with a pince-nez, translated it into Russian promptly and well.  He was saying that our sins were so great, the punishment for them so great and so unavoidable, that it was impossible to live anticipating such punishment.  “Beloved brothers and sisters, let us for a moment consider what we are doing, how we are living, how we have offended against the all-loving Lord, and how we make Christ suffer, and we cannot but understand that there is no forgiveness possible for us, no escape possible, that we are all doomed to perish.  A terrible fate awaits us—–­everlasting torment,” he said, with tears in his trembling voice.  “Oh, how can we be saved, brothers?  How can we be saved from this terrible, unquenchable fire?  The house is in flames; there is no escape.”

He was silent for a while, and real tears flowed down his cheeks.  It was for about eight years that each time when he got to this part of his speech, which he himself liked so well, he felt a choking in his throat and an irritation in his nose, and the tears came in his eyes, and these tears touched him still more.  Sobs were heard in the room.  The Countess Katerina Ivanovna sat with her elbows on an inlaid table, leaning her head on her hands, and her shoulders were shaking.  The coachman looked with fear and surprise at the foreigner, feeling as if he was about to run him down with the pole of his carriage and the foreigner would not move out of his way.  All sat in positions similar to that Katerina Ivanovna had assumed.  Wolf’s daughter, a thin, fashionably-dressed girl, very like her father, knelt with her face in her hands.

The orator suddenly uncovered his face, and smiled a very real-looking smile, such as actors express joy with, and began again with a sweet, gentle voice: 

“Yet there is a way to be saved.  Here it is—­a joyful, easy way.  The salvation is the blood shed for us by the only son of God, who gave himself up to torments for our sake.  His sufferings, His blood, will save us.  Brothers and sisters,” he said, again with tears in his voice, “let us praise the Lord, who has given His only begotten son for the redemption of mankind.  His holy blood . . .”

Nekhludoff felt so deeply disgusted that he rose silently, and frowning and keeping back a groan of shame, he left on tiptoe, and went to his room.

CHAPTER XVIII.

OFFICIALDOM.

Hardly had Nekhludoff finished dressing the next morning, just as he was about to go down, the footman brought him a card from the Moscow advocate.  The advocate had come to St. Petersburg on business of his own, and was going to be present when Maslova’s case was examined in the Senate, if that would be soon.  The telegram sent by Nekhludoff crossed him on the way.  Having found out from Nekhludoff when the case was going to be heard, and which senators were to be present, he smiled.  “Exactly, all the three types of senators,” he said.  “Wolf is a Petersburg official; Skovorodnikoff is a theoretical, and Bay a practical lawyer, and therefore the most alive of them all,” said the advocate.  “There is most hope of him.  Well, and how about the Petition Committee?”