I don't know

So Mart--hard-working Mart--was the Wild Dog, and he was content to do the Blight all service without thanks, merely for the privilege of secretly seeing her face now and then; and yet he would not look upon that face when she was a guest under his roof and asleep.

Still, when we dropped behind the two girls I gave Marston the Hon. Sam's warning, and for a moment he looked rather grave.

``Well,'' he said, smiling, ``if I'm found in the road some day, you'll know who did it.''

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I shook my head.  ``Oh, no; he isn't that bad.''

``I don't know,'' said Marston.


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The smoke of the young engineer's coke ovens lay far below us and the Blight had never seen a coke-plant before.  It looked like Hades even in the early dusk--the snake-like coil of fiery ovens stretching up the long, deep ravine, and the smoke- streaked clouds of fire, trailing like a yellow mist over them, with a fierce white blast shooting up here and there when the lid of an oven was raised, as though to add fresh temperature to some particular male- factor in some particular chamber of torment.  Humanity about was joyous, however.  Laughter and banter and song came from the cabins that lined the big ravine and the little ravines opening into it.  A banjo tinkled at the entrance of ``Possum Trot,'' sacred to the darkies.  We moved toward it.  On the stoop sat an ecstatic picker and in the dust shuffled three pickaninnies--one boy and two girls--the youngest not five years old.  The crowd that was gathered about them gave way respectfully as we drew near; the little darkies showed their white teeth in jolly grins, and their feet shook the dust in happy competition.  I showered a few coins for the Blight and on we went--into the mouth of the many-peaked Gap.  The night train was coming in and everybody had a smile of welcome for the Blight-- post-office assistant, drug clerk, soda-water boy, telegraph operator, hostler, who came for the mules--and when tired, but happy, she slipped from her saddle to the ground, she then and there gave me what she usually reserves for Christmas morning, and that, too, while Marston was looking on.  Over her shoulder I smiled at him.


That night Marston and the Blight sat under the vines on the porch until the late moon rose over Wallens Ridge, and, when bedtime came, the Blight said impatiently that she did not want to go home.  She had to go, however, next day, but on the next Fourth of July she would surely come again; and, as the young engineer mounted his horse and set his face toward Black Mountain, I knew that until that day, for him, a blight would still be in the hills.

CHAPTER III.

CHAPTER III.



From that time the tie between father and daughter grew very strong and tender indeed.  Ellinor, it is true, divided her affection between her baby sister and her papa; but he, caring little for babies, had only a theoretic regard for his younger child, while the elder absorbed all his love.  Every day that he dined at home Ellinor was placed opposite to him while he ate his late dinner; she sat where her mother had done during the meal, although she had dined and even supped some time before on the more primitive nursery fare.  It was half pitiful, half amusing, to see the little girl's grave, thoughtful ways and modes of speech, as if trying to act up to the dignity of her place as her father's companion,
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till sometimes the little head nodded off to slumber in the middle of lisping some wise little speech.  "Old-fashioned," the nurses called her, and prophesied that she would not live long in consequence of her old- fashionedness.  But instead of the fulfilment of this prophecy, the fat bright baby was seized with fits, and was well, ill, and dead in a day!  Ellinor's grief was something alarming, from its quietness and concealment.  She waited till she was left--as she thought--alone at nights, and then sobbed and cried her passionate cry for "Baby, baby, come back to me--come back;" till every one feared for the health of the frail little girl whose childish affections had had to stand two such shocks.  Her father put aside all business, all pleasure of every kind, to win his darling from her grief.  No mother could have done more, no tenderest nurse done half so much as Mr. Wilkins then did for Ellinor.
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If it had not been for him she would have just died of her grief.  As it was, she overcame it--but slowly, wearily--hardly letting herself love anyone for some time, as if she instinctively feared lest all her strong attachments should find a sudden end in death.  Her love-- thus dammed up into a small space--at last burst its banks, and overflowed on her father.  It was a rich reward to him for all his care of her, and he took delight--perhaps a selfish delight--in all the many pretty ways she perpetually found of convincing him, if he had needed conviction, that he was ever the first object with her. The nurse told him that half an hour or so before the earliest time at which he could be expected home in the evenings, Miss Ellinor began to fold up her doll's things and lull the inanimate treasure to sleep.  Then she would sit and listen with an intensity of attention for his footstep.  Once the nurse had expressed some wonder at the distance at which Ellinor could hear her father's approach, saying that she had listened and could not hear a sound, to which Ellinor had replied:

"Of course you cannot; he is not your papa!"

