instincts which, alas, lie hidden in every heart, even
that of the mildest and most domestic little clerk.... This sinister
sensation is almost always fascinating. "I really don't know whether one
can look at a fire without a certain pleasure." This is word for word
what Stepan Trofimovitch said to me one night on returning home after he
had happened to witness a fire and was still under the influence of the
spectacle. Of course, the very man who enjoys the spectacle will rush
into the fire himself to save a child or an old woman; but that is
altogether a different matter.

Following in the wake of the crowd of sightseers, I succeeded, without
asking questions, in reaching the chief centre of danger, where at last
I saw Lembke, whom I was seeking at Yulia Mihailovna's request. His
position was strange and extraordinary. He was standing on the ruins of
a fence. Thirty paces to the left of him rose the black skeleton of a
two-storied house which had almost burnt out. It had holes instead of
windows at each story, its roof had fallen in, and the flames were still
here and there creeping among the charred beams At the farther end
of the courtyard, twenty paces away, the lodge, also a two-storied
building, was beginning to burn, and the firemen were doing their utmost
to save it. On the right the firemen and the people were trying to save
a rather large wooden building which was not actually burning, though
it had caught fire several times and was inevitably bound to be burnt in
the end. Lembke stood facing the lodge, shouting and gesticulating. He
was giving orders which no one attempted to carry out. It seemed to me
that every one had given him up as hopeless and left him. Anyway,
though every one in the vast crowd of all classes, among whom there
were gentlemen, and even the cathedral priest, was listening to him
with curiosity and wonder, no one spoke to him or tried to get him away.
Lembke, with a pale face and glittering eyes, was uttering the most
amazing things. To complete the picture, he had lost his hat and was
bareheaded.

"It's all incendiarism! It's nihilism! If anything is burning, it's
nihilism!" I heard almost with horror; and though there was nothing to
be surprised at, yet actual madness, when one sees it, always gives one
a shock.

"Your Excellency," said a policeman, coming up to him, "what if you were
to try the repose of home?... It's dangerous for your Excellency even to
stand here."

This police