t a
grotesque horror it is! What does the starving, ignorant people want
with a Ministry of Finances? I kissed my old folks on both cheeks, and
went away from them to live in cellars, with the proletariat. I tried
to make myself useful to the utterly hopeless. I suppose you understand
what I mean? I mean the people who have nowhere to go and nothing to
look forward to in this life. Do you understand how frightful that
is--nothing to look forward to! Sometimes I think that it is only in
Russia that there are such people and such a depth of misery can be
reached. Well, I plunged into it, and--do you know--there isn't much
that one can do in there. No, indeed--at least as long as there are
Ministries of Finances and such like grotesque horrors to stand in the
way. I suppose I would have gone mad there just trying to fight the
vermin, if it had not been for a man. It was my old friend and
teacher, the poor saintly apple-woman, who discovered him for me, quite
accidentally. She came to fetch me late one evening in her quiet way. I
followed her where she would lead; that part of my life was in her hands
altogether, and without her my spirit would have perished miserably. The
man was a young workman, a lithographer by trade, and he had got
into trouble in connexion with that affair of temperance tracts--you
remember. There was a lot of people put in prison for that. The Ministry
of Finances again! What would become of it if the poor folk ceased
making beasts of themselves with drink? Upon my word, I would think that
finances and all the rest of it are an invention of the devil; only that
a belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone
are quite capable of every wickedness. Finances indeed!"

Hatred and contempt hissed in her utterance of the word "finances," but
at the very moment she gently stroked the cat reposing in her arms.
She even raised them slightly, and inclining her head rubbed her cheek
against the fur of the animal, which received this caress with the
complete detachment so characteristic of its kind. Then looking at Miss
Haldin she excused herself once more for not taking her upstairs to
Madame S-- The interview could not be interrupted. Presently the
journalist would be seen coming down the stairs. The best thing was to
remain in the hall; and besides, all these rooms (she glanced all
round at the many doors), all these rooms on the ground floor were
unfurnished.

"Positively there is no