theatrical season through the month of June, we secretly started
in a special coach hired by Moller and under his protection. The
goal of our journey was Paris, but many unheard-of hardships were
in store for us before we were to reach that city.

The sense of contentment involuntarily aroused by our passage
through the fruitful Courland in the luxuriant month of July, and
by the sweet illusion that now at last I had cut myself loose
from a hateful existence, to enter upon a new and boundless path
of fortune, was disturbed from its very outset by the miserable
inconveniences occasioned by the presence of a huge Newfoundland
dog called Robber. This beautiful creature, originally the
property of a Riga merchant, had, contrary to the nature of his
race, become devotedly attached to me. After I had left Riga, and
during my long stay in Mitau, Robber incessantly besieged my
empty house, and so touched the hearts of my landlord and the
neighbours by his fidelity, that they sent the dog after me by
the conductor of the coach to Mitau, where I greeted him with
genuine effusion, and swore that, in spite of all difficulties, I
would never part with him again. Whatever might happen, the dog
must go with us to Paris. And yet, even to get him into the
carriage proved almost impossible. All my endeavours to find him
a place in or about the vehicle were in vain, and, to my great
grief, I had to watch the huge northern beast, with his shaggy
coat, gallop all day long in the blazing sun beside the carriage.
At last, moved to pity by his exhaustion, and unable to bear the
sight any longer, I hit upon a most ingenious plan for bringing
the great animal with us into the carriage, where, in spite of
its being full to overflowing, he was just able to find room.