away again. I saw some fifteen men dash behind the
scenes to rescue him, not crossing the platform but breaking down the
light screen at the side of it.... I saw afterwards, though I could
hardly believe my eyes, the girl student (Virginsky's sister) leap on
to the platform with the same roll under her arm, dressed as before,
as plump and rosy as ever, surrounded by two or three women and two or
three men, and accompanied by her mortal enemy, the schoolboy. I even
caught the phrase:

"Ladies and gentlemen, I've come to call attention to the I sufferings
of poor students and to rouse them to a general protest..."

But I ran away. Hiding my badge in my pocket I made my way from the
house into the street by back passages which I knew of. First of all, of
course, I went to Stepan Trofimovitch's.

CHAPTER II. THE END OF THE FETE

HE WOULD NOT SEE ME. He had shut himself up and was writing. At my
repeated knocks and appeals he answered through the door:

"My friend, I have finished everything. Who can ask anything more of
me?"

"You haven't finished anything, you've only helped to make a mess of the
whole thing. For God's sake, no epigrams, Stepan Trofimovitch! Open the
door. We must take steps; they may still come and insult you...."

I thought myself entitled to be particularly severe and even rigorous.
I was afraid he might be going to do something still more mad. But to my
surprise I met an extraordinary firmness.

"Don't be the first to insult me then. I thank you for the past, but
I repeat I've done with all men, good and bad. I am writing to Darya
Pavlovna, whom I've forgotten so unpardonably till now. You may take it
to her to-morrow, if you like, now _merci_."

"Stepan Trofimovitch, I assure you that the matter is more serious
than you think. Do you think that you've crushed some one there? You've
pulverised no one, but have broken yourself to pieces like an empty
bottle." (Oh, I was coarse and discourteous, I remember it with
regret.) "You've absolutely no reason to write to Darya Pavlovna... and
what will you do with yourself without me? What do you understand about
practical life? I expect you are plotting something else? You'll simply
come to grief again if you go plotting something more...."

He rose and came close up to the door.

"You've not been long with them, but you've caught the infection of
their tone and language. _Dieu vous pardonne, mon ami, et Dieu vous
garde._ But I've always seen