I must be permitted one other recollection of this sort. I was giving lessons to the two daughters of the good and amiable Madame Piekutowska. One day, while conversing with them, I touched oh the subject of Poland. The beautiful Matilda replied to my careless expression with one of those words which we sometimes utter before a stranger, not witting that we are making some deep wound bleed. The elder sister took her up sharply in Polish, ’ How can you speak of sacred things before a hair-brained Frenchman?’ Such incidents happened nearly every day, and they caused me sometimes pleasure, sometimes annoyance; but that annoyance turned to a concentrated rage when in Russian houses I was obliged to swallow in silence, or discuss with the passionless calmness of a stranger, topics wounding to my country, and such discussions as her oppressors permitted themselves to indulge in. It was in the house of Monsieur Abaza above all that I suffered this torture most frequently; and I should try in vain were I to attempt to give any idea of it. As my own safety, as well as that of others, would assuredly be compromised were I suspected of knowing the language of the country, I was obliged in this respect to keep a constant watch upon myself. If I may use such an expression, I was forced to watch myself even in sleep; and I always arranged (especially when I happened to be invited to any of the dwellings in the neighbourhood) so as to sleep alone, and in a separate room. I feared that during my slumbers I might chance to mutter some sentences in Polish. But no incident disturbed me in the part which I had assumed; and during nine months I was enabled either to remain in Kaminieç, or to make short excursions into the provinces, without awakening the suspicions of the police. In the eyes of Poles, as well as Russians, I passed always for M. Catharo, an inoffensive man, who liked society, and who was well received in it. As to the true object of my stay, and my real character, some of my countrymen alone became privy to it, and the secret was most rigorously kept. The alarm, as I afterwards learnt, came from St. Petersburg, and Kaminieç was convulsed with astonishment when it discovered all of a sudden that the French teacher of languages whom it had harboured so long within its walls, was a native, an emigrant, and an emissary of emigrants....