The next day, and many days after, I presented myself at the outer fort where Count Kourásoff was imprisoned, and, after having been duly searched and found to carry nothing with me but a huge account-book showing Count Kourásoff to be thousands of roubles in debt to me, I was admitted to his narrow apartment, where we would sit at a little table and figure and dispute by the hour. During these apparently stormy interviews, when a great deal of information was conveyed to him about Olga as well as public affairs, the sentry who walked up and down before his open door cast many angry looks at me, and always ushered me out with more haste than civility; for Count Loris had managed to engage the affections of the soldiers who guarded him as well as everybody else's. My parting assurance to him always was that the mines of Siberia would claim him yet; to which he would respond by saying that no misfortunes of his would benefit me or make him pay my dishonest account. He had another visitor besides myself. Day after day a priest, whom I knew to be my friend at Ivánofka, but who was apparently fifty years older than in the August before, appeared at General Klapka's _levée_. He seemed so old as to be nearly imbecile; but with singular persistence he came, always telling some endless tale of the wrongs he had suffered at the hands of the Kourásoffs, and always demanding to see the supposed Vladimir. At last, one day, in a mingled fit of impatience and unusual good nature, General Klapka ordered him to be admitted to Count Kourásoff, where he talked and mumbled so incoherently that the count appeared unable to understand him and to be quite worn out with him. However, he continued to come at intervals, and his stupidity became a jest for the soldiers of the guard; but Count Loris understood from his wandering talk the exact state of affairs at Ivánofka during his absence. Meanwhile the city was in a state of excitement difficult to describe. The arrest of Count Vladimir Kourásoff, as was supposed, followed by that of several other officers and members of families of distinction, created a profound impression; but the Government seemed in no haste to bring the prisoners to trial, and they were treated with extraordinary leniency. There was great surprise manifested at the disappearance of Count Loris Kourásoff; but General Klapka did not hesitate to say that Count Loris knew enough of his brother's schemes to make his absence convenient, if not necessary.