Then, when he went away in the morning, after he had kissed her, Ellinor would run to a certain window from which she could watch him up the lane, now hidden behind a hedge, now reappearing through an open space, again out of sight, till he reached a great old beech- tree, where for an instant more she saw him.  And then she would turn away with a sigh, sometimes reassuring her unspoken fears by saying softly to herself,

"He will come again to-night."

The chateau was left to itself to flame and burn.

The chateau was left to itself to flame and burn. In the roaring and raging of the conflagration, a red-hot wind, driving straight from the infernal regions, seemed to be blowing the edifice away. With the rising and falling of the blaze, the stone faces showed as if they were in torment. When great masses of stone and timber fell, the face with the two dints in the nose became obscured: anon struggled out of the smoke again, as if it were the face of the cruel Marquis, burning at the stake and contending with the fire.

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The chateau burned; the nearest trees, laid hold of by the fire, scorched and shrivelled; trees at a distance, fired by the four fierce figures, begirt the blazing edifice with a new forest of smoke. Molten lead and iron boiled in the marble basin of the fountain; the water ran dry; the extinguisher tops of the towers vanished like ice before the heat, and trickled down into four rugged wells of flame. Great rents and splits branched out in the solid walls, like crystallisation; stupefied birds wheeled about and dropped into the furnace; four fierce figures trudged away, East, West, North, and South, along the night-enshrouded roads, guided by the beacon they had lighted, towards their next destination. The illuminated village had seized hold of the tocsin, and, abolishing the lawful ringer, rang for joy.

Not only that; but the village, light-headed with famine, fire, and bell-ringing, and bethinking itself that Monsieur Gabelle had to do with the collection of rent and taxes--though it was but a small instalment of taxes, and no rent at all, that Gabelle had got in those latter days--became impatient for an interview with him, and, surrounding his house, summoned him to come forth for personal conference. Whereupon, Monsieur Gabelle did heavily bar his door, and retire to hold counsel with himself The result of that conference was, that Gabelle again withdrew himself to his house-top behind his stack of chimneys; this time resolved, if his door was broken in (he was a small Southern man of retaliative temperament), to pitch himself head foremost over the parapet, and crush a man or two below.

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Probably, Monsieur Gabelle passed a long night up there, with the distant chateau for fire and candle, and the beating at his door, combined with the joy-ringing, for music; not to mention his having an ill-omened lamp slung across the road before his posting-house gate, which the village showed a lively inclination to displace in his favour. A trying suspense, to be passing a whole summer night on the brink of the black ocean, ready to take that plunge into it upon which Monsieur Gabelle had resolved But, the friendly dawn appearing at last, and the rush-candles of the village guttering out, the people happily dispersed, and Monsieur Gabelle came down bringing his life with him for that while.

Another dividend from the curve!

Barely missing the crying baby, as the runabout jerked forward, he made a fruitless attempt to run down the raging collie. Then he addressed himself to the business of getting himself and his brother as far out of the way as possible, before the oncoming car should reach the scene of strife.

As a matter of fact, the other car never reached this spot. Its occupants were two youths and two damsels, in search of a sequestered space of road where they might halt for a brief but delectable "petting party," on their way to a dance in the village. They found such a space, about a furlong on the thither side of the curve where the runabout had stopped. And they advanced no farther.

Lad, for a few rods, gave chase to the retreating Schwartzes. Then, the heavy exertions of the past minute or two began to exact toll on his aging body. Also, the baby was still whimpering in a drowsy monotone, as the paregoric sought to renew its sway on the racket awakened brain.
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The dog turned pantingly back to the bundle; pawed it softly, as though to make sure the contents were not harmed; then once more picked it up gingerly between his reddened jaws; and continued his sedate homeward journey.

