“Very good; then will you arrange this matter for me?  I will give the hundred roubles, and I promise you I will not treat her as a slave.  But I hope you will care for my interests, as I do not wish to be duped.”

“I promise you you shall not be duped; I will see to everything.  Would you like her now?”

“No, to-morrow.”

“Very good; then to-morrow it shall be.”

We returned to St. Petersburg in a phaeton, and the next day at nine o’clock I called on Zinowieff, who said he was delighted to do me this small service.  On the way he said that if I liked he could get me a perfect seraglio of pretty girls in a few days.

“No,” said I, “one is enough.”  And I gave him the hundred roubles.

We arrived at the cottage, where we found the father, mother, and daughter.  Zinowieff explained his business crudely enough, after the custom of the country, and the father thanked St. Nicholas for the good luck he had sent him.  He spoke to his daughter, who looked at me and softly uttered the necessary yes.

Zinowieff then told me that I ought to ascertain that matters were intact, as I was going to pay for a virgin.  I was afraid of offending her, and would have nothing to do with it; but Zinowieff said the girl would be mortified if I did not examine her, and that she would be delighted if I place her in a position to prove before her father and mother that her conduct had always been virtuous.  I therefore made the examination as modestly as I could, and I found her to be intact.  To tell the truth, I should not have said anything if things had been otherwise.

Zinowieff then gave the hundred roubles to the father, who handed them to his daughter, and she only took them to return them to her mother.  My servant and coachman were then called in to witness as arrangement of which they knew nothing.

I called her Zaira, and she got into the carriage and returned with me to St. Petersburg in her coarse clothes, without a chemise of any kind.  After I had dropped Zinowieff at his lodging I went home, and for four days I was engaged in collecting and arranging my slave’s toilet, not resting till I had dressed her modestly in the French style.  In less than three months she had learnt enough Italian to tell me what she wanted and to understand me.  She soon loved me, and afterwards she got jealous.  But we shall hear more of her in the following chapter.

CHAPTER XX

Crevecoeur—­Bomback—­Journey to Moscow—­My Adventures At St. Petersburg

The day on which I took Zaira I sent Lambert away, for I did not know what to do with him.  He got drunk every day, and when in his cups he was unbearable.  Nobody would have anything to say to him except as a common soldier, and that is not an enviable position in Russia.  I got him a passport for Berlin, and gave him enough money for the journey.  I heard afterwards that he entered the Austrian service.