'[1839] At the Hotel Coulon, I found a degenerated French inn-keeper
… After several parleys, I was at length established on the second
floor …
'Scarcely was I installed in this abode than … I lay down, wrapped
in a cloak, on an immense leather sofa and slept profoundly
during—three minutes.
'At the end of that time I woke in a fever, and on casting my eyes
upon the cloak, what a sight awaited them!—a brown but living
mass:—things must be called by their proper name—I was covered, I
was devoured with bugs.
'Russia is, in this respect, not a whit inferior to Spain: but in
the South we can both console and secure ourselves in the open air;
here we must remain imprisoned with the enemy, and the war is
consequently more bloody.
'I began throwing off my clothes and calling for help. What a
prospect for the night! This thought made me cry out more lustily. A
Russian waiter appeared. I made him understand that I wished to see
his master. The master kept me waiting a long time, and when he at
length did come, and was informed of the nature of my trouble, he
began to laugh, and soon left the room, telling me that I should
become accustomed to it, for that it was the same everywhere in
Petersburg. He first advised me, however, never to seat myself on a
Russian sofa, because the domestics, who always carry about with
them legions of insects, sleep on these articles of furniture. To
tranquilize me, he further stated, that the vermin would not follow
me if I kept at a proper distance from the furniture in which they
had fixed their abode.'