"After all it must be admitted that she translated Miçkiewicz very prettily.... 'Frolicsome as a kitten,... white as cream,... eyes like stars,' ... that is her own portrait, do you not agree?"
"Absolutely, Your Excellency."
"With reference to this roguish trick ... a very ill-judged one, to be sure,... the poor child is bored to death by an old aunt. She leads the life of a nun."
"At Wilno she went into society. I saw her at the ball given by the officers of the—regiment."
"Ah, yes! the society of young officers suits her exactly. To laugh with one, to backbite with another, and to flirt with all of them.... Will you come and see my father's library, Professor?"
I followed him to a long gallery, lined with many handsomely bound books, which, to judge from the dust which covered their edges, were rarely opened. What was my delight to find that one of the first volumes I pulled out of a glass case was the Catechismus Samogiticus! I could not help uttering a cry of pleasure. It seemed as though some mysterious power were exerting its influence unknown to us.... The Count took the book, and, after he had turned over the leaves carelessly, wrote on the fly-leaf: "To Professor Wittembach, from Michael Szémioth." I did not know how to express my great gratitude, and I made a mental resolution that after my death this precious book should be the ornament of my own University library.
"If you like to consider this library your workroom," said the Count, "you shall never be disturbed here."
III
After breakfast the following day the Count proposed that I should take a walk with him. The object in view was to visit a kapas (the name given by the Lithuanians to tumuli, called by the Russians kourgâne), a very noted one in that country, because formerly poets and magicians (they are one and the same thing) gathered there on certain special occasions.