e inevitable isolation of every
soul. But whatever its cause, this sense, in more than one of the race,
had developed into extreme stages of melancholia.

The palace in Konnaia Square had been founded in the year 1679, by the
third of the line, Alexis Gregorievitch, who had purposely placed the
dwelling of his race in this far corner of the city, out of the possible
range of decent dwellings. And none of the succession of Peters and
Mikhails that followed, ever thought to reproach this act of their
ancestor. The details of the life of one of these men would have
sufficed for all, until the breaking of the direct line. But the last
Prince had died childless; and the estate descended by entail to
Michael, eldest son of the dead Prince's dead brother. And though in the
present Gregoriev the instincts of his race survived, they had been in a
large measure altered and redirected. For when, at the age of twenty,
Michael had come into his inheritance, he had, in the first hour of his
new estate, set himself a certain goal, at the same time turning an
iron will and dire traits towards its attainment. Russia was then just
entering upon the rule of the Iron Czar. Iron men, therefore, were soon
in demand, to replace the more vacillating officials who had served the
first Alexander. Prince Gregoriev came forward at once with the request
for a position. And immediately he became involved in that species of
underhand, almost underground, business (necessary to most governments
and to all absolute monarchies) which reached its extreme depth in the
tyranny that ruled Russia during the next thirty years.

It did not take many months for Nicholas to perceive that there lived in
Moscow a supreme performer of questionable transactions. Upon test, the
man showed himself to be all the Czar had thought--and more. He was a
man without a conscience. And the official world rejoiced, and put much
work upon him: so much, that lo! a Gregoriev soon became necessary to
the governmental world. And Michael had worked to more purposes than
one. His great master had no fault to find with his performance of duty.
Thus it was not until too late that more than one of the ministers
discovered the fact that it may be better to have certain things bungled
than to have them carried through by a man so clever that he can put
knowledge amassed by the way to double--sometimes triple, uses. This was
what Gregoriev could, and did, do. He was, _par excellence_, a man