"  Now  ask  the  Russian,"  said  Peter.  "  My  punishment  was
just!"  said  the  Russian,  coolly,  putting  on  his  clothes  as  if
nothing  had  happened  ;  "  God  and  the  Czar  were  angry  with
me  !  "

"  Come  away,  Count,"  said  the  Czar ;  "  and  now  solve  me  a
problem.  I  know  both  those  men  ;  and  the  German,  in  a
battle,  would  be  the  braver  of  the  two.     How  comes  it  that  he

♦  A  terrible  Usid  of  flogging,  but  less  severe  than  the  knout.
296  DEVERfeUX.
weeps  and  writhes  like  a  girl,  while  the  Russian  bears  the  same
pain  without  a  murmur?"

"Will  your  Majesty  forgive  me,"  said  I,  "but  I  cannot  help
wishing  that  the  Russian  had  complained  more  bitterly  ;  insensi-
bility to  punishment  is  the  sign  of  a  brute,  not  a  hero.  Do  you
not  see  that  the  German  felt  the  indignity,  the  Russian  did  not;
and  do  you  not  see  that  that  very  pride,  which  betrays  agony
under  the  disgrace  of  the  battaog,  is  exactly  the  very  feeling
that  would  have  produced  courage  in  the  glory  of  the  battle.
A  sense  of  honor  makes  better  soldiers  and  better  men  than
indifference  to  pain."

"  But  had  I  ordered  the  Russian  to  death,  he  would  have
gone  with  the  same  apathy,  and  the  same  speech,  *  It  is  just !
I  have  offended  God  and  the  Czar  ! '  "

"Dare  I  observe.  Sire,  that  that  fact  would  be  a  strong  proof
of  the  dangerous  falsity  of  the  old  maxims  which  extol  indiffer-
ence to  death  as  a  virtue.  In  some  individuals  it  may  be  a
sign  of  virtue,  I  allow;  but,  as  a  national  trait,  it  is  the
strongest  sign  of  national  misery.  Look  round  the  great  globe.
