“The adjutant’s hands trembled so with emotion that he could not apply the bandage to the prisoner’s eyes.  Others tried and gave it up.  Well, as soon as that man was buried his grave was covered with flowers, crosses, and all sorts of things by the peasants, who came many versts from all directions, as to the grave of a martyr.  Masses for the dead were ordered there, in uninterrupted succession, by these poor peasants.  The feeling was so great and appeared to be spreading to such an extent that the authorities were forced not only to prohibit access to the grave, but even to level it off so that it could not be found.  But an Englishman!  If he were told to cut the throat of his own father and eat him, he would do it.”

“Still, in spite of your very striking illustration, and your doubts as to my having read the papers correctly,” I remarked, “I am sure that the Russian peasant does, occasionally, murder with premeditation.  He is a fine-tempered, much-enduring, admirable fellow, I admit, but he is human.  He cannot be so different in this respect from all other races of men.  Moreover, I have the testimony of a celebrated Russian author on my side.”

“What author?  What testimony?”

“Have you ever read The ‘Power of Darkness’?  The amount of deliberation, of premeditation, in any murder is often a matter of opinion; but the murder of the child in the last act of that comedy is surely deliberate enough to admit of no difference of judgment.  Don’t you think that the author supports me?”

He gasped at my audacity in quoting his own writings against him, and retreated into the silence which was his resource when he could not or would not answer.  Put him in a corner and he would refuse to come out.

Beggars used to come while we were eating out-of-doors; some called themselves “pilgrims.”  The count would give them a little money, and they would tramp off again.  One day, when the birthday of an absent member of the family was being celebrated, and we were drinking healths in voditchka (a sort of effervescent water flavored with fruit juices), we had a distinguished visitor, “Prince Romanoff.”  This was the crazy Balakhin mentioned in “What to Do?” as having had his brain turned by the sight of the luxury in the lives of others.  His rags and patches, or rather his conglomeration of patches, surpassed anything we had seen in that line.  One of the lads jumped up and gave him a glass of raspberry voditchka, telling him that it was rare old wine.  The man sipped it, looked through it, and pretended (I am sure that it was mere pretense) to believe that it was wine.  He promised us all large estates when the Emperor should give him back his own, now wrongfully withheld from him.