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Updated: May 4, 2025
Ivan's wife said to the old devil: "You must excuse my sister-in-law; she will not allow any one to sit at the table whose hands have not been hardened by toil, so you will have to wait until the dinner is over and then you can have what is left. With it you must be satisfied."
As he reached the kitchen, the sound seemed clearer. It was Ivan's voice. He opened the cellar stairs and went down. Once, years, even generations past, the house had been the residence of a noble. The cellar was not the one or two rooms of the modern house. It was vast and vaulted and contained a dozen dark, unlighted apartments, all with heavy, iron-barred, oaken doors.
The brief chapter of Ivan's life in the student quarter proceeded merrily to its dramatic close; and, until that close, Ivan remained utterly oblivious of his or the others' danger.
At Ivan's entrance the Englishman rose, and the two talked in whispers, the doctor giving Ivan a résumé of this last seizure: the fearful hemorrhage which had continued for half an hour, and had started up again at intervals throughout the day; and the marvellous vitality which had upheld her, even though her body was nearly bloodless, and her two lungs almost solidly filled.
In short, the season, Ivan's first season, was over. The imperial family were at Peterhoff. Tsarskoë-Selo was brilliant with arrivals from the cream of the court society, among whom, naturally, the Dravikines occupied a foremost place.
"Better kill us now if we cannot avoid death, but we will not become soldiers," they declared. "Oh! you fools," said the old devil, "soldiers may and may not be killed; but if you disobey Ivan's orders you will find certain death at his hands." The fools remained absorbed in thought for some time and finally went to Ivan to question him in regard to the matter.
Nicholas' reply was to draw from his pocket a thin roll of paper, which, separating into duplicate, printed sheets, each bearing at its end the spluttering signature of the impresario, he spread out on Ivan's knee.
She therefore cast aside her magnificent robes, and, putting them into the trunk with Ivan's, dressed herself in cheap clothing and joined her dumb sister-in-law, with the intention of learning to work. She succeeded so well that she soon became a great help to Ivan. Seeing that Ivan was a fool, all the wise men left the kingdom and only the fools remained.
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 emotions of shame and repudiation had grown into an excitement of righteous anger. All the blood in his body seemed to have rushed to his brain and to have remained there, throbbing.
Meantime, Ivan's nature, even in unhappiness, called aloud for solitude. He must struggle alone through his deep waters: waters of the soul, wherein float neither life-preserver nor raft, rope or even light; neither coral reef nor oozy grave, for such as he.
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