“Do you refuse to answer that question?” M. Auguste put in adroitly.
An expressive rap.
“Will you answer any other questions from this gentleman?”
Then the spirit of Bismarck spoke out. It denounced me as a worker of evil, a source of strife, and particularly as one who was acting injuriously to the Russian Empire. I confess M. Auguste scored.
“In his lifetime he would have said all that, if he had thought I was working in the interest of Russia and against Germany,” I remarked in my own defence.
The spirit of the Iron Chancellor was dismissed, and that of Madame Blavatsky recalled.
It was evident that the Czar placed particular confidence in his late subject. Indeed, if the issues at stake had been less serious, I think I should have made an attempt to shake the Emperor’s blind faith in the performances of M. Auguste.
But my sole object was to read, if I could, the secret plans and intentions of a very different imperial character, whose agent I believed the spirit to be.
M. Auguste, I quickly discovered, was distracted between fear of offending Nicholas by too much reserve, and dread of enabling me to see his game. In the end the Czar’s persistence triumphed, and we obtained something like a revelation.