§5
Eight years later a lady, who had once been beautiful, and her beautiful daughter, were living in a different part of this very house where the Commission sat; she was the sister of a later Chief Commissioner.
I used to visit there and always had to pass through the room where Tsinski and Company used to sit on us. There was a portrait of the Emperor Paul on the wall, and I used to stop in front of it every time I passed, either as a prisoner or as a visitor. Near it was a little drawing-room where all breathed of beauty and femininity; and it seemed somehow out of place beside frowning Justice and criminal trials. I felt uneasy there, and sorry that so fair a bud had found such an uncongenial spot to open in as the dismal brick walls of a police-office. Our talk, and that of a small number of friends who met there, sounded ironical and strange to the ear within those walls, so familiar with examinations, informations, and reports of domiciliary visits—within those walls which parted us from the mutter of policemen, the sighs of prisoners, the jingling spurs of officers, and the clanking swords of Cossacks.