and he knew
what caused his excitement.

"Allow me to tell you one little anecdote, gentlemen," Miuesov said
impressively, with a peculiarly majestic air. "Some years ago, soon after
the _coup d'etat_ of December, I happened to be calling in Paris on an
extremely influential personage in the Government, and I met a very
interesting man in his house. This individual was not precisely a
detective but was a sort of superintendent of a whole regiment of
political detectives--a rather powerful position in its own way. I was
prompted by curiosity to seize the opportunity of conversation with him.
And as he had not come as a visitor but as a subordinate official bringing
a special report, and as he saw the reception given me by his chief, he
deigned to speak with some openness, to a certain extent only, of course.
He was rather courteous than open, as Frenchmen know how to be courteous,
especially to a foreigner. But I thoroughly understood him. The subject
was the socialist revolutionaries who were at that time persecuted. I will
quote only one most curious remark dropped by this person. 'We are not
particularly afraid,' said he, 'of all these socialists, anarchists,
infidels, and revolutionists; we keep watch on them and know all their
goings on. But there are a few peculiar men among them who believe in God
and are Christians, but at the same time are socialists. These are the
people we are most afraid of. They are dreadful people! The socialist who
is a Christian is more to be dreaded than a socialist who is an atheist.'
The words struck me at the time, and now they have suddenly come back to
me here, gentlemen."

"You apply them to us, and look upon us as socialists?" Father Paissy
asked directly, without beating about the bush.

But before Pyotr Alexandrovitch could think what to answer, the door
opened, and the guest so long expected, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, came in. They
had, in fact, given up expecting him, and his sudden appearance caused
some surprise for a moment.

Chapter VI. Why Is Such A Man Alive?

Dmitri Fyodorovitch, a young man of eight and twenty, of medium height and
agreeable countenance, looked older than his years. He was muscular, and
showed signs of considerable physical strength. Yet there was something
not healthy in his face. It was rather thin, his cheeks were hollow, and
there was an unhealthy sallowness in their color. His rather large,
prominent, dark eyes had an expression of firm det