CHAPTER LIY. 
AN EXTRAORDINARY AFFAIR. 
Doctor Mendoza and the Madam occupied the house 
next door. I was going to say they slept there; hut they 
slept nowhere at all on the present occasion. They were 
wide awake all night; there was no sleep in Tantura for per¬ 
sons of fastidious taste on the subject of hotels: the contrast 
indeed was rather striking between the accommodations of 
Tantura and St. Petersburg. Perhaps there never was a 
more wretched house made by human hands than that oc¬ 
cupied by Doctor Mendoza and the Madam—except ours, and 
I defy the whole world to produce such lodgings as we had. 
In the morning at break of day, I went put to shake off 
some of the acquaintances of the night; the Doctor and the 
Madam were sitting upon a pile of baggage in front of their 
hotel, groaning in a most disconsolate manner. We were 
always strictly Parisian in our politeness—no matter under 
what circumstances we met—especially the Madam, who had 
been educated in the true French school. It would have 
done any man of feeling good to see her when she rose from 
the baggage and returned my salutation ; it was the most 
striking exhibition of politeness under difficulties that I ever 
beheld. Her skin was perfectly green, spotted over with red 
bites ; her nose swollen to an unusual size by repeated 
attacks made by noxious reptiles ; her hair disheveled and 
uncombed, and her dress and general exterior, covered with 
dirty straw and mud. Yet she bowed as gracefully and 
smiled as pleasantly, as ever bowed and smiled a lady in the 
dress circles of a Parisian Opera-house. It was really charm¬ 
ing to behold such unruffled politeness. “ Oh, Monsieur Gen- 
