Short Fiction by Xavier de Maistre (digital e reader txt) ๐
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Xavier de Maistre lived mostly as a military man, fighting in France and Russia around the turn of the 19th century. In 1790 a duel he participated in led him to be put under arrest in Turin; during his confinement in a tiny chamber, he wrote his most famous work, โA Journey Round My Room.โ
โJourneyโ is a short story written as a parody of the grand travelogues popular at the time. He frames his six weeksโ confinement as a long journey across the unknown land of his room, visiting the furniture, the paintings on the wall, and even venturing to the north side. De Maistre didnโt hold the work in very high regard, but after his brother had it published in 1794 it became a fast success, eventually calling for a sequel (โA Night Journey Round My Roomโ), and warranting allusions in fiction by writers like D. H. Lawrence, Wilkie Collins, W. Somerset Maugham, and Jorge Luis Borges.
The rest of his literary corpus is modest, and consists entirely of short works. โThe Leper of the City of Aostaโ is a philosophical dialogue on the struggles of a leper whose days are seemingly filled with unending sorrow; โThe Prisoners of the Caucasusโ is the fictional narrative of a captured general and his faithful servant, set against a rich background of Cossack factions in the Caucasus of Imperial Russia reminiscent of Tolstoyโs Hadji Murรกd; and โThe Young Siberianโ is the true story of Prascovia Lopouloff, a poor Russian girl who sets out on a journey to secure an imperial pardon for her exiled father.
De Maistre never set out to have a literary career, but his carefully-considered output made him famous across the continent.
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- Author: Xavier de Maistre
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Oftentimes, those who had refused her a shelter, recalled her, when they saw her depart with big tears in her eyes, and became kind to her. Beggars accustomed to be refused, are little distressed at it; but Prascovia, although reduced to a similar situation, was probably too new to the feelings which it creates, to go without anguish through these trials of resignation and fortitude.
The advantage which she had derived from exhibiting her passport, in which the military rank of her father was mentioned, led her to show it, whenever she was in need of more than immediate assistance. In her intercourse with the numerous persons, to whom she addressed herself, she had, upon the whole, met with infinitely more instances of benevolence and humanity, than of unkind treatment. โMy journey was not,โ said she often, โas painful as some imagine, while they hearken with more eager attention to the few sufferings I have endured, than to the innumerable proofs of hospitality and benevolence, with which I was favoured.โ
Among her most serious adventures, the following is remarkable, as well for its singularity, as for the dangers which perhaps threatened her life.
She was one evening walking on the side of a row of houses, to beg for a nightโs lodging, and had just been very rudely refused at the door of one of the villagers, when she heard the steps of a person behind her, and saw the same man calling her back. He had an ill favoured countenance. Prascovia hesitated at first to accept the invitations of the keen-looking old man, but followed him, fearing she might not obtain shelter elsewhere. She found in the hut, an old female, of still less prepossessing mien than the man, who, as he entered, bolted the door, and barred the window shutters. She was scarcely attended to by her hosts, who, besides, promised so little good by all that she could observe in their features and appearance, that she became alarmed, and regretted having accepted their hospitality. The room was lighted by a few chips of pine, thrust into a hole of the wall, whose place, when they were burnt, was supplied with more. By that dim light, she found the eyes of her hosts fixed upon herself, when first she durst look up. At last, the woman interrupted the silence, which had continued since Prascovia had been motioned to take a seat, by asking her from whence she came. โI come from Ischim,โ replied she, โand am going to St. Petersburg.โ
โHo! ho! you must needs have a good deal of money, for such a long journey.โ
โI have but eighty kopecks in copper,โ stammered the trembling girl.
โThou liest,โ returned the hag, โthou liest; no one goes on so long a journey, with so little money.โ The poor girl vainly protested that she had no more. The woman, addressing her husband, in a scoffing tone, said: โWhat thinkest thou? With eighty kopecks, from Tobolsk to St. Petersburg! Indeed! indeed!โ Affronted by the distrust of her veracity, and terrified by the dangers which she began to apprehend, Prascovia prayed inwardly to God, to assist her, and strove to repress her tears. She had for her supper, a few potatoes; and when she had eaten them, the woman advised her to go to sleep. Having begun to suspect the honesty of her hosts, she would gladly have given them all her money, if she could have left their house. She threw off a part of her garment, before she ascended the stove, where she was to spend the night, and left at the disposal of her roommates her sack and pockets, expecting that they would count her money, without farther affronting her personally. When they supposed that she was asleep, they proceeded to the examination of her things. Prascovia could hear their half articulate conversation. โShe has surely more money about her,โ said theyโ โโperhaps banknotes.โโ โโI saw,โ answered the woman, โa ribbon on her neck, supporting a small bag, where she probably keeps her money.โ This bag of gummed silk, contained her passport, which she never parted with. The conversation between the hosts, continued in a lower tone, and the few words which Prascovia could hear, were ill calculated to lull her into sleep. โNo one saw her come into the house.โโ โโNobody knows even that she entered the village.โ The voices became then less audible, and soon they were entirely silent. Prascovia anticipating all the horrors which her alarmed imagination brought before her mind, felt, on a sudden, the head of the wretched old creature, who was mounting the stove. With anguish she prayed aloud for her life; she protested anew, gaspingly, that she had no money; but the hostess, instead
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