“_Difficult?_” Ivan repeated with a heavy sigh. “Would it were _only_ difficult! Sometimes it seems to me as if his way were so hedged about that it is impossible for him to do anything at all. First look abroad, upon the perplexed field of European politics. There his unceasing efforts to maintain the peace of the world have already cost him dear. While he endeavours with the one hand to repress the spirit of lawlessness and anarchy, he is trying with the other to move the ‘powers that be’ in the direction of justice, mercy, and moderation; and consequently he is misunderstood by both. Liberals revile him as a friend of tyrants, a renegade from the cause of freedom; princes accuse him of opening the flood-gates before the torrent of democracy, and say he has none but himself to thank if his own dominions are overwhelmed. Then look at home. _There_ is raging the conflict of religious opinion; Photi, Seraphim, and zealots of their type, are for ever besieging his ear with the accusation that his own hands have undermined the Church of his country by giving his people the Scriptures in the vulgar tongue, and the education necessary to read them. _There_ are going forward the plots and intrigues of the active, unscrupulous secret societies: if he tolerates these as the pardonable follies of harmless enthusiasts, he may be as one who stands idly watching the conflagration which will consume his own dwelling; if he allows Aratchaief and Miloradovitch to repress them with rigour, he will assuredly be execrated as a despot. Nor do his difficulties end here. The corruption that has eaten like a canker into every part of the administration of this enormous empire is the worst and sorest of them all. We are still but half civilized. Great as are the strides we have made, and are making, in the path of improvement, the faults of semi-barbarism cling to us yet. In the reign of the Empress Catherine everything was bought and sold, as too many things are even now--in bitter shame and sorrow I say it. ‘That they may do evil with both hands earnestly, the prince asketh, and the judge asketh for a reward; and the great man, he uttereth his mischievous desire: so they wrap it up.’ When these things reach the ear of the Czar, he visits them with swift, sharp punishment; and so men begin to call stern, hard, and suspicious the tenderest hearted man that ever walked God’s earth. Yet he cannot stay the evil.” “God help him!” said Emile. “Amen,” responded Ivan. He seemed about to add something more; but with a look of sadness very foreign to his bright young face he checked himself, and kept silence. “When did you see him last?” asked Emile. “I saw him to-day,” said Ivan briefly. There the conversation ended: Ivan shortly afterwards accompanied his friend to his apartment, bade him a cordial good-night, and then went at once to the dressing-room, where Clémence was awaiting him, and reading meanwhile the letters Emile had given her.