of cutlets at an officer who was acting as
steward, attacking him and, it was said, striking him for having broken
his word and told a barefaced lie. He would certainly have been reduced
to the ranks had not the Director of the College hushed up the whole
matter and dismissed the steward.

By the time he was eighteen he had finished his College course and
received a commission as lieutenant in an aristocratic regiment of the
Guards.

The Emperor Nicholas Pavlovich (Nicholas I) had noticed him while he
was still at the College, and continued to take notice of him in the
regiment, and it was on this account that people predicted for him an
appointment as aide-de-camp to the Emperor. Kasatsky himself strongly
desired it, not from ambition only but chiefly because since his cadet
days he had been passionately devoted to Nicholas Pavlovich. The Emperor
had often visited the Military College and every time Kasatsky saw
that tall erect figure, with breast expanded in its military overcoat,
entering with brisk step, saw the cropped side-whiskers, the moustache,
the aquiline nose, and heard the sonorous voice exchanging greetings
with the cadets, he was seized by the same rapture that he experienced
later on when he met the woman he loved. Indeed, his passionate
adoration of the Emperor was even stronger: he wished to sacrifice
something--everything, even himself--to prove his complete devotion.
And the Emperor Nicholas was conscious of evoking this rapture and
deliberately aroused it. He played with the cadets, surrounded himself
with them, treating them sometimes with childish simplicity, sometimes
as a friend, and then again with majestic solemnity. After that affair
with the officer, Nicholas Pavlovich said nothing to Kasatsky, but when
the latter approached he waved him away theatrically, frowned, shook his
finger at him, and afterwards when leaving, said: 'Remember that I know
everything. There are some things I would rather not know, but they
remain here,' and he pointed to his heart.

When on leaving College the cadets were received by the Emperor, he did
not again refer to Kasatsky's offence, but told them all, as was his
custom, that they should serve him and the fatherland loyally, that he
would always be their best friend, and that when necessary they might
approach him direct. All the cadets were as usual greatly moved, and
Kasatsky even shed tears, remembering the past, and vowed that he would
serve his beloved