten;' 'White as cream;' 'Her eyes shone like two stars;' that is her own portrait, isn't it ?"

"Exactly."

"And as for the trick itself—it was somewhat out of place no doubt -but still the poor child is nearly bored to death at her old aunt's. She leads a regular convent life."

"At Wilno she went into society. I saw her at a ball given by the officers of the"

"Ah! yes!-young officers; those are the sort of people she likes. She laughs with one, gossips with another, and flirts with them all. Would you like to see my father's library, Professor?"

I followed the Count into a large gallery where there was a great number of books, all well bound, but, apparently, very seldom opened,

to judge by the dust that covered the shelves. Imagine, if you can, my delight, when one of the first volumes I took out of a press proved to be the Catechismus Samogiticus. I could not help uttering an exclamation of delight. There must be some kind of mysterious attraction, which works upon us unconsciously. The Count took the book, and after carelessly turning over a few pages, he wrote on the fly-leaf, "From Michel Szémioth to Professor Wittembach." I cannot here describe the intensity of my gratitude for this gift, but I made a mental resolve, on the spot, that, after my death, the precious book should adorn the library of the University at which I graduated.

"Please to look upon this library as your working room," said the Count; "you will never be disturbed here."

III.

NEXT morning, after breakfast, the Count proposed an expedition to visit the kapas (this was a name given by the Lithuanians to tumuli, which the Russians called kourgâne), that had a great fame in the country, because long ago bards and sorcerers-one and the same people— used to assemble there on certain solemn occasions.

"I have a very quiet mount for you," he said; "I am sorry we can't drive there, but the road is really impracticable."

I should have preferred remaining in the library to collect notes, but I thought I ought to follow the wishes of my noble host, so I agreed to his proposal. The horses were at the door, and in the courtyard a servant held a dog in leash.

"Do you understand dogs, Professor?" asked the Count, pausing and turning towards me.

"Very little, your Excellency." "The starost of Zoramy, where I

have some property, has sent me this spaniel. Let me look at him," said the Count to the servant who led the dog up to him. It was a very handsome animal, and being good friends with the man, it jumped about and seemed full of life; but when it came near the Count it put its tail between its legs and seemed stricken with a sudden terror. The Count patted it, which only made it howl píteously. Then, after having looked at it for some time, with the eye of a connoisseur, he said, "I think he'll do. Take care of him." After which he mounted his horse. "Professor," said the Count, as

we

were riding down the castle avenue, "you saw the fright that dog was in just now. I was anxious you should see it for yourself.

Now, as a learned man, you ought to be able to explain such things. Why, then, are animals afraid of me? ""

66

Really, Count, you make me out an Edipus. I am only a poor Professor of Comparative Philology. It may perhaps be"

"Remember," he interrupted, "that I never beat horse or dog. I should be ashamed to strike a poor dumb animal that unconsciously commits a fault, and yet you would hardly believe how horses and dogs hate me. It takes them just double time to grow accustomed to me. Why, it took me ages to train the horse you are riding, but he is as quiet as a lamb now.

"I think, Count, that animals are physiognomists, and they find out at once whether a person whom they see for the first time cares for them or not. I suspect you only value animals just for the services they render you. Other people, on the contrary, love them for their own sakes, and the animals recognize the fact at once. I myself, for instance, have a remarkably strong affection for cats, and I find they scarcely ever run away when I wish to pet

them, and I never got a scratch from one of them in my life."

"That may be," said the Count. "It is quite true I have no particular love of animals; they are not better than men. I am now bringing you, Professor, into a forest of which, according to our national traditions, the depths have never been explored. No one, they say, has ever reached the centre of these woods and swamps, except, of course, the bards and sorcerers."

We were now getting some distance into the wood, very soon the narrow path that we followed disappeared, and every moment we were obliged to twist in and out among huge trees, of which the branches barred our advance.

The difficulties of the way interrupted our conversation, and it took me all my time to follow the Count, while I admired the skill with which he advanced without a compass, always following the line which led to the kapas. It was plain he had hunted over every inch of the wild locality.

After having examined the tumulus, the Count and I were returning to the place where we had left our horses, when we met an old woman leaning on a stick and holding a basket in her hand.

"Charity-for God's sake, kind gentlemen!" she said, joining us. "Give me something to buy a glass of brandy to warm my poor body."

