An artillery officer with bad teeth of whom Pavel could not think without thinking of the rheumatism of which that revolutionist had once complained to him, drew his sword fiercely, the polished steel flaming in the bright light of the room, as he said:
“By Jove!”
“Look at him! Look at him!” Zachar shouted.
“Bridle your passions, old boy,” Pavel put in.
A minute or two later he called the orator into the next room and handed him what looked like a package of tobacco.
Zachar was in high feather over the success of his speech and loath to leave the atmosphere of adoration that surrounded him here; but an important engagement forced him to take his departure.
A quarter of an hour’s ride in a tramcar and a short walk through the moonlit streets brought him to a deserted corner in the vicinity of the Winter Palace, where he was met by a man dressed like an artisan, as tall as himself, but slimmer of girth, and the two went on trudging along the snow-encrusted sidewalk together. The other man had an expressive sickly face which the pallid glare of the moonlight gave a ghastly look.
“How is your health?” Zachar asked.
“Bad,” the sickly looking man answered, holding out his hand into which Zachar put the package of tobacco, saying: