robe,
with the aid of thread, cardboard, pins and ink; and for succinct, most
realistic love with the chance woman from the kitchen, the anteroom or
the street. Like all the youths of his circle, he deemed himself a
revolutionary, although he was oppressed by political disputes,
dissensions, and mutual reproaches; and not being able to stand the
reading of revolutionary brochures and journals, was almost a complete
ignoramus in the work For that reason he had not attained even the very
least party initiation; although at times there were given him
instructions of a sort, not at all of a safe nature, the meaning of
which was not made clear to him. And not in vain was his steadfast
faithfulness relied upon; he carried out everything rapidly,
exactly,--with a courageous faith in the universal importance of the
work; with a care-free smile and with a broad contempt of possible
destruction. He concealed outlawed comrades, guarded forbidden
literature and printing types, transmitted passports and money. He had
a great deal of physical strength, black-loam amiability and elemental
simple-heartedness. Not infrequently he would receive from home,
somewheres in the depth of the Simbirskaya or Ufimskaya province, sums
of money sufficiently large for a student; but in two days he scattered
and dispersed it everywhere, with the carelessness of a French grandee
of the seventeenth century, while he himself remained during winter in
only his everyday coat, with boots restored by his own devices.

Beside all these naive, touching, laughable, lofty and shiftless
qualities of the old Russian student, passing--and God knows if for the
better?--into the realm of historical memories, he possessed still
another amazing ability--to invent money and arrange for credit in
little restaurants and cook-shops. All the employees of pawnshops and
loan offices, secret and manifest usurers, and old-clo'-men were on
terms of the closest friendship with him.

But if for certain reasons he could not resort to them, then even here
Soloviev remained at the height of his resourcefulness. At the head of
a knot of impoverished friends, and weighed down with his usual
business responsibility, he would at times be illumined by an inner
inspiration; make at a distance, across the street, a mysterious sign
to a Tartar passing with his bundle behind his shoulders, and for a few
seconds would disappear with him into the nearest gates. He would
quickly return withou