“Don’t you think I am talking for myself.  It is for Russia.  I am finished anyhow.  Go ahead!  Betray me too.  Tell them I am Counsellor of State, and a landlord, and marshal of nobility.  I do not care!  I am finished....  Yet in my better days I had cancer.  It was almost a pleasure then.  Don’t smile, it’s true.  Now—­I need oysters, and fruit, and fine Port wine, and medicine,—­and I have bread, which I cannot digest, and they kick me out of every hospital....  I’m sure the cancer is nearing my heart.  If I die,—­I won’t see my remuneration:  the downfall of our traitors.  Friend,—­what can I do to hasten it?  How can I avenge Russia?...”

“It is a hard question to answer.  I think you exaggerate a little.  I am myself after a settlement, but I do not go so far.  My goal is smaller.  I would like to find a man in Petrograd, so that I could make the rest of the world understand what he really is.  He is a criminal cretin.  Yes, it is this man, exactly.  But not at this time.  Look around:  The Spring is here.  Don’t you think the air is pacifying?  The air calls to a perfect selfishness.  So, if I had seen the man right here, I would have shot him of course, but I hate to think of getting into trouble now.”

“Air!  Spring!  Are you in love, young man?”

Then he grew sad and silent for a while.  “No, I can’t see any pleasure in Spring.”  He became sunk in his thoughts, and looked away.

I love Winter just because it dies every year, and gives place to a new life!  And again the thin birches become green and chastely white.  And I know my birch is somewhere—­looking for me.

Tobolsk!  Pretty town—­I must admit.  The high bank with green slopes is covered with churches, white buildings and gleaming gold crosses.  Something tranquil about Tobolsk!  Blue, red and green roofs look shy from their cozy nests of trees.  It must be very exciting to live here when all is normal.  Good God!  I see from the deck the fine foggish veil of dust and gossips hanging over the town.  They must still play “preference” here, or “vint.”  In these little “centers” bridge must be unknown.

I took a room in a hotel and went to the Kornilov house.  It was about four.  I heard the noise of forks and knives, dinner time is so impossibly early in these longitudes.  A man answered my ring and said I should wait outside and never ring the front door bell.  He explained where the kitchen entrance was.  The man, even in explaining these disagreeable things, was polite:  by profession, for I immediately saw he was a former Chamber-lackey, though he had a moustache and was looking meager.  “Wait on the street, service-man,” he said, “I cannot let you in.”  Very well,—­I know these “waits” and “call later ons.”  They don’t hurt me.