One of the most interesting of our new room-mates, and an original altogether, was Leo Zlatopòlsky,[94] to whom I must devote a few words. He had studied in the Petersburg Technological Institute, had been concerned in the “Trial of the Twenty” in 1882, and sentenced to twenty years’ penal servitude. He had never himself been an active revolutionist, but as he was proficient in mathematical and mechanical knowledge, he had helped the Terrorists in purely technical matters. Even as a student he had been looked on as an inventive genius, and in prison inventions became a mania with him. For a long time he was busy with the project of a circular town, wherein everything was to be run by electricity; and even plants were to be cultivated by that means, for the light and heat of the sun were much too simple affairs to satisfy our inventor. He had a scheme for a flying-machine that should not only carry us all up into aërial heights, but should also be unaffected by the velocity of our Mother Earth’s proper motion. Then he evolved his own theory of values; and beside all these high matters he would also occupy himself with the most prosaic and humble affairs, such as new methods of doing the washing, boiling potatoes, or making shoes. He elaborated a new theory of heating dwellings, invented new card games; in short, in every department of life, he was prepared to upset the existing condition of things and build it all up anew in some hitherto undreamt-of fashion. His beautiful plans, however, all suffered from one small disqualification: they were never practicable in real life. That, of course, he would never allow, declaring his inventions to be perfect and beyond criticism; but this did not prevent him from throwing one after another aside to pursue some fresh idea with equal energy. Not unnaturally he soon became the butt of everyone’s jokes, and most absurd stories were told about him. He was really a very capable and learned man; but there was just something wanting to make him a genius. Perhaps we were right in setting him down, as we did, among Lombroso’s “matoids.” Footnote 94: See portrait, p. 209. [Illustration: DULEMBA, KOHN, RECHNYEVSKY, LURI, MANKOVSKY To face page 258 ] * * * * *