"Your Majesty, I am highly honoured by your visit to my studio, but I fear that your Majesty cannot satisfy your desire to see the Cain, as it is nearly nightfall, and I should like to show this work of mine in a more favourable light."

The street was full of curious people; the studios of the artists my neighbours were all open, and they were in the doorway; the ministers of the Imperial house put their heads out of their carriage to see what was the reason the Emperor did not get out, and with whom he was talking. The Emperor, with a benign countenance, answered—

"You are quite right; one cannot see well at this hour. I will return to-morrow after mid-day."

I bowed, and the carriages drove on. This stopping of the carriage and its driving on again after a few words had passed between his Majesty and myself, led some ass to suppose that I had not been willing to receive the Emperor, and some malicious person repeated the little story; but not for long, as the next morning he returned with all his suite.

As soon as he descended, he said to me—

"Vous parlez français?"

"Très mal, Majesté."

"Well, I speak a little Italian; we will make a mixture."

General Menzicoff, Count Orloff, and others whom I do not remember, accompanied the Emperor. As soon as he entered the studio he took off his hat, to the great astonishment of his suite, who all hastened to imitate him, and remained with his head uncovered all the time he was there. He was of colossal build, and perfectly proportioned. The Emperor Nicholas was then of mature years, but he looked as if he were in the flower of manhood. He talked and listened willingly, and tried to enter into the motives and conceptions of the artist.

Amongst others he saw a sketch of Adam and Eve that I had just made with the intention of representing the first family. He saw it, and it pleased him. He said it would go well with the Cain and Abel; and from these words, one might have taken for granted that he had ordered it. But I have always rather held back and been little eager for commissions, so that I did not feel myself empowered to execute it. Then, also, I had taken this subject for my simple satisfaction, and certainly with the intention of making it in the large, which I did not, however, carry into effect; for if I had done so, I should probably have offered it to him, as he had been so much pleased by the sketch. The Emperor was most affable with me, and showed a desire to know something about me besides my studies and works that he had before his eyes, so I satisfied his wishes. Nor is it to be wondered at that so important a person as he was should inquire into the particulars of simple home-life, for he was (so I afterwards heard) a good husband and father. He accompanied the Empress his wife to Palermo, as her ill health made it necessary for her to be in that mild climate, perfumed with life-giving odours. He married his daughter Maria Nicolaiewna to the Prince of Leuchtenberg, who was a simple officer in the army; but as he became aware that the young people loved each other, he wished to procure their happiness. A good husband and a good father; pity it is that one cannot say a good sovereign! His persecutions and cruelty towards Poland, especially in regard to her religious liberty, and even her language, which is the principal inheritance of a nation, are not a small stain on that patriarchal figure.