among very young people, his boundless self-assurance led them to believe him very profound and wise; the majority did submit to him, and he had a great success in revolutionary circles.  His activity was directed to the preparation of a rising in which he was to usurp the power and call together a council.  A programme, composed by him, should be proposed before the council, and he felt sure that this programme of his solved every problem, and that it would be impossible not to carry it out.

His comrades respected but did not love him.  He did not love any one, looked upon all men of note as upon rivals, and would have willingly treated them as old male monkeys treat young ones if he could have done it.  He would have torn all mental power, every capacity, from other men, so that they should not interfere with the display of his talents.  He behaved well only to those who bowed before him.  Now, on the journey he behaved well to Kondratieff, who was influenced by his propaganda; to Vera Doukhova and pretty little Grabetz, who were both in love with him.  Although in principle he was in favour of the woman’s movement, yet in the depth of his soul he considered all women stupid and insignificant except those whom he was sentimentally in love with (as he was now in love with Grabetz), and such women he considered to be exceptions, whose merits he alone was capable of discerning.

The question of the relations of the sexes he also looked upon as thoroughly solved by accepting free union.  He had one nominal and one real wife, from both of whom he was separated, having come to the conclusion that there was no real love between them, and now he thought of entering on a free union with Grabetz.  He despised Nekhludoff for “playing the fool,” as Novodvoroff termed it, with Maslova, but especially for the freedom Nekhludoff took of considering the defects of the existing system and the methods of correcting those defects in a manner which was not only not exactly the same as Novodvoroff’s, but was Nekhludoff’s own—­a prince’s, that is, a fool’s manner.  Nekhludoff felt this relation of Novodvoroff’s towards him, and knew to his sorrow that in spite of the state of good will in which he found himself on this journey he could not help paying this man in his own coin, and could not stifle the strong antipathy he felt for him.

CHAPTER XVI.

SIMONSON SPEAKS TO NEKHLUDOFF.

The voices of officials sounded from the next room.  All the prisoners were silent, and a sergeant, followed by two convoy soldiers, entered.  The time of the inspection had come.  The sergeant counted every one, and when Nekhludoff’s turn came he addressed him with kindly familiarity.

“You must not stay any longer, Prince, after the inspection; you must go now.”

Nekhludoff knew what this meant, went up to the sergeant and shoved a three-rouble note into his hand.