from me in the least that there was no crime
that he had not committed--murder, rape, arson, immorality of the most
hideous, sacrilege, the basest betrayal of his best friends--he was not
only savage and outlaw, he was deliberate anarchist and murderer. He had
no redeeming point that I could anywhere discover. I did not in the
least mind his entering my room when he pleased. I had there nothing of
any value; he could take my life even, had he a mind to that.... The
naive abysmal depths of his depravity interested me. He formed a kind of
attachment to me. He told me that he would do anything for me. He had a
strange tact which prevented him from intruding upon me when I was
occupied. He was as quick as any cultured civilised cosmopolitan to see
if he was not wanted. He developed a certain cleanliness; he told me,
with an air of disdainful superiority, that he had been to the public
baths. I gave him an old suit of mine and a pair of boots. He very
seldom asked for anything; once and again he would point to something
and say that he would like to have it; if I said that he could not he
expressed no disappointment; sometimes he stole it, but he always
acknowledged that he had done so if I asked him, although he would lie
stupendously on other occasions for no reason at all.

"Now you must bring that back," I would say sternly.

"Oh no, Barin.... Why? You have so many things. Surely you will not
object. Perhaps I will bring it--and perhaps not."

"You must certainly bring it," I would say.

"We will see," he would say, smiling at me in the friendliest fashion.

He was the only absolutely happy Russian I have ever known. He had no
passages of despair. He had been in prison, he would be in prison again.
He had spasms of the most absolute ferocity. On one occasion I thought
that I should be his next victim, and for a moment my fate hung, I
think, in the balance. But he changed his mind. He had a real liking for
me, I think. When he could get it, he drank a kind of furniture polish,
the only substitute in these days for vodka. This was an absolutely
killing drink, and I tried to prove to him that frequent indulgence in
it meant an early decease. That did not affect him in the least. Death
had no horror for him although, I foresaw, with justice as after events
proved, that if he were faced with it he would be a very desperate
coward. He liked very much my cigarettes, and I gave him these on
condition that he did not spit su