As the months went on, she became more and more closely bound to the more ardent spirits among the Social Revolutionaries, and they regarded her as one of their most inspiring leaders. But she continued during all this time to live the ordinary life of the St. Petersburg society, to talk and dance with the young officers at evening parties, and go to the opera, and to take part in sledging and ski-ing parties. Neither her relations nor any of her ordinary acquaintances suspected the intensity of the inner life that was going on within her. They knew she was interested in politics, but so was everybody else. Her friends chaffed her for being what they called “red”; but then a great many people were red. In February 1906, her uncle, General Steinberg, a brother of her deceased father, was appointed to the Governorship of O., a large manufacturing city. It was just at this time that she joined the branch of the Social Revolutionaries which called themselves Maximalists, and whose business it was to remove by violence the persons whom they considered to be obstacles in the way of their cause. These people, when they had decided that some one should be removed, drew lots among themselves as to who should accomplish the deed of destruction. It so happened that, in February 1906, the Executive Committee of the Maximalists condemned General Steinberg to death for suppressing certain riots in the town of O., during which affray a certain number of workmen had been killed and wounded. Lots were drawn as to who should kill General Steinberg--and the lot fell to Irina, his niece. She received the decision with calm, and made preparations for leaving St. Petersburg. She told her aunt she was going to Moscow to stay with some intimate friends of the family: from Moscow it is but a short distance to O. Her relations saw her off at the station, also a young man in the regiment of the Chevalier-Gardes, who was particularly devoted to her. She seemed in excellent spirits. When she arrived at Moscow she went straight to O., and stayed at the hotel, from whence she wrote a letter to her uncle saying that she was on her way to the estate of her St. Petersburg relations, which was a night’s journey from O. Everything was made easy for her, for the next morning she received a letter from him asking her to come to luncheon at half-past twelve. The next morning at the appointed time she started off in a sledge to the Governor’s house, wrapped in a fur _shuba_, and in her muff was concealed a small dynamite bomb capable of enormous destruction. Her uncle greeted her with the utmost simplicity and affection. He was a short, grey-haired man between fifty and sixty, with a thick grey moustache and kind blue eyes. He was a widower and had no children. He took her into his sitting-room.