Before I report here a significant conversation I had with a prince, the friend and former confidant of the Czar, I would make an earnest appeal to the public opinion of Europe, for which these lines are intended. I have conversed with many men of the highest rank in Russia; I am indebted to them for most valuable information about the land of riddles, yet not a single interview was concluded without my informant asking me to withhold his name. Only the prince whose views I report here said to me, "If you need my name to prove the credibility of the most incredible things I had to tell you, you may use it without compunction. Possible suffering that may befall me because of this use of my name is of no consideration where the enlightenment of Europe is concerned." On mature deliberation I have preferred, however, not to mention his name here. I thus renounce the weight of a name of European repute and of unparalleled authority. Notwithstanding this, I still consider it necessary to ask public opinion of Europe to watch with redoubled care the fate of the few persons who have been my informants. It would not be right for me to suppress this report, for I should thus act in direct opposition to the wishes of the noble-minded prince. Neither could I disguise him entirely, since there are, after all, but few persons that could have made to me these disclosures on the helplessness of even the eminent patriots. And so I must resort to an appeal to the public opinion of Europe with proper caution. It can protect the prince. For with all their wickedness the Russian rulers still fear foreign public opinion. This and this alone has a certain influence on the Czar. Let it be exerted in behalf of a man of the greatest heroism, who makes appeal to it out of pure patriotism. "Does your highness think," I asked, in the interview I am about to report here, "that the discontent everywhere noticeable in all classes of society is real and of political significance?" "We must make distinctions," answered the prince; "of its reality there is no doubt. But if you ask whether I consider it politically fruitful, in the same sense that we may gain through this discontent some necessary change in the present régime, I must answer, unfortunately, no." "Is this, then, only the chronic discontent present in western Europe as well as in Russia, or is it now acute?" "It is acute. As you have justly observed, the West has its discontented element also; yet your Western discontent with all work of man may best be compared with that frame of mind prevalent in our country, even under a régime that is normal and well-intentioned, lacking only efficiency. The restlessness that you, as a stranger, have noted here is quite abnormal, and is due to the decided wickedness, not to say infamy, of the existing system." "Then it is stronger than usual?"