nd still Boris Karlov the
avenger could not understand Stefani Gregor the fiddler. Perhaps what
baffled him was that so valiant a spirit should be housed in so weak a
body. It was natural that he, Boris, with the body of a Carpathian bear,
should have a soul to match. But that Stefani, with his paper body,
should mock him! The damned bourgeoisie!

The quality of this unending calm was understandable: Gregor was always
ready to die. What to do with a man to whom death was release? To hold
the knout and to see it turn to water in the hand! In lying he had
overreached. Gregor, having accepted as fact the reported death of Ivan,
had nothing to live for. Having brought Gregor here to torture he had,
blind fool, taken away the fiddler's ability to feel. The fog cleared.
He himself had given his enemy this mysterious calm. He had taken out
Gregor's soul and dissipated it.

No. Not quite dissipated. What held the body together was the iron
residue of the soul. Venom and blood clogged Karlov's throat. He could
kill only the body, as he had killed the fiddle; he could not reach the
mystery within. Ah, but he had wrung Stefani's heart there. There
were pieces of the fiddle on the table where Gregor had placed them,
doubtless to weep over when he was alone. Why hadn't he thought to break
the fiddle a little each day?

"Stefani Gregor, sit up. I have come to talk." This was formula. Karlov
did not expect speech from Gregor.

Slowly the thin arms bore up the torso; slowly the legs swung to the
floor. But the little gray man's eyes were bright and quick to-night.

"Boris, what is it you want?"

"To talk"--surprised at this unexpected outburst.

"No, no. I mean, what is it all about--these killings, these burnings?"

Karlov was ready at all times to expound the theories that appealed to
his dark yet simple mind--humanity overturned as one overturned the sod
in the springtime to give it new life.

"To give the proletariat what is his."

"Ha!" said the little man on the cot. "What is his?"

"That which capitalism has taken away from him."

"The proletariat. The lowest in the human scale--and therefore the most
helpless. They shall rule, say you. My poor Russia! Beaten and robbed
for centuries, and now betrayed by a handful of madmen--with brains
atrophied on one side! You are a fool, Boris. Your feet are in strange
quicksands and your head among chimeras. You write some words on a piece
of paper, and lo! you say they are fa