d in
the right report of them; she would act in the interests of the loftiest
justice, and perhaps posterity and Russian liberalism would bless her
name; yet the conspiracy would be discovered. Every advantage at once.

Still it was essential that Andrey Antonovitch should be in rather
better spirits before the festival. He must be cheered up and reassured.
For this purpose she sent Pyotr Stepanovitch to him in the hope that he
would relieve his depression by some means of consolation best known
to himself, perhaps by giving him some information, so to speak, first
hand. She put implicit faith in his dexterity.

It was some time since Pyotr Stepanovitch had been in Mr. von Lembke's
study. He popped in on him just when the sufferer was in a most stubborn
mood.

II

A combination of circumstances had arisen which Mr. von Lembke was quite
unable to deal with. In the very district where Pyotr Stepanovitch had
been having a festive time a sub-lieutenant had been called up to be
censured by his immediate superior, and the reproof was given in the
presence of the whole company. The sub-lieutenant was a young man fresh
from Petersburg, always silent and morose, of dignified appearance
though small, stout, and rosy-cheeked. He resented the reprimand and
suddenly, with a startling shriek that astonished the whole company,
he charged at his superior officer with his head bent down like a wild
beast's, struck him, and bit him on the shoulder with all his might;
they had difficulty in getting him off. There was no doubt that he had
gone out of his mind; anyway, it became known that of late he had been
observed performing incredibly strange actions. He had, for instance,
flung two ikons belonging to his landlady out of his lodgings and
smashed up one of them with an axe; in his own room he had, on three
stands resembling lecterns, laid out the works of Vogt, Moleschott, and
Buchner, and before each lectern he used to burn a church wax-candle.
From the number of books found in his rooms it could be gathered that
he was a well-read man. If he had had fifty thousand francs he would
perhaps have sailed to the island of Marquisas like the "cadet" to whom
Herzen alludes with such sprightly humour in one of his writings. When
he was seized, whole bundles of the most desperate manifestoes were
found in his pockets and his lodgings.

Manifestoes are a trivial matter too, and to my thinking not worth
troubling about. We have seen plent