o these "bad people" were who took such
a keen interest in my doings, and who wanted to examine my apartment in
my absence. Any doubts I had on the subject were soon removed. On
the morrow and following days I noticed that whenever I went out,
and wherever I might walk or drive, I was closely followed by two
unsympathetic-looking individuals--so closely that when I turned round
sharp they ran into me. The first and second times this little accident
occurred they received a strong volley of unceremonious vernacular;
but when we became better acquainted we simply smiled at each other
knowingly, as the old Roman Augurs are supposed to have done when they
met in public unobserved. There was no longer any attempt at concealment
or mystification. I knew I was being shadowed, and the shadowers could
not help perceiving that I knew it. Yet, strange to say, they were never
changed!

The reader probably assumes that the secret police had somehow got wind
of my relations with the revolutionists. Such an assumption presupposes
on the part of the police an amount of intelligence and perspicacity
which they do not usually possess. On this occasion they were on
an entirely wrong scent, and the very day when I first noticed my
shadowers, a high official, who seemed to regard the whole thing as
a good joke, told me confidentially what the wrong scent was. At the
instigation of an ex-ambassador, from whom I had the misfortune to
differ in matters of foreign policy, the Moscow Gazette had denounced me
publicly by name as a person who was in the habit of visiting daily the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs--doubtless with the nefarious purpose of
obtaining by illegal means secret political information--and the police
had concluded that I was a fit and proper person to be closely watched.
In reality, my relations with the Russian Foreign Office, though
inconvenient to the ex-ambassador, were perfectly regular and
above-board--sanctioned, in fact, by Prince Gortchakoff--but the
indelicate attentions of the secret police were none the less extremely
unwelcome, because some intelligent police-agent might get onto the real
scent, and cause me serious inconvenience. I determined, therefore,
to break off all relations with Dimitri Ivan'itch and his friends, and
postpone my studies to a more convenient season; but that decision
did not entirely extricate me from my difficulties. The collection of
revolutionary pamphlets was still in my possession, and I