Petersburgh disappointed him; nor would he see the empress Catherine, whom he regarded as the murderess of her husband, and whose conduct--having failed in her promise of bestowing a constitution on her subjects--was unredeemed, in his eyes, by any mitigating circumstances. From Russia he traversed Germany to Holland, and again visited England. His time, during his second visit to this country, was engrossed by an attachment for a lady of rank, who proved herself not only unworthy of the affection of the husband whom she betrayed, but the lover to whom she was false. The more violent passions of Alfieri were all roused to their utmost vehemence by the various chances of this adventure, which was attended by all those hairbreadth escapes, menacing dangers, and final ruin and misery, which usually wait upon intrigue in England. First it was love, accompanied by the "sin and fear" which attends on mystery and deceit; then separation came to drive him to despair. The London season over, the lady went to her country house near Windsor; and Alfieri could only visit her clandestinely, on such nights when her husband was absent in London. His impatience and agony during the periods of separation were only appeased by excessive exercise: he rode about all day, performing such feats of horsemanship as endangered his life. Leaping a five-barred gate, with his thoughts wandering to his lady, instead of being fixed on his bridle-hand, his horse fell on him, and dislocated his shoulder; but that did not prevent a visit to Windsor on the following evening, the last that he was destined to make. The servants observed and watched him, and the husband of the lady had intelligence of her infidelity; "and here," he writes, "it is impossible not to laugh at the contrast between English and Italian jealousy, so different are the passions in different characters, in another climate, and, above all, under other laws. Every Italian would now expect to hear of blows, poison, stabs, or, at least, of the imprisonment of the lady, under such violent provocation: nothing of all this happened, though the English husband adored his wife after his manner." It was much according to the present customs, that the English husband, besides instituting legal proceedings against his wife and her lover, called out the latter. The duel was, however, a very harmless proceeding: Alfieri could not fence, and his adversary was satisfied by merely drawing blood by a scratch in the arm, carefully abstaining from inflicting the wound or death which he had it in his power to bestow. A far deeper and more painful wound was reserved for the Italian, when he learned how grossly the lady had deceived him. A groom of her husband had formerly been her lover: he still lived in the house; and, fearing that his lord would risk his life in an encounter with Alfieri, he hastened to inform him that the lady was totally unworthy such a chivalrous encounter. All