turned his head
sharply over his shoulder, but only for a moment.

"Ah! your English friend. I know. I know. That's nothing."

He wore spectacles with smoked glasses, a tall silk hat stood on the
floor by the side of his chair. Flourishing slightly a big soft hand he
went on with his discourse, precipitating his delivery a little more.

"I have never changed the faith I held while wandering in the forests
and bogs of Siberia. It sustained me then--it sustains me now. The great
Powers of Europe are bound to disappear--and the cause of their collapse
will be very simple. They will exhaust themselves struggling against
their proletariat. In Russia it is different. In Russia we have no
classes to combat each other, one holding the power of wealth, and
the other mighty with the strength of numbers. We have only an unclean
bureaucracy in the face of a people as great and as incorruptible as
the ocean. No, we have no classes. But we have the Russian woman. The
admirable Russian woman! I receive most remarkable letters signed by
women. So elevated in tone, so courageous, breathing such a noble ardour
of service! The greatest part of our hopes rests on women. I behold
their thirst for knowledge. It is admirable. Look how they absorb, how
they are making it their own. It is miraculous. But what is knowledge?
...I understand that you have not been studying anything
especially--medicine for instance. No? That's right. Had I been honoured
by being asked to advise you on the use of your time when you arrived
here I would have been strongly opposed to such a course. Knowledge in
itself is mere dross."

He had one of those bearded Russian faces without shape, a mere
appearance of flesh and hair with not a single feature having any sort
of character. His eyes being hidden by the dark glasses there was an
utter absence of all expression. I knew him by sight. He was a Russian
refugee of mark. All Geneva knew his burly black-coated figure. At one
time all Europe was aware of the story of his life written by himself
and translated into seven or more languages. In his youth he had led
an idle, dissolute life. Then a society girl he was about to marry died
suddenly and thereupon he abandoned the world of fashion, and began
to conspire in a spirit of repentance, and, after that, his native
autocracy took good care that the usual things should happen to him.
He was imprisoned in fortresses, beaten within an inch of his life, and
condemned