ore
to law."

"Then you must expose yourself to all kinds of extortion?"

"Not so much as you might imagine. I have my own way of dispensing
justice. When I catch a peasant's horse or cow in our fields, I lock it
up and make the owner pay a ransom."

"Is it not rather dangerous," I inquired, "to take the law thus into
your own hands? I have heard that the Russian justices are extremely
severe against any one who has recourse to what our German jurists call
Selbsthulfe."

"That they are! So long as you are in Russia, you had much better let
yourself be quietly robbed than use any violence against the robber. It
is less trouble, and it is cheaper in the long run. If you do not, you
may unexpectedly find yourself some fine morning in prison! You must
know that many of the young justices belong to the new school of
morals."

"What is that? I have not heard of any new discoveries lately in the
sphere of speculative ethics."

"Well, to tell you the truth, I am not one of the initiated, and I can
only tell you what I hear. So far as I have noticed, the representatives
of the new doctrine talk chiefly about Gumannost' and Tchelovetcheskoe
dostoinstvo. You know what these words mean?"

"Humanity, or rather humanitarianism and human dignity," I replied, not
sorry to give a proof that I was advancing in my studies.

"There, again, you allow your dictionary and your priest to mislead you.
These terms, when used by a Russian, cover much more than we understand
by them, and those who use them most frequently have generally a special
tenderness for all kinds of malefactors. In the old times, malefactors
were popularly believed to be bad, dangerous people; but it has been
lately discovered that this is a delusion. A young proprietor who lives
not far off assures me that they are the true Protestants, and the
most powerful social reformers! They protest practically against those
imperfections of social organisation of which they are the involuntary
victims. The feeble, characterless man quietly submits to his chains;
the bold, generous, strong man breaks his fetters, and helps others to
do the same. A very ingenious defence of all kinds of rascality, isn't
it?"

"Well, it is a theory that might certainly be carried too far, and might
easily lead to very inconvenient conclusions; but I am not sure that,
theoretically speaking, it does not contain a certain element of truth.
It ought at least to foster that charity which we ar