Loris, on the contrary, enjoyed a high degree of imperial favor. He had been sent, at his own request, to take command in one of the disturbed districts near the Turkestan frontier--a position which he filled to the satisfaction of the Government and of the local authorities too, a thing difficult to do. About this time he invented a new fuse, which was approved by the Ministry of War, and for which he declined to accept any compensation, which induced the emperor to decorate him. He belonged to the true party of order and progress, which seeks to improve the Russ as he is without vainly attempting to turn him into a German or a Frenchman. His estates near Wilna were said to prove by their flourishing condition that emancipation could be turned to the mutual benefit of proprietor and serf. Of his private character my great affection for him makes me speak with diffidence. I can only say that he had a multitude of friends who shared my opinion of him. His talents and accomplishments were adorned with a singular modesty, which, if it did not disarm jealousy, at least silenced it. The Russ is essentially democratic; therefore it is not remarkable that Count Loris Kourásoff, one of the darlings of St. Petersburg society, should have for his friend a sub-professor who lived in modest lodgings in an unfashionable quarter beyond the Izaak bridge. Once a year we usually took a journey together; and one summer he accompanied me to Germany on a mission of a sentimental nature, which, if not settled to my satisfaction, was at least settled, and I set myself to forgetting Maria von Spreckeldsen as quickly as I could. This proved to be easier than I had imagined; and, though I wept tears of rage, and Maria tears of disappointment, when her father refused to let us marry on my salary as sub-professor, the anguish of both subsided by degrees, leaving only a feeling of placid regret. Maria, who could not talk philosophy so well as I, acted it much better, and in less than a year married Herr Sachs, one of the richest brewers in Bavaria; and when I last saw her I thought I would not exchange the image which dwelt in my heart of my adored Maria in her youthful slenderness for the excellent but stout Madame Sachs, while I am sure she would not have given her brewer for all the professors in Russia and Germany together. But we still correspond (with the full approbation of Herr Sachs), and in our letters call each other Gottlieb and Maria. O youth! O folly! O Maria! Count Loris frequently complained that my affair with Maria had destroyed his fondest illusions, and that my inconstancy, as he was pleased to call my devotion to my ideal Maria, had made him a skeptic in love. He seemed to take a cruel pleasure in listening to my most harrowing reminiscences, and when we dined together always toasted Maria with a variety of unfeeling remarks.