of his verse, yet they are of no inconsiderable merit. "The
Captain's Daughter, a Russian Romance," was written about
1831, and published under the _nom de plume_ of Ivan Byelkin.
It is a story of the times of Catherine II., and is not only
told with interest and charm, but with great simplicity and
reality, and with a due sense of drama. Others of his novels
are "The Pistol Shot," "The Queen of Spades," and "The
Undertaker," the last-named a grim story in a style that has
been familiarised to English readers by Edgar Allan Poe.


_I.--I Join the Army_


My father, after serving in the army, had retired with the rank of
senior major. Since that time he had always lived on his estate, where
he married the eldest daughter of a poor gentleman in the neighbourhood.
All my brothers and sisters died young, and it was decided that I should
enter the army.

When I was nearly seventeen, instead of being sent to join the guards'
regiment at Petersburg, my father told me I was going to Orenburg. "You
will learn nothing at Petersburg but to spend money and commit follies,"
he said. "No, you shall smell powder and become a soldier, not an
idler."

It seemed horrible to me to be doomed to the dullness of a savage and
distant province, and to lose the gaiety I had been looking forward to;
but there was nothing for it but to submit.