The Senators really intended, after announcing their decision in the libel case, to consider the other cases, including Maslova’s, while drinking their tea and smoking cigarettes in the consultation-room.

CHAPTER XIII.

As soon as the Senators seated themselves at the table in the consultation-room, Wolf began to set forth in an animated manner the grounds upon which he thought the case ought to be reversed.

The President, always an ill-natured man, was in a particularly bad humor to-day.  While listening to the case during the session he formed his opinion, and sat, absorbed in his thoughts, without listening to Wolf.  These thoughts consisted in a recollection of what note he had made the other day in his memoirs anent the appointment of Velianoff to an important post which he desired for himself.  The President, Nikitin, quite sincerely thought that the officials with whom his duties brought him in contact were worthy of a place in history.  Having written an article the other day in which some of these officials were vehemently denounced for interfering with his plan to save Russia from ruin, as he put it, but in reality for interfering with his getting a larger salary than he was now getting, he was now thinking that posterity would give an entirely new interpretation to that incident.

“Why, certainly,” he said to Wolf, who was addressing him, although he did not hear what Wolf said.

Be listened to Wolf with a sad face, drawing garlands on a piece of paper which lay before him.  Be was a liberal of the deepest dye.  He scarcely held to the traditions of the sixties, and if he ever deviated from strict impartiality, it was invariably in favor of liberality.  Thus, in this case, besides the consideration that the complaining president of the stock company was an unclean man, Be was in favor of affirming the judgment, also because this charge of libel against a journalist was a restriction on the freedom of the press.  When Wolf had finished his argument, Be, leaving the garland unfinished, in a sad—­it was sad for him to be obliged to prove such truisms—­soft, pleasant voice, convincingly proved in a few simple words that the charge had no foundation, and, again drooping his hoary head, continued to complete the garland.

Skovorodnikoff, who was sitting opposite Wolf, continually gathering with his thick fingers his beard and mustache into his mouth, as soon as Be was through with his argument, stopped chewing his beard, and, in a loud, rasping voice, said that although the president of the stock company was a villain, he should favor a reversal if there were legal grounds to sustain it, but as there were none, he joined in the opinion of Ivan Semenovitch (Be), and he invariably rejoiced at this shot aimed at Wolf.  The President supported Skovorodnikoff’s opinion, and the judgment was confirmed.

Wolf was dissatisfied, especially because by this judgment he seemed to stand convicted of arguing in bad faith; but, feigning indifference, he opened his papers in the next case, Maslova’s, and began to peruse it attentively.  The other Senators in the meantime called for tea, and began a talk about Kamensky’s duel and his death, which was then the subject of conversation throughout the city.