She was married at a very early age to a man much older than herself. The ill-assorted union was as unhappy as such unions generally are. The Baroness Axinia was beautiful, and drew around her a crowd of admirers, whose flatteries she did not reject, though it does not appear that she listened to professions of love which could have dishonoured her. In a jealous frenzy, not unnatural in the circumstances, her husband struck her with his dagger, and at the same time killed a young man whom for a long time he had regarded as a friend. The result was an immediate separation. The Baron settled upon her a considerable estate, and, in addition, a handsome income. She had the consolation, moreover, of being allowed to retain by her side the youngest of her daughters, and thenceforth she resigned herself to a life of solitude, keeping hid within her bosom the secret of her sorrow, her regret, and, perhaps, her remorse.
Ten years passed, and the baroness never crossed the borders of her estate. This self-imposed penance, so rigidly observed, may be accepted, we think, as a sufficient acknowledgment of the errors of her thoughtless youth.
"At our first interview," says Madame de Hell, "she seemed to me a little timid, nay, even wild (sauvage)—a circumstance amply justified by her exceptional position. But, in the course of a few days, this constraint passed away, and a warm intimacy sprang up between us.
"From the first days of my visit, I remarked with lively surprise that our hostess was incessantly assailed by a crowd of pretty tomtits, who pecked at her hair and hands with truly extraordinary familiarity. The baroness, after enjoying my astonishment, told me that two years before she had brought up a couple of tomtits, and given them their liberty; and that, in the following year, the couple returned with their brood, who were easily taught to take their food from the hands of their charming protectress. Other birds soon imitated their example, and thus the beautiful solitary came to represent, undesignedly, one of the most charming creations of Georges Sand, the bird-charmer, in her novel of 'Tévérino.'"
In one of her walks with Madame de Hell, the baroness conducted her new friend to the scene of the tragic drama which had broken up her life. The house, entirely abandoned by the Baron, was inhabited only by a Tartar, its guardian—a man of wild and gloomy aspect, whom the sight of his mistress seemed to stupefy. While he was opening the doors and windows, which had been kept closed since the fatal catastrophe, a wretched half-starved looking dog, shivering in spite of the sunshine, crawled out of a corner, the wonderful instinct of these animals having made him conscious of the presence of his mistress. The latter, overwhelmed with emotion, burst into tears: "Poor Salghir! poor Salghir!" she cried, and was unable to utter another word.
When she had recovered herself, she turned to Madame de Hell, and bade her observe how the seal of sorrow and forgetfulness was set upon everything. Formerly the very stones of the court had breathed of life, and sunshine, and youth; formerly that poor dog had been bright and well-favoured, and as happy as are all things that are loved. "But now," she exclaimed, "look at these ruins, these crawling mosses; yonder shattered wall, the grass which has obliterated the traces of my footsteps, and agree with me that a kind of curse weighs upon the spot. One feels, one divines that life has been arrested here by one of those fatal crises which involve everything in ruin. Alas, this house is a striking proof of it! It had a youth, a freshness, a coquettishness of its own, when I was young, and fair, and a coquette; now it is gloomy, dank, degraded...."
"Because you are old and ugly?" said Madame de Hell, smiling, "is not that the logical consequence of your reasoning! But, you see, the first looking-glass would flatly contradict it. Come, in spite of the somewhat greenish hue of our surroundings, look at that soft, gentle, and still youthful countenance, those brilliant eyes, that flowing hair, and tell me if it be all in harmony with the unattractive aspect of the scene before you."
"Oh, undoubtedly I have not yet arrived physically," she answered with a faint smile, "at this degree of old age, but if you could read to the bottom of my heart, you would see it as gloomy and as desolate as these chambers with their want of light and air."
The baroness led her guest into every apartment, explaining the destination of each with feverish volubility. On entering her former bedchamber, she turned pale, and pointed with a gesture to her husband's portrait, separated from her own by an antique clock, the motionless hands of which added to the melancholy of the scene. Madame de Hell bestowed a long gaze on the haughty and sombre countenance of the baron. His rough, strongly-marked features were the very emblem of brutal strength, and she felt herself tremble all over in thinking of what his wife must have suffered in the first years of their union. Her unhappy past seemed almost justified by the hard ferocious countenance of such a husband. As for the baroness, there was about her portrait a significantly haggard air. "I carried her out," says Madame de Hell, "upon the balcony, where, overcome by her emotions, the influences of the place, and that yearning after sympathy which is so powerful in solitude, she opened her heart to me, and told me a simple but pathetic story of all that she had endured.
"The promise that I would hold sacred the confidences of that shattered heart compels me to leave my narrative imperfect. Two days later I embarked on board the steamer St. Nicholas, gazing with inexpressible regret at the shores of the Tauric peninsula as they gradually blended with the horizon, their broken outline melting finally into the mists of evening."