me to afflict him further.’ ‘How is he a philosopher?’ I asked him once. (Janus didn’t take to me; if I went near him he would fly into a rage, and mutter thickly, ‘Stranger! keep off!’) ‘Eh, God bless me! isn’t he a philosopher?’ answered Alexey Sergeitch. ‘Look ye, little sir, how wisely he holds his tongue!’ ‘But why is he double-faced?’ ‘Because, little sir, he has one face on the outside--and so you, surface-gazers, judge him.... But the other, the real face he hides. And that face I know, and no one else--and I love him for it ... because that face is good. You, for instance, look and see nothing ... but I see without a word: he is blaming me for something; for he’s a severe critic! And it’s always with good reason. That, little sir, you can’t understand; but you may believe an old man like me!’ The real history of the two-faced Janus--where he came from, and how he came into Alexey Sergeitch’s hands--no one knew; but the story of Prince L. was well known to every one. He went, a lad of twenty, of a wealthy and distinguished family, to Petersburg, to serve in a regiment of the Guards. At the first levee the Empress Catherine noticed him, stood still before him, and, pointing at him with her fan, she said aloud, addressing one of her courtiers, who happened to be near, ‘Look, Adam Vassilievitch, what a pretty fellow! a perfect doll!’ The poor boy’s head was completely turned; when he got home he ordered his coach out, and, putting on a ribbon of St. Anne, proceeded to drive all over the town, as though he had reached the pinnacle of fortune. ‘Drive over every one,’ he shouted to his coachman, ‘who does not move out of the way!’ All this was promptly reported to the empress: the decree went forth that he should be declared insane, and put under the guardianship of two of his brothers; and they, without a moment’s delay, carried him off to the country, and flung him into a stone cell in chains. As they wanted to get the benefit of his property, they did not let the poor wretch out, even when he had completely recovered his balance, and positively kept him locked up till he really did go out of his mind. But their evil doings did not prosper; Prince L. outlived his brothers, and, after long years of adversity, he came into the charge of Alexey Sergeitch, whose kinsman he was. He was a stout, completely bald man, with a long, thin nose and prominent blue eyes. He had quite forgotten how to talk--he simply uttered a sort of inarticulate grumbling; but he sang old-fashioned Russian ballads beautifully, preserving the silvery freshness of his voice to extreme old age; and, while he was singing, he pronounced each word clearly and distinctly. He had attacks at times of a sort of fury, and then he became terrible: he would stand in the corner, with his face to the wall, and all perspiring and red--red all down his bald head and down his neck--he used to go off into vicious chuckles, and, stamping with