As the poor girl grew up she became used to the duties imposed upon her. Associating constantly with the servants, they considered her their equal, and taunted her when, relying on her infantine recollections, she laid claim to noble descent, by calling her in derision "Mademoiselle French General." She knew full well that she was entitled to better treatment, and that, in the absence of paternal authority, she had the right of disposing of herself according to her own will. A strong inducement to alter her condition was presented in the person of a young clerk in a government office, whose duty sometimes brought him with papers to the procureur for signature. While Botwinko was engaged with his breakfast and the perusal of the papers, this clerk was sometimes kept dangling for hours in the ante-chamber. After a time, these hours were agreeably spent in the society of Sophie, to whom he eventually made a proposal of marriage. She consented, but, unwilling to leave her guardian like a fugitive, she apprised him of her determination, and humbly requested an account of the property which she had been informed he had taken charge of at her parents' death.
The procureur-general at first excused himself from giving her an immediate answer. The next day he presented himself at the police office, the whole of whose functionaries were under his control. What he said or did is not known, but the result was that Sophie was taken into custody by the police, and committed to jail.
Many months elapsed before her fate was known at home. It was stated that she absconded. The clerk, banished the procureur's house, could not discover the cause of the girl's disappearance; and as all Russian criminal proceedings are conducted with great secrecy, he only ascertained by a mere accident that the girl had been sentenced, by a superior court, to receive a certain number of lashes by the knout, and to be sent to Siberia. The crime of which they accused her was that of attempting to poison her master and mistress.
Alarmed at this information, the young man, without waiting for more particulars, addressed a petition to the war governor of Vilna—the old General Korsakof—whose power in that province was almost omnipotent, and, if not misdirected, was very often beneficial to the inhabitants. The petitioner requested the general's interference, and an investigation of the case, assuring him that the girl was innocent, and that the legal authorities who condemned her had been corrupted.
The general was accustomed to decide every case en militaire. He had received from the police court an unfavorable opinion of the petitioner's character, which was described as "restless;" and was, moreover, rather offended at his authority having been appealed to by a subordinate. He therefore settled the business summarily, by sending the young petitioner to the military service for life, in virtue of the vagrant act.
Still the young man's petition produced a good effect: the poor girl was not flogged, lest that might have provoked some disturbance in the town. She was merely dressed in convict's apparel, and sent off to Siberia.
The transport of Russian convicts costs the government but very little. They go on foot, sleep in étapes or barracks, and the daily allowance for their subsistence amounts only to five kopecks—equal to a halfpenny in English money. This they, as well as the poor old soldiers who escort them, have to eke out by charity. For that purpose, the most attractive person among each party of exiles is delegated—box in hand, but with an armed soldier behind—to beg alms of the benevolent; and Sophie was appointed to be the suppliant for the rest of her wretched companions.
The road from Vilna to Siberia passes through Vitebsk. The convicts had not been long in the town before Sophie encountered Madame Strognof, who recognized the girl from her very great likeness to her mother, who had died in that lady's house. When she learned that Sophie had been living with the Botwinkos, she had no longer a doubt.
The girl asserted her innocence of the pretended crime for which she was on her way to Siberia, with tearful energy, and the good Madame S. believed her; but her husband, who was at that time the Vice-Governor of Vitebsk, to disabuse his wife's romantic dreams, as he called them, sent for the officer escorting the prisoners, and showed her the list of prisoners, which contained a full record, not only of the crime imputed to the orphan girl, but also of the punishment to which she had been condemned.
In the face of an official document which appeared to be regular, and which detailed the girl's presumed offense with circumstantial consistency, Madame Strognof began to waver in her belief of Sophie's protestations; but the unfortunate girl asserted her innocence so strongly and incessantly, that the vice-governor himself was at length induced to look into the facts. The first suspicion that entered his mind was derived from the circumstance of the document stating that the culprit had been punished with the knout, while it was evident from her appearance, that that dreadful torture had not been inflicted. He caused a medical man to examine her, who testified that not a scar appeared; yet the knout always leaves ineffaceable traces for life.