The Mistress and the Master. were sitting on the veranda. It was almost bedtime. The Master arose, to begin his nightly task of locking the lower windows. From somewhere on the highroad that lay two hundred yards distant from the house, came the confused noise of shouts. Then, as he listened, the far-off sounds ceased. He went on with his task of locking up; and returned in a minute or two to the veranda.
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As he did so, Lad came walking slowly up the porch steps. In his mouth he carried something large and white and dusty. This he proceeded to deposit with much care at the feet of the Mistress. Then he stood back; tail waving, dark eyes mischievously expectant.

"Another dividend from the curve!" laughed the Master. "What is it, this time? A pillow or--?"

He broke off in the middle of his amused query. For, even as he turned his flashlight on the dusty and blood-streaked bundle, the baby began once more to cry.

The local chief of police, in the village across the lake, was making ready for bed, when a telephone summons brought him back to his lower hallway.

"Hello!" came the Master's hail, over the wire. "Chief, has there been any alarm sent out for--for a missing baby?"

"Baby?" echoed the Chief. "No. Have you lost one?"

Where is it? Where ... ?

And then she realized what was happening. Gloon was at- tacking. He had dropped level with the ground so that his shadow could no longer be seen, and he was coming at her. How fast? How soon? She panicked, staggering backward in fear. She couldn't see him! She tried to pick out the shrike against the dark horizon, but could see nothing. She tried to hear him, but there was only silence. Where is it? Where ... ? Instinct alone saved her. She threw herself aside on impulse and felt the massive weight of the shrike rip past her, talons tearing at the air inches away. She struck and rolled wildly, tasting dust and blood in her mouth, feeling the pain of her in- jured body rush through her anew. The Talismans of Shannara 337 She came back to her feet instantly, whirled in the direction she thought the shrike had gone, summoned the magic of the Elfstones, and sent it careening out into the night in a fan of blue fire. But the fire blazed into the void and struck nothing. Wren dropped into a crouch, desperately scanning the moonlit blackness. It would be coming back-but she couldn't see it! She had lost it! Below the horizon it was invisible. Despair raced through her. Which way was it coming? Which way? She struck out blindly, right and then left, and threw herself down, rolling, coming up and striking out again. She heard the magic collide with something. There was a shriek, followed by Gloon's heavy passage as the shrike winged off to her left, hissing like steam. She peered after the sound, wiping at the dust in her eyes. Nothing.

I'm sorry. Damson.

"A Shadowen couldn't do that, could it? " she whispered. He reached down quickly and pried her fingers away. "No," he said. "Not without triggering the magic." He lay the talis- man aside, tore strips of cloth from his cloak, and began to bind her hands. "You didn't have to do that," he reproached her.

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Her smile was faint and wistful. "Didn't I? Would you have been sure of me otherwise, Morgan Leah? I don't think so. And if you're not sure of me, how can we be of help to each other? There has to be trust between us." She fixed him with her gentle eyes. "Is there now? " He nodded quickly. "Yes. I'm sorry. Damson."

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Her bound hands reached up to clasp his own. "Let me tell you something." The tears were back in her eyes. "You said that your friend Steff was in love with Teel? Well, Highlander, I am in love with Par Ohmsford." He saw it all then, the reason she had stayed with Par, had given herself so completely to him, following him even into the Pit, watching over him, protecting him- It was what he would have done-had tried to do-for Quickening. Damson Rhee had made a commitment that only death would release.

You can't know that!

His face hardened. "Why? Because something went wrong when it was used before? Because those who used it hadn't the ability or strength or sense of what was needed to use it prop- erly?" She shook her head, voiceless.

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"Wren! The magic has to be used! It has to be! That is why it is there in the first place! If we don't make use of it, someone else will, and then what? This isn't a game we play. You know as much. There are things out there so dangerous that . . "Things the Elves made!" she said angrily. "Yes! A mistake, I agree! But others would have made them if we had not!" "You can't know that!"

