Those mean, official animals, who had before spurned her, now pressed upon her with offers of service, and even the Minister C—— offered to expedite the pardon himself to Siberia, in order to save her trouble; but she would not suffer the precious paper out of her hands: she determined to carry it herself—to be herself the bearer of glad tidings:—she had resolved that none but herself should take off those fetters, the very description of which had entered her soul; so, having made her arrangements as quickly as possible, she set off for Moscow, where she arrived in three days. According to her description, the town in Siberia, to the governor of which she carried an official recommendation, was nine thousand versts beyond Moscow; and the fortress to which the wretched malefactors were exiled was at a great distance beyond that. I could not well make out the situation of either, and, unluckily, I had no map with me but a road map of Germany, and it was evident that my heroine was no geographer. She told me that, after leaving Moscow, she travelled post seven days and seven nights, only sleeping in the carriage. She then reposed for two days, and then posted on for another seven days and nights.
MEDON.
Alone?
ALDA.
Alone! and wholly unprotected, except by her own innocence and energy, and a few lines of recommendation, which had been given to her at St. Petersburgh. The roads were every where excellent, the post-houses at regular distances, the travelling rapid; but often, for hundreds of miles,
there were no accommodations of any kind—scarce a human habitation. She even suffered from hunger, not being prepared to travel for so many hours together without meeting with any food she could touch without disgust. She described, with great truth and eloquence, her own sensations as she was whirled rapidly over those wide, silent, solitary, and apparently endless plains. "Sometimes," said she, "my head seemed to turn—I could not believe that it was a waking reality—I could not believe that it was myself. Alone, in a strange land,—so many hundred leagues from my own home, and driven along as if through the air, with a rapidity so different from any thing I had been used to, that it almost took away my breath."
"Did you ever feel fear?" I asked.
"Ach ja! when I waked sometimes in the carriage, in the middle of the night, wondering at myself, and unable immediately to collect my thoughts. Never at any other time."