r varier.
Des gens de l'autre monde. However, I will tell my husband. He knows
all sorts of people. I will tell him. You explain it to him, for he
never understands me. No matter what I may say, he always says that he
cannot understand me. C'est un parti pris. Everybody understands, only
he does not understand."

At that moment a servant in knee-breeches entered with a letter on a
silver tray.

"Ah, that is from Aline. Now you will have an opportunity to hear
Kisiweather."

"Who is that Kisiweather?"

"Kisiweather? Come around to-day and you will find out who he is. He
speaks so that the most hardened criminals fall on their knees and
weep, and repent."

Countess Catherine Ivanovna, however strange it might be, and how so
little it agreed with her character, was a follower of that teaching
which held that essence of Christianity consisted in a belief in
redemption. She visited the meetings where sermons were delivered on
this teaching then in vogue, and invited the adherents to her own
house. Although this teaching rejected all rites, images and even the
sacraments, the Princess had images hanging in all her rooms, even
over her bedstead, and she complied with all the ritual requirements
of the church, seeing nothing contradictory in that.

"Your Magdalen ought to hear him; she would become converted," said
the Countess. "Don't fail to come to-night. You will hear him then. He
is a remarkable man."

"It is not interesting to me, ma tante."

"I tell you it is interesting. You must come to-night. Now, what else
do you want me to do? Videz votre sac."

"There is the man in the fortress."

"In the fortress? Well, I can give you a note to Baron Kriegmuth.
C'est un tres-brave homme. But you know him yourself. He was your
father's comrade. Il donne dans le spiritisme. But that is nothing. He
is a kind man. What do you want there?"

"It is necessary to obtain permission for a mother to visit her son
who is incarcerated there. But I was told that Cherviansky and not
Kriegmuth is the person to be applied to."

"I do not like Cherviansky, but he is Mariette's husband. I will ask
her; she will do it for me. Elle est tres gentille."

"There is another woman I wish you would speak to her about. She has
been in prison for several months, and no one knows for what."

"Oh, no; she herself surely knows for what. They know very well. And
it serves them right, those short-haired ones."

"I do not know whether it serves