"And why do you say that?"
"Because it is not possible."
With these words, instead of going to the piano as usual, she went and shut herself up in her room, where she could give free vent to her tears. Until then she had been so proud of the man whom she had made her ideal. Her idol was overthrown from his pedestal and was reduced to the level of ordinary men.
Then she said to herself:--
"No, it cannot be possible." An inner voice replied: "They are all built on the same model. The whole world is corrupt."
Life now appeared so empty, so sombre, so odious to her that she would gladly have died. The next day when she seated herself at the table, her face bore traces of the great suffering she had endured. She was very pale, and her features were drawn and pinched. She replied indifferently to her husband's questions, and pleading a violent headache, hastened again to her chamber. She wished to be alone with her sorrow.
CHAPTER XXIII.
[RUSSIAN POLITICS.]
Russian tyranny increased the number of the revolutionists, for often a cause which has at the outset few adherents rapidly develops when blood has been shed.
Jacob, who had been opposed to those who incited the country to a revolution, modified his sentiments in its favour when the government displayed bayonets and erected scaffolds.