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"It doesn't matter. The fact remains we made them for a good cause! We have learned a lot! The making is in the soul of the wielder of the power! It simply requires strength of pur- pose and channeling of need! This time we can do it right!" He broke off, waiting for her response. They faced each other in silence. Then Wren took a deep breath and reached down to remove his hand from the Staff. "I don't think you had better say anything more." His smile was bitter, ironic. "Once you were angry because I hadn't said enough." "Gavilan," she whispered. "Do you think this will all go away if we don't talk about it, that everything will somehow just work out?" She shook her head slowly, sadly.

CHAPTER I

The Elf Queen of Shannara Terry Brooks CHAPTER I

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FIRE. It sputtered in the oil lamps that hung distant and solitary in the windows and entryways of her people's homes. It spat and hissed as it licked at the pitch-coated torches bracketing road intersections and gates. It glowed through breaks in the leafy branches of the ancient oak and hickory where glassed lanterns lined the treelanes. Bits and pieces of flickering light, the flames were like tiny creatures that the night threatened to search out and consume. Like ourselves, she thought. Like the Elves. Her gaze lifted, traveling beyond the buildings and walls of the city to where Killeshan steamed. Fire. It glowed redly out of the volcano's ragged mouth, the glare of its molten core reflected in the clouds of vog-volcanic ash- that hung in sullen banks across the empty sky. Killeshan loomed over them, vast and intractable, a phenomenon of nature that no Elven magic could hope to withstand. For weeks now the rumbling had sounded from deep within the earth, dissatisfied, purposeful, a buildingup of pressure that would eventually de- mand release.

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For now, the lava burrowed and tunneled through cracks and fissures in its walls and ran down into the waters of the ocean in long, twisting ribbons that burned off the jungle and the things that lived within it. One day soon now, she knew, this secondary venting would not be enough, and Killeshan would erupt in a conflagration that would destroy them all.

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He had almost died from the poison of the Asphinx and again from the attack of the Shadowen at Hearthstone. A part of him had surely died with the loss of his arm, another part with the failure of his magic to cure his sick- ness. A part of him had died with Cogline. He had been empty and lost on this journey, compelled to come by his rage at the Shadowen, his fear at being left alone, and his wish to discover the secrets of Uhl Belk and the Black Elfstone. Even Quicken- ing, despite ministering to his needs, both physical and emo- tional, had not been strong enough to give him back to himself. He had been a hollow thing, bereft of any sense of who and what he was supposed to be, reduced to undertaking this quest in the faint hope that he would discover his purpose in the world.

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And now, here within this vast, desolate stretch of land, where fears and doubts and weaknesses were felt most keenly, Walker Boh thought he had a chance to come alive again.

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It was the presence of the Koden that triggered this hope. Until now the magic had been curiously silent within him, a worn and tired thing that had failed repeatedly and at last seemed to have given up. To be sure, it was there still to protect him when he was threatened, to frighten off the Urdas when they came too close, to deflect their hurled weapons. Yet this was a poor and sorry use when he remembered what it had once been able to do. What of the empathy it had given him with other living things? What of his sense of emotions and thoughts? What of the knowledge that had always just seemed to come to him? What of the glimpses of what was to be? All of these had de- serted him, gone away as surely as his old world, his life with Cogline and Rumor at Hearthstone.

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And there was only one way to do so. He hardened himself to the fact of it, walling himself away from his emotions, drawing from some final reserve the last of his strength. He cast about the cavern floor until he found what

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The Druid of Shannara 11 he needed. It was a rock that was approximately the size and shape of an axe-blade, jagged on one side, hard enough to have survived intact its fall from the chamber ceiling where it had been loosened by the battle four centuries earlier between Al- lanon and the serpent Valg. The rock lay twenty feet away, clearly beyond reach of any ordinary man. But not him. He summoned a fragment of the magic that remained to him, forc- ing himself to remain steady during its use. The rock inched forward, scraping as it moved, a slow scratching in the cavern's silence. Walker grew light-headed from the strain, the fever burning through him, leaving him nauseated. Yet he kept the rock moving closer.

