I went at once to see him.
I found him the very opposite of the popular ideal of a bureaucrat—a short, grey, close-haired, spare man, with the air of a man of the world, and a pleasant cheery manner that suggested nothing formidable or even powerful. Yet without doubt the man was in many respects the most powerful and the most feared in all Russia.
He appeared to be expecting me; for the instant I was announced, he got up and welcomed me with a hearty shake of the hand and said:—-
"I thought my sister would have to make us acquainted, Lieutenant Petrovitch. She said she wouldn't; but I expected you. Women think beauty will do everything; and somehow are always calculating without the effects of self-interest. Don't you think so?" He spoke with a sort of easy club mannerism, and just let his eyes rest a moment on my face.
"Of course you know the drift of what has passed then?"
"Of course I do. As well as I know that your coming to me means that my sister's method has failed. I from the first disagreed with it. I know a great deal about you, Lieutenant Petrovitch; and I think I could have saved time. But my sister was attracted to you—women always like you handsome young fire-eaters, especially women like my sister—and as she is to take a rather large hand in the matter, she wanted to play it her own way. She appealed to your feelings, Lieutenant. I should have gone straight to your interest: and really it will be to your interest to do this."
"Will you tell me plainly what is wanted?"
"Certainly. The death of the man whose name has no doubt been mentioned to you."
"Why?"
"Not because he has insulted my sister: though that is fortunately a plausible pretext: but because he is a menace to the Empire."