y clearly. Never CONCEAL things, since every
life lived ought to be set in the light. And is capable of being so, in
that every man is a workman for the world at large, and constitutes an
instructor in good or in evil, and that life, when looked into,
constitutes, as a whole, the sum of all the labour done by the
aggregate of us petty, insignificant individuals. That is why we ought
not to hide away a man's work, but to publish it abroad, and to
inscribe on the cross over his tomb his deeds, his services, in their
entirety. Yes, however negligible may have been those deeds, those
services, hold them up for the perusal of those who can discover good
even in what is negligible. NOW do you understand me?"

"I do," I replied. "Yes, I do."

"Good!"

The bell of the monastery struck two hasty beats--then became silent,
so that only the sad echo of its voice remained reverberating over the
cemetery. Once more my interlocutor drew out his cigarette-case,
silently offered it to myself, and lighted and puffed industriously at
another cigarette. As he did so his hands, as small and brown as the
claws of a bird, shook a little, and his head, bent down, looked like
an Easter egg in plush.

Still smoking, he looked me in the eyes with a self-diffident frown,
and muttered:

"Only through the labour of man does the earth attain development. And
only by familiarising himself with, and remembering, the past can man
obtain support in his work on earth."

In speaking, the Lieutenant lowered his arm; whereupon on to his wrist
there slipped the broad golden bracelet adorned with a medallion, and
there gazed at me thence the miniature of a fair-haired woman: and
since the hand below it was freckled, and its flexible fingers were
swollen out of shape, and had lost their symmetry, the woman's
fine-drawn face looked the more full of life, and, clearly picked out,
could be seen to be smiling a sweet and slightly imperious smile.

"Your wife or your daughter?" I queried.

"My God! My God!" was, with a subdued sigh, the only response
vouchsafed. Then the Lieutenant raised his arm, and the bracelet slid
back to its resting place under his cuff.

Over the town the columns of curling smoke were growing redder, and the
clattering windows blushing to a tint of pink that recalled to my
memory the livid cheeks of Virubov's "niece," of the woman in whom,
like her uncle, there was nothing that could provoke one to "take
liberties."

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