VASILI [glancing off].  It is quite safe for the time.

PIKE [going to the car].  It’s all right, old man!

[Extends his hand to IVANOFF and helps him up from beneath the machine.]

IVANOFF.  I will pray God for you all my life.

PIKE.  Wait till we get you plumb out of the woods.

IVANOFF [to VASILI].  And you, sir, if I could speak my gratitude—­

VASILI [crisply].  My American friend yonder has placed himself—­and myself—­in danger of the penal code of Italy for protecting you.  Perhaps you will be so good as to let us know for what we have incriminated ourselves.

IVANOFF [looking at him keenly].  You are a Russian?

PIKE.  Don’t be afraid—­he’s only a German.

IVANOFF [bitterly].  The Italian journals call me a brigand, inspired by the Russian legation in Rome.  My name is Ivanoff Ivanovitch.

PIKE [reassuringly].  All right, old man!

IVANOFF.  I was condemned in Petersburg ten years ago.  I was a professor of the languages, a translator in the bureau of the Minister of Finance.  I was a member of the Society of the Blue Fifty, a constitutionalist.

PIKE.  Good for you.

IVANOFF.  I was able to do little for the cause, though I tried.

VASILI.  How did you try?

IVANOFF.  I transferred funds of the government to the Society of the
Blue Fifty.  Never one ruble for myself. [Strikes himself on the breast.]
It was for Russia’s sake—­not mine!

VASILI [sharply].  But you committed the great Russian crime of getting yourself caught?

IVANOFF.  Through treachery.  There was an Englishman who lived in Petersburg.  He had contracts with the government—­I thought he was my best friend.  I had married in my student days in Paris—­ah, it is the old story [bitterly]!  I knew that this Englishman admired my wife; but I trusted him—­as I trusted her—­and he made my house his home.  I had fifty thousand rubles in my desk to be delivered to my society.  The police came to search; they found only me—­but not my wife nor my English friend—­nor the fifty thousand rubles!  I went to Siberia.  Now I search for those two.

VASILI [gravely].  Was it they who sent the police?

IVANOFF.  After they had taken the money and were beyond the frontier themselves.  That is all I have against them.

PIKE [gently].  Looks to me like it would be enough.

VASILI.  Then, by your own confession, you are an embezzler and a revolutionist.

PIKE [going to VASILI quickly].  Why, the man’s down; you wouldn’t go back on him now.

[With a half chuckle.]

Besides, you’ve made yourself one of his confederates.

VASILI.  Upon my soul, so I have.

[Bursts into laughter and lays his hands on PIKE’S shoulders.]

My friend, from my first sight of you in the hotel at Napoli I saw that you were a great man.