"Well, yes, he had something to complain of, certainly," Reitzei said, translating all that incoherent passion into cool little phrases. "Not a fair fight. Pavel summons his men from the court-yard--men with whips--dogs, too--he is lashed and driven along the roads, and the dogs tear at him! Oh yes, my good friend, you have been badly used; but you have come a long way to tell your story. I must ask him how the mischief he got here at all." But here Reitzei paused and stared. Something the man said--in an eager, low voice, with his sunken small eyes all afire--startled him out of his critical air. "Oh, that is it, is it?" he said, eyeing him. "He will do any thing for us--he will commit a murder--ten murders--if only we give him money, a knife, and help to kill the man Michaieloff. Well, he is a lively sort of person to let loose on society." "The man is clearly mad," Brand said. "The man was madder who sent him to us," Reitzei answered. "I should not like to be in his shoes if Lind hears that this maniac was allowed to see his daughter." The wretched creature standing there glanced eagerly from one to the other, with the eyes of a wild animal, seeking to gather something from their looks; then he went forward to the table, and stooped down and spoke to Reitzei still further, in the same low, fierce voice, his whole frame meanwhile shaking with his excitement. Reitzei said something to him in reply, and motioned him back. He retired a step or two, and then kept watching the faces of the two men. "What are you going to do with him?" Brand said. Reitzei shrugged his shoulders. "I know what I should like to do with him if I dared," he said, with a graceful smile. "There is a friend of mine not a hundred miles away from that very Kiev who wants a little admonition. Her name is Petrovna, she is the jail-matron of a female penitentiary; she is just a little too fierce at times. Murderers, thieves, prostitutes: oh yes, she can be civil enough to them; but let a political prisoner come near her--one of her own sex, mind--and she becomes a devil, a tigress, a vampire. Ah, Madame Petrovna and I may have a little reckoning some day. I have asked Lind again and again to petition for a decree against her; but no, he will not move; he is becoming Anglicized, effeminate." "A decree?" Brand said. The other smiled, with an affectation of calm superiority. "You will learn by-and-by. Meanwhile, if I dared, what I should like to do would be to give our friend here plenty of money, and not one but two knives, saying to him. 'My good friend, here is one knife for Michaieloff, if you like; but first of all here is this knife for that angel in disguise, Madame Petrovna, of the Female Penitentiary in Novolevsk. Strike sure and hard!'" For one instant his affectation forsook him, and there was a gleam in his eyes. This was but a momentary relapse from his professed indifference.