Klimkov did not succeed in hiding himself from the power of hostile thoughts. They appeared again.

The news spread among the spies that some of the ministers had also been bribed by the enemies of the Czar and Russia. They had formed a cabal to take his power from him, and replace the existing good Russian order of life by another order borrowed from foreign governments, which of course would be pernicious to the Russian people. Now these ministers issued a manifesto in which they claimed that with the will and consent of the Czar they announced that soon freedom would be given to the people to assemble wherever they pleased, to speak about whatever interested them, and to write and publish everything they needed to in newspapers. Moreover, they would even be granted the liberty not to believe in God.

The authorities, dismal and demoralized, again began to rush about anxiously. They again spoke kindly to the spies; and though they did not demand anything of the agents, nor advise them what to do, it was apparent that preparations were being made for the disclosure of something significant and important. For whole hours Filip Filippovich would consult secretly with Krasavin, Sasha, Solovyov, and other experienced agents; after which they all went about gloomy and preoccupied, and gave brief, unintelligible responses to the questions of their comrades.

Once the voice of Sasha, virulent and breaking with excitement leaked through the door standing slightly ajar between the outer office and the cabinet of Filip Filippovich.

"It's not about the constitution, not about politics that we ought to speak to them. We must tell them that the new order would destroy them—the quiet among them would die of starvation, the more forward would rot in prison. What sort of men have we in our service? Hybrids, degenerates, the psychically sick, stupid animals."

"You talk God knows what," Filip Filippovich piped aloud.

The mournful voice of Yasnogursky was heard next.

"What a scheme you have! My good man, I can't understand what you're driving at."

Piotr, Grokhotov, Yevsey, and two new spies were sitting in the office. One of the novices was a reddish, hook-nosed man with large freckles on his face and gold glasses; the other shaven, bald, and red-cheeked with a broad nose and a purple birthmark on his neck near his left ear. They listened attentively to Sasha's talk, glancing at each other sidewise. All kept silent. Piotr rose a number of times, and walked to the door. Finally he coughed aloud near it, upon which an invisible hand immediately closed it. The bald spy carefully felt his nose with his thick fingers, and asked quietly:

"Who was it he called hybrids?"

At first nobody responded, then Grokhotov sighing humbly said:

"He calls everybody hybrid."

"A smart beast!" exclaimed Piotr smiling dreamily. "Rotten to the core, but just see how his power keeps rising! That's what education will do for you."

The bald-headed spy looked at everybody with his mole eyes, and again asked hesitatingly:

"What does he mean—eh, eh—does he mean us?"

"Politics," said Grokhotov. "Politics is a wise business. It's not squeamish."

"If I had received an education, I too, would have turned up trumps," declared Piotr.

The red-headed spy carelessly swung himself on his chair, his mouth frequently gaping in a wide yawn.

Sasha emerged from the cabinet, livid and dishevelled. He stopped at the door, and looked at everybody.

"Eavesdropping, eh?" he asked sarcastically.

The rest of the spies dropped into the office one by one, wearily and dismally, flinging various remarks at one another. Maklakov came in an ill humor. The look in his eyes was sharp and insulting. He passed quickly into the cabinet, and banged the door behind him.

"Tables are going to be turned," Sasha said to Piotr. "We'll be the secret society, and they'll remain patent fools. That's what's going to happen. Hey," he shouted, "no one is to leave the office. There's going to be a meeting."

All grew still. Yasnogursky came out from the cabinet with a broad smile widening his large mouth. His protuberant fleshy ears reached to the back of his neck. All sleek and slippery, he produced the impression of a large piece of soap. He walked among the crowd of spies pressing their hands and kindly and humbly nodding his head. Suddenly he walked off into a corner, and began to address the agents in a lachrymose voice:

"Good servants of the Czar, it is with a heart penetrated by grief that I address myself to you—to you, men without fear, men without reproach, true children of the Czar, your father, and of the true Orthodox Church, your mother,—to you I speak."

"Look at him howling!" somebody whispered near Yevsey, who thought he heard Yasnogursky utter an ugly oath.

"You already know of the fresh cunning of the enemy, of the new and baneful plot. You read the proclamation of Minister Bulygin, in which it is said that our Czar wishes to renounce the power entrusted to him by our Lord God over Russia and the Russian people. All this, dear comrades and brothers, is the infernal game of people who have delivered over their souls to foreign capitalists. It is a new attempt to ruin our sacred Russia. What do they want to attain with the Duma they have promised? What do they want to attain by this very constitution and liberty?"

