Ryleieff and Krizsanowski retired together into a corner. The Pole, smoking furiously, blew thick clouds of smoke about him, as though considering his rigid features a too transparent mask, likely to betray him. And in order not to be questioned, he began to question. "There are one or two points I should be glad to have cleared up. The first spring of every great aim proceeds from selfish motives. Freedom--well, yes, is the sun; private aims are earth. We are upon the earth. From mere abstract motives a new era has never been started. My private motives require no explanation; they are expressed in two words--I am a Pole. That is sufficient ground for me to stand upon. Fräulein Ilmarinen is a Finn. I take it that is sufficient reason for her action. I have no fear that she will be dazzled by the pinnacle she stands on, encircled with wreaths and diamonds. I can also understand your moving spring. You love your own race; you see how it has remained behind other nations, and would raise it to their level. Pestel's motives also I can grasp. He has immense ambition. He would fain be the head of a newly formed state. The basis is broad enough; his foot rests on a sure pedestal. The rest are shifting, unstable, attracted to the movement by the hope of playing some brilliant part in it. Then we have Apostol Muravieff. He, too, is constrained to it by a paternal heritage, from which he cannot free himself. Pushkin is in love with Zeneida; that, too, is sure ground enough. That madman Jakuskin is actuated by revenge; another safe passion on which one may rely. His sense of puritanical integrity binds that fine fellow Turgenieff to us. From earliest youth he has ever been in the advance guard of freedom, first in the first rank. Such iron rectitude can be recast in no other form, rather it would break than yield. Now there is but one man here whose presence I cannot understand: that is Duke Ghedimin. A member of one of the twelve old Russian dynastic families, his possessions so immense that he is simply unable to expend his yearly income on Russian soil, holding the highest grade at Court, himself an accomplished, brilliant, sought-after aristocrat, who by any changes you may effect has everything to lose, nothing to gain--what does he seek here? What is his interest in making himself one of this conspiracy?"