oys me! He has developed the idea--or
pretends to believe--that in all probability three or four others who
heard my confession will die before I do. There's an idea for you--and
all this by way of CONSOLING me! Ha! ha! ha! In the first place they
haven't died yet; and in the second, if they DID die--all of them--what
would be the satisfaction to me in that? He judges me by himself. But he
goes further, he actually pitches into me because, as he declares, 'any
decent fellow' would die quietly, and that 'all this' is mere egotism
on my part. He doesn't see what refinement of egotism it is on his own
part--and at the same time, what ox-like coarseness! Have you ever read
of the death of one Stepan Gleboff, in the eighteenth century? I read of
it yesterday by chance."

"Who was he?"

"He was impaled on a stake in the time of Peter."

"I know, I know! He lay there fifteen hours in the hard frost, and died
with the most extraordinary fortitude--I know--what of him?"

"Only that God gives that sort of dying to some, and not to others.
Perhaps you think, though, that I could not die like Gleboff?"

"Not at all!" said the prince, blushing. "I was only going to say that
you--not that you could not be like Gleboff--but that you would have
been more like--"

"I guess what you mean--I should be an Osterman, not a Gleboff--eh? Is
that what you meant?"

"What Osterman?" asked the prince in some surprise.

"Why, Osterman--the diplomatist. Peter's Osterman," muttered Hippolyte,
confused. There was a moment's pause of mutual confusion.

"Oh, no, no!" said the prince at last, "that was not what I was going to
say--oh no! I don't think you would ever have been like Osterman."

Hippolyte frowned gloomily.

"I'll tell you why I draw the conclusion," explained the prince,
evidently desirous of clearing up the matter a little. "Because, though
I often think over the men of those times, I cannot for the life of me
imagine them to be like ourselves. It really appears to me that they
were of another race altogether than ourselves of today. At that time
people seemed to stick so to one idea; now, they are more nervous, more
sensitive, more enlightened--people of two or three ideas at once--as
it were. The man of today is a broader man, so to speak--and I declare
I believe that is what prevents him from being so self-contained and
independent a being as his brother of those earlier days. Of course my
remark was only made under this im