A more singular and serious rising of serfs took place in the rich province of Penza, where a strange personage proclaimed himself the Grand Duke Constantine, brother of Nicolas, once a captive. Affecting radical opinions, the "grand duke" raised a red flag, collected bands of peasants, and alarmed the country far and near. A body of soldiers, sent against them by General Dreniakine, were received with clubs and stones, and forced to run away. Dreniakine marched against the rebels, and in a smart action he dispersed them through the steppe, after killing eight and seriously maiming twenty-six. The "grand duke" was suffered to get away. The country was much excited by the rising, and on Easter Sunday General Dreniakine telegraphed to St. Petersburg his duty to the minister, and asked for power to punish the revolters by martial law. The minister sent him orders to act according to his judgment; and he began to flog and shoot the villagers until order was restored within the limits of his command. The "grand duke" was denounced as one Egortsof, a Milk-Drinker; and Dreniakine soon afterwards spread a report that he was dead. The agitation was not stilled until the Emperor himself appeared on the scene. On his way to Yalta he convoked a meeting of elders, to whom he addressed a few wise and solacing words: "I have given you all the liberties defined by the statutes; I have given you no liberties save those defined by the statutes." It was the very first time these peasants had heard of their Emperor's will being limited by law. CHAPTER LII. FREEDOM. "What were the first effects of emancipation in your province?" I ask a lady. "Rather droll," replies the Princess B. "In the morning, the poor fellows could not believe their senses; in the afternoon, they got tipsy; next day, they wanted to be married." "Doubt--drunkenness--matrimony! Yes, it was rather droll." "You see, a serf was not suffered to drink whisky and make love as he pleased. It was a wild outburst of liberty; and perhaps the two things brought their own punishments?" "Not the marrying, surely?" "Ha! who knows?" The upper ranks are much divided in opinion as to the true results of emancipation. If the liberal circles of the Winter Palace look on things in the rosiest light, the two extreme parties which stand aside as chorus and critics--the Whites and Reds, Obstructives and Socialists--regard them from two opposite points of view, as in the last degree unsound, unsafe. When a Russian takes upon himself the office of critic, he is always gloomy, Oriental, and prophetic. He turns his face to the darker side of things; he groans in spirit, and picks up words of woe. If he has to deal as critic with the sins of his own time and country, he prepares his tongue to denounce and his soul to curse; and his self-examination, whether in respect to his private vices or his public failings, is conducted in a dark, reproachful, and inquisitorial spirit.