How instantly the brightness of that smile had changed the temperature! How immediately the ice and snow in it had thawed! As Pushkin rejoined the circle he was greeted on all sides by friendly faces beaming with congratulation. Distinguished court ladies shut up their fans; they no longer felt the heat. Pushkin could not but respond to the crowd who claimed acquaintance. He was wise enough to tell every one that the Czar had restored his Pleskow estates to him on condition that he gave up writing poetry, which raised him at once on a pinnacle. For be it known, not to write poetry at all is a negative merit; to write bad poetry and give it up is some slight merit; to write good poetry, and yet give it up, is a positive and great merit--in high society. Even Princess Korynthia had the hero of the hour called up to her in order to ask him why he had not recognized her just now. Women alone are capable of such a piece of audacity, and men are obliged to take it from them. Pushkin and the Princess conversed pleasantly for some little time, and he was introduced to Bethsaba, to whom he said many foolish things. One woman only, Zeneida, he had no courage to approach. With the divination of a true poet, he felt that she was the only creditor in all the world from whom he must keep aloof; for that which he owed to that creditor he was unable to pay. Nor had he any news to impart. Had not the Czar said, "She knows it already"? * * * * * The Czar had smiled. The smile had lightened all hearts. The melancholy feeling of monotony which was weighing over society was at once dispelled. But it was but an autumnal ray--a ray of evening sunshine on a rainy day. But he to whom this turn of things brought no content was Araktseieff. Pleskow is not the end of the world! If Pushkin went no further than that, Fräulein Ilmarinen's intrigues would suffer no reverse. They could meet as often as they wished. He could not understand how it had all come about. That the Czar favored Fräulein Ilmarinen he well knew; and that Zeneida had been working to save her beloved poet, that, too, he knew. But this was not sufficient to have put the Czar in the very opposite frame of mind from that which he, the all-powerful favorite, had striven to bring about. Some other hand must have been at work here. Now among those whom the unaccustomed ray of sunlight had moved to creep out of their dark corners was young Araktseieff. Forgetting his father's advice to keep well in the shade, and not thinking that the sparkling order on his breast was a borrowed one, and that its owner was among the party there assembled, he suffered himself to be enticed to the front, and joined the set of young men who were paying court to the ladies. Suddenly he became aware that the Czar was bearing down upon him. He was about to make way respectfully for his Majesty, but the Czar, going directly up to him, said: