“It was the dream of a Tartar; it was true nihilism pushed to extreme practical conclusions.  It was, in a word, the applied philosophy of chance, the indeterminateism of anarchy.  Monstrous it may be, but grand in its monstrosity.

“And you must note, that the man of action who was so despised by the Countess, discovered in Bakounine the gigantic dreamer whom I have just shown you, and his dream did not remain a dream, but began to be realized.  It was by the care of that organizer that the Nihilistic party assumed a body; a party in which there is a little of everything, you know; but on the whole, a formidable party, on account of the advanced guard in true Nihilism, whose object is nothing less than to destroy the Western world, to see it blossom from under the ruins of a general dispersion, which is the last conception of modern Tartarism.

“I never saw Bakounine again, for the Countess’s conquest would have been too dearly bought by any attempt to act a comedy with this Old-Man-of-the-Mountains.  And besides that, after this visit, poor Countess Satan appeared to me quite silly.  Her famous Satanism was nothing but the flicker of a spirit-lamp, after the general conflagration of which the other had dreamt, and she had certainly shown herself very silly, when she could not understand that prodigious monster.  And as she had seduced me, only by her intellect and her perversity, I was disgusted as soon as she laid aside that mask.  I left her without telling her of my intention, and never saw her again, either.

“No doubt they both took me for a spy from the Third section of the Imperial Chancellery.  In that case, they must have thought me very strong to have resisted, and all I have to do is to look out, if any affiliated members of their society recognize me!...”

III

Then he smiled, and turning to the waiter who had just come in, he said:  “Meanwhile, open us another bottle of champagne, and make the cork pop!  It will, at any rate, somewhat accustom us to the day when we shall all be blown up with dynamite ourselves.”

KIND GIRLS

Every Friday, regularly, at about eleven o’clock in the morning, he came into the courtyard, put down his soft hat at his feet, struck a few chords on his guitar and then began a ballad in his full, rich voice.  And soon at every window in the four sides of that dull, barrack-like building, some girls appeared, one in an elegant dressing gown, another in a little jacket, most of them with their breasts and arms bare, all of them just out of bed, with their hair hastily twisted up, their eyes blinking in the sudden blaze of sunlight, their complexions dull and their eyes still heavy from want of sleep.

They swayed themselves backwards and forwards to his slow melody, and gave themselves up to the enjoyment of it, and coppers, and even silver, poured into the handsome singer’s hat, and more than one of them would have liked to have followed the penny which she threw to him, and to have gone with the singer who had the voice of a siren, and who seemed to say to all these amorous girls; “Come, come to my retreat, where you will find a palace of crystal and gold, and wreaths which are always fresh, and happiness and love which never die.”