पृष्ठ 431 / 483

Amidst the wilds of Tartary and Russia, although he still evaded

me, I have ever followed in his track. Sometimes the peasants,

scared by this horrid apparition, informed me of his path;

sometimes he himself, who feared that if I lost all trace of him

I should despair and die, left some mark to guide me. The snows

descended on my head, and I saw the print of his huge step on the

white plain. To you first entering on life, to whom care is new

and agony unknown, how can you understand what I have felt and

still feel? Cold, want, and fatigue were the least pains which I

was destined to endure; I was cursed by some devil and carried

about with me my eternal hell; yet still a spirit of good

followed and directed my steps and when I most murmured would

suddenly extricate me from seemingly insurmountable difficulties.

Sometimes, when nature, overcome by hunger, sank under the

exhaustion, a repast was prepared for me in the desert that

restored and inspirited me.