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At last it was within reach of his free hand. He let the magic slip away, taking long moments to gather himself. Then he stretched out his arm to the rock, and his fingers closed tightly about it. Slowly he gathered it in, finding it impossibly heavy, so heavy in fact that he was not certain he could manage to lift it let alone . . . He could not finish the thought. He could not dwell on what he was about to do. He dragged the rock over until it was next to him, braced himself firmly with his knees, took a deep breath, raised the rock overhead, hesitated for just an instant, then in a rush of fear and anguish brought it down. It smashed into the stone of his arm between elbow and wrist, hammering it with such force that it jarred his entire body. The resulting pain was so agonizing that it threatened to render him unconscious. He screamed as waves of it washed through him; he felt as if he were being torn apart from the inside out. He fell forward, gasp- ing for breath, and the axe-blade rock dropped from his nerve- less fingers.

They didn't speak for a time

"Then perhaps he is relying on you to tell him." Par nodded slowly. "That makes better sense. I told him I was going; maybe he thinks that one of us going is enough." Coil stretched his big frame full length on the ground and stared up into the trees. "But you don't believe that either, do you?" His brother smiled faintly. "No." "You still think that it's something else." "Yes." They didn't speak for a time, staring off into the woods, think- ing their separate thoughts. Slender streams of sunlight played along their bodies through chinks in the limbs canopied over- head, and the songs of birds filtered through the stillness. "I like it here," Par said finally. Coil had his eyes closed. "Where do you think he's hiding?" "Walker? I don't know. Under a rock, I suppose." "You're to6 quick to judge him, Par. You don't have the right to do that." Par bit off what he was going to say next and contented him- self with watching a ray of sunlight work its way across Coil's face until it was in his eyes, causing him to blink and shift his body. Coil sat up, his squarish face a mask of contentment. Not much of anything ruffled him; he always managed to keep his sense of balance. Par admired him for that. Coil always under- 118 The Scions of Shannara stood the relative importance of events in the greater scheme of things.

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I don't think so.

It was not until after dinner, when she made her way up the narrow stairs to her room and heard him following, that it occurred to her that his interest was more than conversational. She almost burst out laughing as he took her arm with clumsy caution outside her door. She kissed him on the cheek and told him to get on with his books. When he knocked on the door an hour later, however, she let him in. She was feeling very cold. He was overwhelmed with gratitude and excitement; he was not able to contain himself even for a minute. In the small and icy hours of the morning he tried again. Elizabeth, reluctant to be awoken from deep sleep after a long day's walk, submitted wearily. He did not want to talk to her in the morning; he wanted to leave as quickly as possible. She felt a little tenderness toward him. She wondered what function the episode had served in his life and in his mythology of himself. She liked living alone, she liked being alone. She ate what she wanted, not proper meals but plates of mushrooms and baked potatoes, grapes, peaches, or soups she made herself. She filled glasses with ice cubes and lemon slices, then poured gin over them, hearing the explosion of the ice, leaving hardly any room for tonic water. She had plastic tops that kept the wine drinkable from one day to the next. In the cinema, she could drown in the sensuous load of picture and sound without the distraction of company or conversation. In the worst films she wandered off from the story and inhabited the scenery in a plot of her own. She felt self-conscious about going unaccompanied in case she should meet a couple she knew hand-in-hand in the foyer on their evening out; so she generally went on Saturday afternoon, entering in the after-lunch daylight, emerging in the darkness with the full evening still ahead. By the end of a weekend she did want to talk to someone. She had read articles in the papers or seen something on the television that had set her mind moving; she needed to test her response. "What do you know about the war, Irene?" she said. "You know, the First World War." " 'Pack up your troubles' and all that stuff?" said Irene. "Terrible business, wasn't it?" "Did your father fight in it?" said Elizabeth, cutting the hairy, internal stalk from the centre of a quartered tomato. "I don't think so. I never asked him. But he fought in something because I've seen his medals."

