in a madman. And, truly,
there were days when his appearance and behavior might have brought that
thought to other minds than those of illiterate peasants. But these were
only the hours when he was dominated by the fantastic spirit inherent in
the pungent paste which he kept in a golden, jewel-studded tube at the
feet of the goddess. For, when the black butterfly of his melancholy now
danced before his eyes, Ivan reverted remorselessly to that opium which
he had for years abstained from. These days were irregular, however, and
the act voluntary, being not as yet compelled by physical craving. And,
in the intervals, he pursued his ordinary occupations of reading and
composing, to which he had now added the transcribing of his own memoirs
and a self-instituted office of beauty-worship at the statue-shrine,
inaugurated in a fit of angry repudiation of Christian rites, and
continued in that spirit of half-ironical defiance that was now his most
salient characteristic. So, month by month, he dwelt alone, withdrawing
daily more and more within himself, and by degrees lessening personal
contact as much as possible even with his servants. Nevertheless he
retained one means of communication with the world beyond, in a
correspondence maintained with half a dozen representatives of as many
different grades of life: Nathalie, of whom he constantly demanded
further details of the story of the Grand-Duchess Catharine; Balakirev,
now long since in Zaremba's chair at the Petersburg Conservatoire;
Avelallement in Hamburg; an odd little Parisian journalist--through whom
he had eventually obtained the Thebaud Venus; and, lastly, there
departed from Maidonovo, twice a month, letters addressed to the inmate
of a certain convent in the Arno Valley near Florence, whence replies as
regularly arrived, giving quaintly monotonous accounts of the life and
welfare of one Vittoria Lodi, at present merely a dependant in the
convent and the special penitent of the writer: a little old priest, the
only man ever allowed within those sacred walls.

In every one of these people Ivan, despite his distaste for personal
contact with men, took the keenest interest. Their welfare was of
genuine moment to him; though wherefore, he could not himself have said.
Probably this form of communion with his fellow-beings satisfied the
hunger for social intercourse without which man cannot exist as man. And
by degrees his memoirs--the continuation of a sporadic journal l