The money-lender had said the half of this speech as he looked back on the threshold. Pushkin thought the man had gone mad. Angrily throwing himself back on his bed, he forbade his man-servant to admit the fellow again; then slept till noon. When he awoke he rang for his man. "That fellow came again, sir." "But you did not let him in?" "No. But he pushed this packet under the door. Shall I throw it into the fire, sir?" "No. Give it me." And, opening the packet, Pushkin found in it a copy of his romance, _The Gypsy Girl_, two bank-notes for one hundred rubles each, and a letter from the publisher, Severin, informing him that he had bought his poem for twelve hundred rubles, of which he herewith enclosed two hundred, and had paid the rest to the person who brought the manuscript. He forwarded a copy to Pushkin that he might obtain the necessary permission to publish. It was a queer story; and especially that he should have made money for what he had merely scribbled down for his own amusement. Absurd! A gambler had more right to the accumulated gains of a gambling club than a man to extort money from the multitude for permission to read what he had written! An author's fee! Surely a hybrid betwixt the degrading and the ridiculous! Did it most savor of theft or deception? or was it but a loan? These thoughts passed through Pushkin's head as he read the letter. Now he had to go to the Censor--he, a military man, to humiliate himself to a scurvy civil official, and acknowledge him to be his judge and superior! In all else the army has its own court-martial. Poetry is truly an unsavory implement when it so demeans a smart officer to defer to a civilian. Pushkin decided to make this sacrifice to Apollo. CHAPTER XIII A CANNIBAL The devourer of human flesh is called a cannibal, but what shall we call him who feeds upon the souls of men?--who breakfasts off flights of youthful imagination, dines off great thoughts, and sups on the heart's blood of genius--what shall we call such an one? A censor? A man who sits in judgment on the gods! At that period there were certain especially renowned censors in St. Petersburg, at the head of whom was Magnitsky, Araktseieff's right hand, if one may use the word _right_ to either of his hands. Certain anecdotes which have gone the round about these men insure them immortality. Herr Sujukin revised Homer's _Iliad_, made Venus into an irreproachable lady and Mars an officer of unquestionable morality, and changed the capital letters of all the false gods into small type. Only Mars was permitted to retain the capital M, out of respect to the Czar, who was also the god of war.