ce.
The students, sharing this conviction, wished to be freed from
all academical authority, and to organise a kind of academic
self-government. They desired especially the right of holding public
meetings for the discussion of their common affairs. The authorities
would not allow this, and issued a list of rules prohibiting meetings
and raising the class-fees, so as practically to exclude many of the
poorer students. This was felt to be a wanton insult to the spirit of
the new era. In spite of the prohibition, indignation meetings were
held, and fiery speeches made by male and female orators, first in the
class-rooms, and afterwards in the courtyard of the University. On one
occasion a long procession marched through the principal streets to the
house of the Curator. Never had such a spectacle been seen before in
St. Petersburg. Timid people feared that it was the commencement of a
revolution, and dreamed about barricades. At last the authorities took
energetic measures; about three hundred students were arrested, and of
these, thirty-two were expelled from the University.

Among those who were expelled was Nicolai Ivan'itch. All his hopes of
becoming a professor, as he had intended, were thereby shipwrecked,
and he had to look out for some other profession. A literary career
now seemed the most promising, and certainly the most congenial to his
tastes. It would enable him to gratify his ambition of being a
public man, and give him opportunities of attacking and annoying his
persecutors. He had already written occasionally for one of the leading
periodicals, and now he became a regular contributor. His stock of
positive knowledge was not very large, but he had the power of writing
fluently and of making his readers believe that he had an unlimited
store of political wisdom which the Press-censure prevented him from
publishing. Besides this, he had the talent of saying sharp, satirical
things about those in authority, in such a way that even a Press censor
could not easily raise objections. Articles written in this style were
sure at that time to be popular, and his had a very great success. He
became a known man in literary circles, and for a time all went well.
But gradually he became less cautious, whilst the authorities became
more vigilant. Some copies of a violent seditious proclamation fell into
the hands of the police, and it was generally believed that the document
proceeded from the coterie to which he belonge