I had pictured to myself Brczwezmcisl, the place where I was to enter upon my functions, as far more formidable than I in fact found it, and perhaps on that account I was now prepared to term it pleasant. I remember that the first time I tried to pronounce the name of the place I very nearly brought on lock-jaw. Hence, no doubt, my gloomy anticipations as to its appearance. Names certainly do influence our ideas to a most marvelous extent. Moreover, what mainly contributed to enhance my secret misgivings as to the town destined to enjoy the benefit of my talents was the fact that I had never yet been so far from home as to lose sight of its church steeple. I had a tolerable idea that my way did not lead me in the vicinity of the Cannibal Islands, or of the lands where men's heads "do grow beneath their shoulders;" but I was not without some apprehension, as I journeyed on, of receiving an occasional pistol-shot, or feeling the cold steel of a stiletto between my ribs. My heart throbbed violently as I caught the first glimpse of Brczwezmcisl. It appeared, at a distance, a vast plain, covered with mud-heaps. But what mattered that to one of my imaginative powers? There was my goal, there my entering scene in life. Not a soul did I know there, with the exception of an old college acquaintance, named Burkhardt, who had been but recently appointed collector of taxes at Brczwezmcisl. I had apprised him of my near advent, and requested him to provide me with temporary lodgings. The nearer I approached the town, the keener waxed my esteem and friendship for Burkhardt, with whom I had never been on terms of intimacy; indeed, my mother enjoined me always to shun his society, seeing that his reputation for steadiness was not of the highest. But now I was his till death. He was my only rallying point in this wild Polish town; he was the sole plank to which I could cling. I am not of a superstitious character, but I own to a certain belief in omens; and I had settled in my mind that it would be a lucky sign if the first person we met coming out of the town gates should prove a young woman, and the reverse if one of the other sex. As we were about to enter the town a girl, to all appearance comely and well-made, issued from the gate. Damsel of happy augury! Fain could I have quitted the cumbrous vehicle, and cast my travel-worn frame prostrate at your feet. I wiped my eye-glass that I might not lose one of her features, but grave them for ever in the tablets of my memory.