The spies moved closer together.

"In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, let us examine the snares of the devils in the light of truth. Let us look at them with our simple Russian mind, and we'll see how they scatter like dust before our eyes. Just look! They want to deprive the Czar of his divine power, his liberty to rule the country according to the dictates from on High. They want to arrange popular elections, so that the people should send to the Czar their representatives, who would promulgate laws abridging his power. They hope that our people, ignorant and drunk, will permit themselves to be bought with wine and money, and will bring into the Czar's palace those who are pointed out to them by the traitors, liberals and revolutionists. And whom will they point out? Jews, Poles, Armenians, Germans, and other strangers, enemies of Russia."

Klimkov observed that Sasha standing in back of Yasnogursky, smiled sardonically like the devil. He inclined his head, to keep the sick spy from noticing him.

"This band of venal swindlers will surround the bright throne of our Czar and will close his wise eyes to the destiny of our country. They will deliver Russia over into the hands of strangers and foreigners. The Jews will establish their government in Russia, the Poles their government, the Armenians and the Georgians theirs, the Letts theirs, and other paupers whom Russia took under the shelter of her powerful hand, theirs. They will establish their governments, and when we Russians remain alone—then—then—it means—"

Sasha standing at Yasnogursky's side, began to whisper into his ear. The old man waved him off in annoyance, and said aloud:

"Then the Germans, and the English will rush upon us, and will clutch us in their greedy paws. The destruction of Russia is threatening us, dear comrades, my friends. Have a care!"

The last words of his speech were uttered in a shout, then he lapsed into silence lasting about a minute, after which he raised his hand over his head and resumed:

"But our Czar has friends. They watch over his power and over his glory like faithful dogs unbought. They have organized a society for war upon the dastardly conspiracies of the revolutionists, upon the constitution, and every abomination destructive to us, the true Russian people. Counts and princes celebrated for their services to the Czar in Russia are entering this organization, governors submissive to the will of the Czar and faithful to the covenant of our sacred past. Perhaps even the very highest—"

Sasha again stopped Yasnogursky. The old man listened to him, grew red, waved his hands, and suddenly shouted:

"Well, speak yourself. What does it mean? What right have you—I don't want to—"

He gave an odd little leap, and pushing the crowd of spies apart, walked away. Sasha now took his place, and stood there tall and stooping with head thrust forward. Looking around with his red eyes, and rubbing his hands, he asked sharply:

"Well, did you understand?"

"We did—we did," several voices sounded sullenly and half-heartedly.

"Of course!" exclaimed Sasha in derision. Then he began to speak, pronouncing every word with the precision of a hammer-blow. His voice rang with malice.

"Let those also listen who are wiser. Let them explain my words to the fools. The revolutionists, the liberals, our Russian gentry in general, have conquered. Do you understand? The administration has resolved to yield to their demands, it wants to give them a constitution. What does a constitution mean to you? Starvation, death, because you are idlers and do-nothings, you are no good for any sort of work. It means prison for the most of you, because most of you have merited it; for a few others it means the hospital, the insane asylum, because there are a whole lot of half-witted men, psychically sick, among you. The new order of life, if established, will make quick work of you all. The police department will be destroyed, the Department of Safety will be shut down, you will be turned out into the street. Do you understand?"

All were silent, as if turned to stone.

"Then I would go away somewhere," Klimkov thought.

"I think it's plain," said Sasha, after a period of silence. As he again embraced his audience in his look, the red band on his forehead seemed to have spread over his whole face, and his face to become covered with a leaden blue.

"You ought to realize that this change is not advantageous to you, that you don't want it. Therefore you must fight against it now. Isn't that so? For whom, in whose interest, are you going to fight? For your own selves, for your interests, for your right to live as you have lived up to this time. Is what I say clear? What can we do? Let everyone think about this question."

A heavy noise suddenly arose in the close room, as if a huge sick breast were sighing and rattling. Some of the spies walked away silently and sullenly, with drooping heads. One man grumbled in vexation:

"They tell us this and they tell us that. Why don't they increase our salaries instead?"

"They keep frightening us, always frightening us."

In the corner near Sasha about a dozen men had gathered. Yevsey quietly moved up to the group, and heard the enraptured voice of Piotr:

"That's the way to speak! Twice two are four, and all are aces."

