et--that is
all I ask."

The solicitor visited him several months later, and implored him to
give his name, so that he might obtain his passport and permission to
rejoin his wife and children.

"But I have no need of all that," he said. "Passports, laws,
names--all those are yours. Children, family, property, class,
marriage--so many of your cursed inventions. You can give me only one
single thing--quietness."

The Siberian prisons swarmed with these mysterious beings. Poor souls!
Their one desire was to quit as soon as possible this vale of injustice
and of tears!

CHAPTER II

THE WHITE-ROBED BELIEVERS

Sometimes this longing for a better world, where suffering would be
caused neither by hunger nor by laws, took touching and poetic forms.

About the month of April, 1895, all eyes in the town of Simbirsk were
turned upon a sect founded by a peasant named Pistzoff. These poor
countryfolk protested against the injustices of the world by robing
themselves in white, "like celestial angels."

"We do not live as we should," taught Pistzoff, an aged, white-haired
man. "We do not live as our fathers lived. We should act with
simplicity, and follow the truth, conquering our bodily passions. The
life that we lead now cannot continue long. This world will perish, and
from its ruins will arise another, a better world, wherein all will be
robed in white, as we are."

The believers lived very frugally. They were strict vegetarians, and ate
neither meat nor fish. They did not smoke or drink alcohol, and
abstained from tea, milk and eggs. They took only two meals daily--at
ten in the morning, and six in the evening. Everything that they wore or
used they made with their own hands--boots, hats, underclothing, even
stoves and cooking utensils.

The story of Pistzoff's conversion inevitably recalls that of Tolstoi.
He was a very rich merchant when, feeling himself inspired by heavenly
truth, he called his employes to him and gave them all that he had,
including furniture and works of art, retaining nothing but white
garments for himself and his family. His wife protested vehemently,
especially when Pistzoff forbade her to touch meat, on account of the
suffering endured by animals when their lives are taken from them. The
old lady did not share his tastes, and firmly upheld a contrary opinion,
declaring that animals went gladly to their death! Pistzoff then fetched
a fowl, ordered his wife to hold it, an