you?"

"_Voyez-vous, mon cher,_ I asked straight out when he was going away, what
would they do to me now."

"You'd better have asked them where you'd be exiled!" I cried out in the
same indignation.

"That's just what I meant when I asked, but he went away without
answering. _Voyez-vous:_ as for linen, clothes, warm things especially,
that must be as they decide; if they tell me to take them--all right,
or they might send me in a soldier's overcoat. But I thrust thirty-five
roubles" (he suddenly dropped his voice, looking towards the door by
which Nastasya had gone out) "in a slit in my waistcoat pocket, here,
feel.... I believe they won't take the waistcoat off, and left seven
roubles in my purse to keep up appearances, as though that were all I
have. You see, it's in small change and the coppers are on the table,
so they won't guess that I've hidden the money, but will suppose that
that's all. For God knows where I may have to sleep to-night!"

I bowed my head before such madness. It was obvious that a man could not
be arrested and searched in the way he was describing, and he must
have mixed things up. It's true it all happened in the days before our
present, more recent regulations. It is true, too, that according to his
own account they had offered to follow the more regular procedure, but
he "got the better of them" and refused.... Of course not long ago a
governor might, in extreme cases.... But how could this be an extreme
case? That's what baffled me.

"No doubt they had a telegram from Petersburg," Stepan Trofimovitch said
suddenly.

"A telegram? About you? Because of the works of Herzen and your poem?
Have you taken leave of your senses? What is there in that to arrest you
for?"

I was positively angry. He made a grimace and was evidently
mortified--not at my exclamation, but at the idea that there was no
ground for arrest.

"Who can tell in our day what he may not be arrested for?" he muttered
enigmatically.

A wild and nonsensical idea crossed my mind.

"Stepan Trofimovitch, tell me as a friend," I cried, "as a real friend,
I will not betray you: do you belong to some secret society or not?"

And on this, to my amazement, he was not quite certain whether he was or
was not a member of some secret society.

"That depends, _voyez-vous._"

"How do you mean 'it depends'?"

"When with one's whole heart one is an adherent of progress and... who
can answer it? You may suppose you don't belong, a