s of his being there
lurked a sense of happiness very soothing to his soul. Was it a result
of the peaceful country life, the summer, the fresh air, dainty food,
beautiful home, or was it due to the fact that for the first time in
his life he was tasting the sweetness of contact with a woman's soul?
It would be difficult to say. But he felt happy, although he complained,
and quite sincerely, to his friend Silin.

The mood, however, was abruptly destroyed in a single day.

On the morning of this day Nejdanov received a letter from Vassily
Nikolaevitch, instructing him, together with Markelov, to lose no
time in coming to an understanding with Solomin and a certain merchant
Golushkin, an Old Believer, living at S. This letter upset Nejdanov very
much; it contained a note of reproach at his inactivity. The bitterness
which had shown itself only in his words now rose with full force from
the depths of his soul.

Kollomietzev came to dinner, disturbed and agitated. "Would you believe
it!" he shouted almost in tears, "what horrors I've read in the papers!
My friend, my beloved Michael, the Servian prince, has been assassinated
by some blackguards in Belgrade. This is what these Jacobins and
revolutionists will bring us to if a firm stop is not put to them all!"
Sipiagin permitted himself to remark that this horrible murder was
probably not the work of Jacobins, "of whom there could hardly be any in
Servia," but might have been committed by some of the followers of the
Karageorgievsky party, enemies of Obrenovitch. Kollomietzev would not
hear of this, and began to relate, in the same tearful voice, how the
late prince had loved him and what a beautiful gun he had given him!
Having spent himself somewhat and got rather irritable, he at last
turned from foreign Jacobins to home-bred nihilists and socialists, and
ended by flying into a passion. He seized a large roll, and breaking it
in half over his soup plate, in the manner of the stylish Parisian in
the "Cafe-Riche," announced that he would like to tear limb from limb,
reduce to ashes, all those who objected to anybody or to anything! These
were his very words. "It is high time! High time!" he announced, raising
the spoon to his mouth; "yes, high time!" he repeated, giving his glass
to the servant, who was pouring out sherry. He spoke reverentially about
the great Moscow publishers, and Ladislas, notre bon et cher Ladislas,
did not leave his lips. At this point, he fixed his