ll not understand. They aren't capable of it. For instance,
Mordatiev was in Geneva last month. Peter Ivanovitch brought him here.
You know Mordatiev? Well, yes--you have heard of him. They call him
an eagle--a hero! He has never done half as much as you have. Never
attempted--not half...."

Madame de S-- agitated herself angularly on the sofa.

"We, of course, talked to him. And do you know what he said to me?
'What have we to do with Balkan intrigues? We must simply extirpate the
scoundrels.' Extirpate is all very well--but what then? The imbecile!
I screamed at him, 'But you must spiritualize--don't you
understand?--spiritualize the discontent.'..."

She felt nervously in her pocket for a handkerchief; she pressed it to
her lips.

"Spiritualize?" said Razumov interrogatively, watching her heaving
breast. The long ends of an old black lace scarf she wore over her head
slipped off her shoulders and hung down on each side of her ghastly rosy
cheeks.

"An odious creature," she burst out again. "Imagine a man who takes five
lumps of sugar in his tea.... Yes, I said spiritualize! How else can
you make discontent effective and universal?"

"Listen to this, young man." Peter Ivanovitch made himself heard
solemnly. "Effective and universal."

Razumov looked at him suspiciously.

"Some say hunger will do that," he remarked.

"Yes. I know. Our people are starving in heaps. But you can't make
famine universal. And it is not despair that we want to create. There is
no moral support to be got out of that. It is indignation...."

Madame de S-- let her thin, extended arm sink on her knees.

"I am not a Mordatiev," began Razumov.

"Bien sur!" murmured Madame de S--.

"Though I too am ready to say extirpate, extirpate! But in my ignorance
of political work, permit me to ask: A Balkan--well--intrigue, wouldn't
that take a very long time?"

Peter Ivanovitch got up and moved off quietly, to stand with his face to
the window. Razumov heard a door close; he turned his head and perceived
that the lady companion had scuttled out of the room.

"In matters of politics I am a supernaturalist." Madame de S-- broke
the silence harshly.

Peter Ivanovitch moved away from the window and struck Razumov lightly
on the shoulder. This was a signal for leaving, but at the same time he
addressed Madame de S-- in a peculiar reminding tone---

"Eleanor!"

Whatever it meant, she did not seem to hear him. She leaned back in the
corner