He was a tall, handsome young man, with large, dark eyes which seemed always on the alert, as if watching for or expecting something which might come at any moment. All we knew of him was that he was from St. Petersburg. That his father, who was dead, had once been wealthy, in fact had belonged to the minor nobility, but had lost most of his money, and this necessitated his son’s earning his own living, which he could do better in America than elsewhere. This was the story he told, and although he brought no credentials and only asked to be employed on trial, his frank, pleasing manners and magnetic personality won him favor at once, and for two years he discharged his duties as teacher of languages in the Ridgefield Academy to the entire satisfaction of his employers. Many conjectured that he was a nihilist, but there was about him a quiet reserve which kept people from questioning him on the subject, and it was never mentioned to him but once. Then a young girl asked him laughingly if he had ever known a nihilist intimately.
“But, of course, you haven’t,” she added. “I suppose they only belong to the lower classes. You might see them without knowing them well.”
For a moment the hot blood surged into Patoff’s face, then left it deadly pale as he replied: “I have seen and known hundreds of them. They belong to all classes, high and low, rich and poor—more to the rich, perhaps, than the very poor. They are as thick as those raindrops,” and he pointed to a window, against which a heavy shower was beating. “There is much to be said on both sides,” he continued, after a few moments. “You are subjected to tyranny and surveillance, whichever party you belong to. It is a case of Scylla and Charybdis. Of the two it is better to be with the government than to be hounded and watched wherever you go and suspected of crimes you never thought of committing. A nihilist is not safe anywhere. His best friend may betray him, and then the gendarmes, the police. You have no idea how sharp they are when once they are on your track.”
This was a great deal for him to say, and he seemed to think so, for he stopped suddenly and, changing the conversation, began to speak to me in German and to correct my pronunciation as he had never done before.
During the next few weeks he received several letters from Russia, and grew so abstracted in his manner that once when hearing our lesson in Russian he began to talk to us in French, then in German, and finally lapsed into English, saying with a start: “I beg your pardon. My thoughts were very far away.”
“Where?” the girl asked who had questioned him on nihilism.
He looked at her a moment with a peculiar expression in his eyes, and then replied: “In Russia, my home, where I am going at the end of this quarter.”
We were all sorry to lose him, and no one more so than I, although I said the least. There was something in his eyes when they rested upon me and in his voice when he spoke to me which told me I was his favorite pupil, but if he cared particularly for me he never showed it until the day before he left town, when he called to say good-by. I had been giving my hair a bath and was brushing and drying it in the hot sun when he came up the walk. I disliked my hair and always had. It was very heavy and long and soft and wavy, and I had the fair complexion which usually goes with its color; but it was red, not chestnut or auburn, but a decided red, which I hated, and fancied others must do the same, and when I saw Nicol coming up the walk I shrank back in my seat under the maple tree, hoping he would not see me. But he did; and came at once to me, laughing as I tried to gather up into a knot my heavy hair, which, being still damp, would not stay where I put it. I know he said something about Godiva, then checked himself with “I beg your pardon,” as he saw the color rising in my face; and, lifting up a lock which had fallen down, he said: “I wish you would give me a bit of this as a souvenir.”
“Are you crazy,” I asked, “to want a lock of my hair? Why, it is red!”
“I know that,” he said; “but it is beautiful, nevertheless, especially in the sunlight. I like red. Can I have a bit?”