"No, I'm not satisfied," said Solovyov sweetly with a prying note in his voice. "Think! What does it mean to think? Everyone may think in his own way. You should tell me what to do."

"You have been told!" put in Krasavin roughly and sharply.

"I don't understand," Maklakov declared calmly.

"You?" shouted Sasha. "You lie! You do understand!"

"No."

"And I say you do, but you're a coward, you're a nobleman—and—and—and I know you."

"Maybe," said Maklakov. "But do you know what you want?" He spoke in so cold a tone, and put so much significance into his voice, that Yevsey trembled and thought:

"Will Sasha strike him?"

Sasha, however, merely repeated the question in a screeching voice:

"I? Do I know what I want?"

"Yes."

"I will tell you." Sasha raised his voice threateningly. "I am soon going to die. I have nobody to fear. I am a stranger to life. I live with hatred of good people before whom you in your thoughts crouch on your knees. Don't you know? You lie. You are a slave, a slave in your soul. A lackey, though you are a nobleman, and I am a muzhik, a perspicacious muzhik. Even though I attended the university, nothing has corrupted me."

Yevsey felt that Sasha's words crawled in his heart like spiders, enmeshing him in gluey threads, squeezing him, tying him up, and drawing him to Sasha. He pressed through to the front, and stood alongside the combatants trying to see the faces of both at the same time.

"I know my enemy. It's you, the gentry. You are gentlemen, even as spies. You are abhorrent everywhere, everywhere execrable, men and women, writers and spies. But I know a means for having done with you gentlemen, the gentry. I know a way. I see what ought to be done with you, how to destroy you."

"That's the very point that's interesting, not your hysterics," said Maklakov thrusting his hands in his pockets.

"Yes, it's interesting to you? Very well. I'll tell you."

Sasha evidently wanted to sit down, for he vacillated like a pendulum. He looked around as he spoke without pause, breathless from quick utterance.

"Who orders life? The gentry. Who spoiled the pretty animal man? Who made him a dirty beast, a sick beast? You, the gentry. Hence all this, the whole of life, ought to be turned against you. So we must open all the ulcers of life, and drown you in the stream of abomination that will flow from them, in the vomit of the people you have poisoned. A curse on you! The time of your execution and destruction has come. All those who have been mutilated by you are rising against you, and they'll choke you, crush you, you understand? Yes, that's how it will be. Nay, it already is. In some cities they have already tried to find out how firmly the heads of the gentlemen are fixed on their shoulders. You know that, don't you?"

Sasha staggered back, and leaned against the wall, stretching his arms forward, and choking and gasping over a broken laugh. Maklakov glanced at the men standing around him, and asked also with a laugh:

"Did you understand what he said?"

"One can say whatever he pleases," replied Solovyov, but the next instant added hastily, "In one's own company. The most interesting thing would be to find out for certain whether a secret society has actually been organized in St. Petersburg and for what purpose."

"That's what we want to know," said Krasavin in a tone of demand. "And what sort of people are in it, too."

"In reality, brothers, the revolution has been transferred to other quarters," exclaimed Piotr, merrily and animatedly.

"If there really are princes in that society," Solovyov meditated dreamily, "then our business ought to improve."

"You have twenty thousand in the bank anyway, old devil."

"And maybe thirty. Count again," said Solovyov in an offended tone, and stepped aside.

Sasha coughed dully and hoarsely; while Maklakov regarded him with a scowl. Yevsey gradually freed himself from the thin shackles of the attraction that the sick spy had unexpectedly begun to exert upon him. His talk, which at first had seized Klimkov, now dissolved and disappeared from his soul like dust under rain.

"What are you looking at me for?" shouted Sasha at Maklakov.

Maklakov turned and walked away without answering. Yevsey involuntarily followed him.

"Did you understand anything?" Maklakov suddenly inquired of Yevsey.

"I don't like it."

"No? Why?"

"He's always rancorous, and there's rancor enough without him."

"Yes, so there is," said Maklakov, nodding his head. "There's rancor enough."

"And it's impossible to understand anything," Klimkov continued, looking around cautiously. "Everybody speaks differently—"

The words had scarcely left his mouth when he grew alarmed, and glanced sidewise at Maklakov's face. The spy pensively brushed the dust from his hat with his handkerchief, apparently oblivious of the dangerous words.

"Well, good-by," he said, holding out his hand to Yevsey. Yevsey wanted to accompany him, but the spy put on his hat, and twirling his mustache, walked out without so much as looking at him.