I had not been long at the palace before I discovered that many of the

high officials who had ready and constant access there had become

inoculated with the nihilistic bacilli and although I had no doubt that

many of them were at heart loyal to the emperor, I already knew better

than they did the immensity of the obligation they had undertaken in

swearing allegiance to an association of persons dominated by fanatics

and by actual criminals whose trade was murder and whose chiefest

pleasures and relaxation was the study of how best to bring about

entire social upheaval.

The confession of Morét enabled me to read every sign however slight

that was made by these persons and the four weeks of my domicile in the

apartment of the palace that had been assigned to me served me as

nothing else could have done in this respect.

You have already been told that this was by no means my first

experience in St. Petersburg and with nihilism; but I must confess that

extensive as my information had been and was I had never for a moment

contemplated the vast resources of this revolutionary order, its

unlimited ramifications and its boundless possibilities for evil. To

discover as I speedily did that princes of the blood, that ladies high

in place, that generals in the army and lesser officers under them were

among the ranks of the nihilists, was an astounding fact which I had

not contemplated and which I was ill prepared to receive so soon after

my arrival. It extended the requirements of my operation; it increased

ten fold, nay a hundred fold, my obligations to the czar in whose

service I was now sworn.

It seems difficult to imagine a beautiful woman as being at the head

and front of such an organization which discusses murder and which

arranges for wholesale assassination with the same equanimity of

conscience that a hunting party at an English country estate would

arrange for the slaughter of rabbits and pheasants.

But I was destined soon to discover that even this could be true. I was

destined soon to be brought in contact with a beautiful woman who was

not only high in place and a favorite with the czar himself, but who

was veritably a leader in the plots against him.




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