"Your bitter remarks are in the wrong place, Fräulein Ilmarinen. If there is one man in Greater Russia who deserves to be looked upon as a perfect pattern of fidelity and loyalty, that is the man! He who has been at my side in every battle; has shared with me every danger, yet never claiming part in my glory; who watches, that I may sleep; who defies the world, to defend me; who forsakes me never, when all else desert me; that man is Araktseieff! What hard proofs of loyalty has he not withstood! How often have his enemies prevailed to banish him! And yet, as often as I have called, he has returned, without a word of reproach to me! I struck him a vital blow in exiling his son, yet he could kiss my hand and say I had done right, and remain loyal to me. Such is Araktseieff!" But the favorite could not glory in this imperial recognition of his services, for, as he resumed his seat and, in order to mark his contemptuous indifference, opened the Sophien post-bag, the very letter Jakuskin had mentioned to Zeneida came to hand, and absorbed his attention to such a degree that he actually became deaf to the sound of his own praises from the lips of the Czar. Zeneida saw how his face was working with demoniacal torture; how, convulsed by nameless horror, it had changed to the semblance of a maddened spectre; she saw his hair stand on end, his lips become blue, his eyes start from their sockets. "Oh, woe is me!" he suddenly roared out, in a tone so brutalized that the Czar turned round in affright. Araktseieff beat his breast with the letter, as a man tries to heal his wound with the hair of the dog that bit him, or of a scorpion with its dead body; then, up from his seat, "Oh, woe! oh, woe! that I came back! Why was I not there at the time?" And he flung out of the room like a madman. The Czar, thinking that a sudden fit of mania had seized the favorite, endeavored to hold him back. "Alexis Andreovitch! What is the matter--where are you rushing?" "Pardon, your Majesty; I must go back to Grusino." "You will not leave me now? Affairs of state--the country?" Zeneida, placing herself directly in front of Araktseieff, with arms crossed on her breast, gave him one look. That look sobered him for an instant. Compelling his countenance to resume its cold exterior, while the Czar laid his hand soothingly on his arm, his official self fought the real Araktseieff for the mastery. But this time the man conquered. Striking his forehead with the crushed letter still held in his hand, he burst out: "What do I care for Russia? What do I care for all this miserable earth--for the Czar--for all the gods, when they could let such things happen? Oh, woe is me!" And, pushing away the Czar's hand, he rushed screaming from the room like one struck to death. The letter to the Czar he took with him. "What can have come to the man?" exclaimed the Czar in amazement.