The Count threw her a silver coin, and asked her what she was doing in such a remote part of the wood. Her only reply was to show her basket, which was full of mushrooms. Although my botanical knowledge was most limited, it seemed to me that some of the toadstools were of poisonous kinds.

"You are not going to eat those, I hope, my good woman?" I said.

"Poor people must eat whatever God sends them, sir," she replied, with a sad smile.

"You don't know what

our

Lithuanian stomachs are," said the Count; "they are lined with tin. Our peasants eat all kinds of mushrooms and are none the worse for it."

"Don't you let her eat that Agaricus necator, at least," said I; “I see it in her basket."

I stretched out my hand to take away one of the most poisonous of mushrooms, but the old woman snatched the basket out of my reach. "Take care!" she cried, in a tone of alarm, "they are guarded. Pirkuns, Pirkuns!”

Pirkuns, I may as well mention, is the name of a Samogitian divinityJupiter Tonans of the Slaves. If I was astonished to hear the old woman invoke a Pagan divinity, I was much more surprised to see the mushrooms move, and the black head of a snake rise out of their midst to the height of at least a foot over the top of a basket. I started backwards, and the Count spat over his shoulder, according to the superstitious custom of the Slaves, who, like the ancients, believe they can avert the ill effects of witchcraft by so doing. The old woman put her basket on the ground, bent down beside it, and then, with her hand stretched out towards the snake, she pronounced some unintelligible words that seemed an incantation. The snake remained motionless for a minute, after which it rolled itself around the skinny arm of the old woman, finally disappearing in the sleeve of her sheepskin cloak, which, with a dirty smock, formed, I think, the whole costume of this Lithuanian Circe. The old hag looked at us with a triumphant laugh, like a juggler who has just succeeded in performing a difficult feat. There was in her face a mixture of cunning and stupidity common enough among pretended sorcerers, who are for the most part at once dupes and knaves.

"My good woman," I said, allud

ing to a curious tradition of the country, "have you ever heard of a district within this forest where animals live in a community, knowing nothing of man's domination?" The old hag nodded her head affirmatively, and said, with her little laugh, half silly, half malicious, "I have just been there. The animals have lost their king. Noble, the lion, is dead; and they are going to elect his successor. Go to them, you may be chosen king, perhaps."

"What on earth are you talking about ?" asked the Count, bursting out laughing. "Do you know who you are talking to? That gentleman is (what the mischief is 'professor' in Jmond?) he is a wise man, full of learning-a waidelote.*

The old woman looked at him attentively. "I was wrong," she said; "it is you who ought to go to that place. You shall be their king, not he; you are strong, you are tall, you have claws and teeth."

"What do you think of these riddles she is propounding?" said the Count to me. "Do you know the way, old mother?" he then asked of her.

She pointed with her finger towards a part of the forest.

and

"Ah!" said the Count, how do you get across the marsh? You must know, Professor, that there is an unpassable swamp in that direction-a lake of liquid mud covered over with green stuff."

"I am not heavy," replied the old woman, with a sneer.

"I believe you get over it easily enough-on a broomstick."

The old woman's eyes glittered with anger.

"You will do better to try and cross the swamp even," she said, in a low voice, than go to Dowghielly."

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"Dowghielly !" said the Count, reddening. "What do you mean?"

A bad translation of professor.

I could not fail to notice that this name had produced a remarkable effect upon him. He was evidently discomposed; he hung his head, and, to hide his confusion, took a great deal of trouble in opening his tobacco pouch, suspended to the hilt of his hunting-knife.

"No. Don't go to Dowghielly," said the old woman. "The little white dove is not suited for you. Eb, Pirkuns?” At this moment the serpent's head emerged through the neck of her old cloak, and stretched out as far as her ear. The reptile, trained no doubt to this performance, moved its lips as if it were speaking. "He says I am right," added the old hag.

The Count gave her a handful of tobacco. "Do you know me ?" he asked.

to me

"Professor," he said, after a long silence, "you will laugh at me, when I tell you that woman knows me better than she confesses, and that the road she has just pointed out But, after all, there is nothing very surprising in that. I am as well known here, in this country, as a white wolf. The old rogue has seen me going to Dowghielly more than once; there is a young lady there, and she has made up her mind that I am in love. The truth is, I had intended going to Dowghielly to dine, and now I am undecided about it. I am a great fool. Will you decide, Professor ? Shall we go or not ?"

Waidelotes were Lithuanian bards.