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"We mout as well go down to Uncle Ziah's," decided Ransie, "and spend the night." He climbed into the cart on one side, and Ariela climbed in on the other. Obeying the flap of his rope, the little red bull slowly came around on a tack, and the cart crawled away in the nimbus arising from its wheels. Justice-of-the-peace Benaja Widdup smoked his elder- stem pipe. Late in the afternoon he got his weekly paper, and read it until the twilight dimmed its lines. Then he lit the tallow candle on his table, and read until the moon rose, marking the time for supper. He lived in the double log cabin on the slope near the girdled poplar. Going home to supper he crossed a little branch darkened by a laurel thicket. The dark figure of a man stepped from the laurels and pointed a rifle at his breast. His hat was pulled down low, and something covered most of his face.

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After supper the flying pair disappeared quickly- Although Sam haunted lobby and stairway and halls half the night, in some mysterious way the fugitives eluded him; and in the morning the veiled lady in the brown dress with the accordion-plaited skirt and the dapper young man with the close-clipped hair, and the buckboard with the prancing nags, were gone. It is a monotonous story, that of the ride; so it shall be curtailed. Once again we overtook them on a road. We were about fifty yards behind. They turned in the buckboard and looked at us; then drove on without whipping up their horses. Their safety no longer lay in speed. Ben Tatum knew. He knew that the only rock of safety left to him was the code. There is no doubt that, had he been alone, the matter would have been settled quickly with Sam Durkee in the usual way; but he had something at his side that kept still the trigger-finger of both. It seemed likely that he was no coward.

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The young man gave a low whistle and his eyes flashed with a sudden thought. His hand flew to the inside pocket of his coat, and drew out a handful of letters. Selecting one, he handed it to the boy, following it with a silver dollar from his vest-pocket. "Give that letter to the lady," he said, "and ask her to read it. Tell her that it should explain the situation. Tell her that, if she had mingled a little trust with her conception of the ideal, much heartache might have been avoided. Tell her that the loyalty she prizes so much has never wavered. Tell her I am waiting for an answer." The messenger stood before the lady. "De gent says he's had de ski-bunk put on him widout no cause. He says he's no bum guy; and, lady, yer read dat letter, and I'll bet yer he's a white sport, all right."

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The diners accepted the revelation in various ways--some incredulously, some with congratulations; others turned upon her the stream of badinage that had hitherto been directed at Aileen alone. And Tildy's heart swelled in her bosom, for she saw at last the towers of Romance rise above the horizon of the grey plain in which she had for so long travelled. For two days Mr. Seeders came not again. During that time Tildy established herself firmly as a woman to be wooed. She bought ribbons, and arranged her hair like Aileen's, and tightened her waist two inches. She had a thrilling but delightful fear that Mr. Seeders would rush in suddenly and shoot her with a pistol. He must have loved her desperately; and impulsive lovers are always blindly jealous.

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About two hours later I saw an excited crowd besieging the front of a drug store. In a desert where nothing happens this was manna; so I edged my way inside. On an extemporized couch of empty boxes and chairs was stretched the mortal corporeality of Major Wentworth Caswell. A doctor was testing him for the immortal ingredient. His decision was that it was conspicuous by its absence.

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The erstwhile Major had been found dead on a dark street and brought by curious and ennuied citizens to the drug store. The late human being had been engaged in terrific battle--the details showed that. Loafer and reprobate though he had been, he had been also a warrior. But he had lost. His hands were yet clinched so tightly that his fingers would not be opened. The gentle citizens who had know him stood about and searched their vocabularies to find some good words, if it were possible, to speak of him.

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One kind-looking man said, after much thought: "When 'Cas' was about fo'teen he was one of the best spellers in school." While I stood there the fingers of the right hand of "the man that was" which hung down the side of a white pine box, relaxed, and dropped something at my feet. I covered it with one foot quietly, and a little later on I picked it up and pocketed it. I reasoned that in his last struggle his hand must have seized that object unwittingly and held it in a death grip.

