h
homes, and then upstairs. The room where the Countess and I were left,
was small, and very badly furnished, with a square table with writing
materials on it, in the middle. That was his sanctuary; the deity soon
appeared, and I saw him in flesh and bone; especially in flesh, for he
was enormously stout. His broad face, with prominent cheek-bones, in
spite of the fat; and with a nose like a double funnel, with small,
sharp eyes, which had a magnetic look, proclaimed the Tartar, the old
Turanian blood, which produced the Attilas, the Gengis-Khams, the
Tamerlanes. The obesity, which is characteristic of the nomad races, who
are always on horseback or driving, added to his Asiatic look. The man
was certainly not a European, a slave, a descendant of the deistic
Aryans, but a descendant of the Atheistic hordes, who had several times
already almost overrun Europe, and who, instead of any ideas of
progress, have the belief in nihility, at the bottom of their hearts.

"I was astonished, for I had not expected that the majesty of a whole
race, could be thus revived in a man, and my stupefaction increased
after an hour's conversation. I could quite understand why such a
Colossus had not wished for the Countess as his Egeria; she was a mere
silly child to have dreamt of acting such a part to such a thinker. She
had not felt the profoundness of that horrible philosophy which was
hidden under that material activity, nor had she seen the prophet under
that man of the barricades. Or, perhaps, he had not thought it advisable
to reveal himself to her like that; but he revealed himself to me, and
inspired me with terror.

"A prophet? Oh! yes. He thought himself an Attila, and foresaw the
consequences of his revolution; it was not only from instinct, but also
from theory that he urged a nation on to nihilism. The phrase is not
his, but Tourgueneff's, I believe, but the idea certainly belongs to
him. He got his program of agricultural communism from Herzen, and his
destructive radicalism from Pougatcheff, but he did not stop there. I
mean that he went on to evil for the sake of evil. Herzen wished for the
happiness of the Slav peasant; Pougatcheff wanted to be elected Emperor,
but all that Bakounine wanted, was to overthrow the actual order of
things, no matter by what means, and to replace social concentration by
a universal upheaval.

"It was the dream of a Tartar; it was true nihilism pushed to extreme
practical conclusions. It was,