An accident favoured his enterprise. One man after another left the neighbouring table and at last Ivan Becker was left alone. Crammon took his glass of absinthe and went over. He introduced himself, referring to his friendship with Prince Wiguniewski. Silently Becker pointed to a chair. True to his kind and condescending impulses Crammon assumed the part of an amiable man who can comprehend every form of human aberration. He approached his aim with innocent turns of speech. He scarcely touched the poisonous undergrowth of political contentions. He merely pointed out with the utmost delicacy that, in the West of Europe, the private liberty of certain lofty personages would have to remain untouched unless force were to be used to oppose force. Gentle as his speech was, it was an admonition. Ivan smiled indulgently. “Though the whole sky were to flare with the conflagrations that devastate your Holy Russia,” Crammon said with conscious eloquence, and the corners of his mouth seemed to bend in right angles toward his square chin, “we will know how to defend what is sacred to us. Caliban is an impressive beast. But if he were to lay his hands on Ariel he might regret it.” Again Ivan Michailovitch smiled. His expression was strangely mild and gentle, and gave his homely, large face an almost feminine aspect. He listened as though desiring to be instructed. Crammon was encouraged. “What has Ariel to do with your misery? He looks behind him to see if men kiss the print of his feet. He demands joy and glory, not blood and force.” “Ariel’s feet are dancing over open graves,” Ivan Michailovitch said softly. “Your dead are safe at peace,” Crammon answered. “With the living we shall know how to deal.” “We are coming,” said Ivan Michailovitch still more softly. “We are coming.” It sounded mysterious. Half fearfully, half contemptuously Crammon looked at the man. After a long pause he said as though casually, “At twelve paces I can hit the ace of hearts four times out of five.” Ivan Michailovitch nodded. “I can’t,” he said almost humbly, and showed his right hand, which he usually concealed skilfully. It was mutilated. “What happened to your hand?” Crammon asked in pained surprise. “When I lay in the subterranean prison at Kazan a keeper forged the chain about me too hard,” Ivan Michailovitch murmured. Crammon was silent, but the other went on: “Perhaps you’ve noticed too that it’s difficult for me to speak. I lived alone too long in the desert of snow, in a wooden hut, in the icy cold. I became unused to words. I suffered. But that is only a single word: suffering. How can one make its content clear? My body was but a naked scaffolding, a ruin. But my heart grew and expanded. How can I tell it? It grew to be so great, so blood red, so heavy that it became a burden to me in the fearful attempt at flight which I finally risked. But God protected me.” And he repeated softly, “God protected me.”