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"'Yes,' says I, 'I remember. My foot slipped as I was jumping on the step, and I nearly tumbled off.'

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"'I know,' says she. 'And--and I--I was afraid you had, John A. I was afraid you had.' "And then she skips into the house through one of the big windows." IV

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"Coketown!" droned the porter, making his way through the slowing car. Pescud gathered his hat and baggage with the leisurely promptness of an old traveller. "I married her a year ago," said John. "I told you I built a house in the East End. The belted--I mean the colonel--is there, too. I find him waiting at the gate whenever I get back from a trip to hear any new story I might have picked up on the road."

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On the way he uttered only a few brief phrases, telling me he had left mother with Tatyana Pavlovna and so on. He walked holding my arm. His lodging was not far off and we soon arrived. I had, in fact, never been in these rooms of his. It was a small flat of three rooms, which he had taken or rather Tatyana Pavlovna had taken simply for that "tiny baby." The flat had always been under Tatyana Pavlovna's supervision, and in it had been installed a nurse with the baby (and now Darya Onisimovna, too), but there had always been a room there for Versilov, the outermost of the three, a fairly good and spacious room, snugly furnished,

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like a study for literary pursuits. On the table, on the shelves, and on a whatnot there were numbers of books (while at mother's there were none at all); there were manuscripts and bundles of letters--in fact, it all looked snug and as though it had been long inhabited, and I know that in the past Versilov had sometimes, though not very often, moved into this flat altogether, and had stayed there even for weeks at a time. The first thing that caught my attention was a portrait of mother that hung over the writing table; a photograph in a magnificent carved frame of rare wood, obviously taken abroad and judging from its size a very expensive one.

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I had never heard of this portrait and knew nothing of it before, and what struck me most of all was the likeness which was remarkable in a photograph, the spiritual truth of it, so to say; in fact it looked more like a real portrait by the hand of an artist than a mere mechanical print. When I went in I could not help stopping before it at once. "Isn't it, isn't it?" Versilov repeated behind me, meaning, "Isn't it like?" I glanced at him and was struck by the expression of his face. He was rather pale, but there was a glowing and intense look in his eyes which seemed shining with happiness and strength. I had never seen such an expression on his face. "I did not know that you loved mother so much!" I blurted out, suddenly delighted.

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I noticed at once that the old man had lurking in his mind a painful conviction (it was impossible to avoid noticing it, indeed) that every one had begun to look at him strangely, that every one had begun to behave to him not as before, not as to a healthy man. This impression never left him even at the liveliest social

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functions. The old man had become suspicious, had begun to detect something in every one's eyes. He was evidently tormented by the idea that every one suspected him of being mad. He sometimes looked mistrustfully even at me. And if he had found out that some one was spreading or upholding such rumours, the benevolent old man would have become his implacable foe. I beg that this circumstance may be noted. I may add that it was what decided me from the first day not to be rude to him; in fact, I was glad if I were able sometimes to amuse or entertain him; I don't think that this confession can cast any slur on my dignity. The greater part of his money was invested. He had since his illness become a partner in a large joint stock enterprise, a very safe one, however. And though the management was in other hands he took a great interest in it, too, attended the shareholders' meetings, was appointed a director, presided at the board-meetings, opposed motions, was noisy and obviously enjoyed himself. He was very fond of making speeches: every one could judge of his brain anyway. And in general he developed a great fancy for introducing profound reflections and bon mots in his conversation, even in the intimacy of private life. I quite understand it. On the ground floor of his house there was something like a private office where a single clerk kept the books and accounts and also managed the house. This clerk was quite equal to the work alone, though he had some government job as well, but by the prince's own wish I was engaged to assist him; but I was immediately transferred to the prince's study, and often had no work before me, not even books or papers to keep up appearances. I am writing now sobered by time; and about many things feel now almost like an outsider; but how can I describe the depression (I recall it vividly at this moment) that weighed down my heart in those days, and still more, the excitement which reached such a pitch of confused feverishness that I did not sleep at night--all due to my impatience, to the riddles I had set myself to solve.