ointed items:

"_March 18, 1832_: Contract for new outfits of line regiments Nos.
87-8-9 and 90, granted to C---- A---- (one of the Grand-Dukes).
Perquisites understood, 30,000 roubles. Actual per. 280,000
roubles: all cloth, arms, and ammunitions being lowered two grades.
Suspect Count A---- of complicity. Not proved. Remonstrance from
H---- E---- overruled."

"_December, 1853._ Indictment prepared, November 11th, for inquiry
into recent deaths of Prince D---- and his heir, attributed to
poisoning, by person or persons unknown (?). November 20th,
Princess D---- engaged in secret service work for Alexis G----.
November 26th. This day investigation dropped; reconsidered verdict
states poisoning to have been by sterlet caviar. Public feeling
high. Note: Wait definite development. Try woman first."

Over these typical paragraphs Ivan sat for some time. They were what he
had expected.--He himself, indeed, remembered well enough the D----
scandal, and the subsequent disappearance of the notorious Princess,
who had been her husband's second wife, and had hated the heir that
took precedence of her own son.--Had Gregoriev finally exposed
her? or had accident taken from Prince Michael this hold upon
a powerful minister, and one of the greatest beauties of her
time?--Faugh!--Sickening, indeed, this wretched system of blackmail,
more systematic, daring and successful than ever blackmail had been
before!--That map! Good Heaven! What further revelations might it not
contain?--What great name of Russia was absent from it?--Crime,
intrigue, peculation, faithlessness, treachery, treason--by these sins
of others had his father risen to his position and his wealth. Trusting
to the ever-renewed baseness, cupidity, passion of humankind, and their
cowardice in the possibility of discovery, Michael had known that his
sources of revenue would never fail, his victims never rebel. So much,
indeed, he had openly acknowledged. His defence had been: "No innocent
person could ever be touched by me. One mistake on my part, and I should
be lost. Whatever I may have done, Ivan, know that I have never been the
coward, never the remorseless traitor, that my victims are and have
been." And the man who could say this, the man who had taken pride in
his skilful manipulation of the world's evil, and had used it all his
life, had been his own _father_!

Little by little Ivan's rising emotio