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was viewed as a desirable outcome.
    Professor Ipatiev, the lecturer who had delivered the very first lecture in my student career, proved to be a lasting influence. His class was in turns fascinating and upsetting, and Olga, who had swiftly become my closest friend and something of a confidante, shared my feelings.
    “I do not understand,” she complained one September evening, as the two of us sat in the parlor of my apartment, drinking strong sweet tea thoughtfully prepared by Anastasia before she left to visit with Natalia Sergeevna. “Professor Ipatiev seems like a kind man. And yet he looks directly at you and me when he talks about women’s brains being smaller than men’s.”
    I sighed and remembered the tittering that ran in waves across the auditorium every time Professor Ipatiev spoke about anatomical differences such as that — about how Africans were incapable of any learning, and the Asians could only memorize but not really comprehend complex concepts; about how women’s minds were subordinate to their wombs, how their brains lacked the requisite number of folds. One could not help but feel somewhat insulted. “I don’t suppose we can argue,” I said. “It is true, I guess.”
    Olga sighed. “Do you get a feeling that we were asked to attend the university just so we can fail?”
    “That would be cruel, wouldn’t it?” I answered, demurring form the actual question.
    Olga was not so easily thwarted. “Cruelty is not exactly uncommon, you know.”
    “So Anastasia tells me.”
    Anastasia chose to return at that time, and, eager for a distraction, I made her repeat the gossip she brought home from the market that morning.
    Anastasia settled by the table, her elbows on its polished surface and her fists holding up her freckled and ruddy countenance. She enjoyed being a center of attention, and she started with a great sense of foreboding. “I went to the shop just the other day, to get some pickles and raspberry preserves, seeing how we didn’t make any this year — I guess they did at the Trubetskoye, but the countess didn’t send us any, even though she
could
have, but I’m not complaining. So I went to the shop, and there was this man — really shifty, and he wasn’t buying anything, only looking as people went and came, all crooked-like. And then there was one of these Chinamen, all in silk and with a long mustache and a straw basket on his head. He just bought a twist of tobacco and a pound of tea, but that shifty man followed him right out, and I said to Marfa the shop girl, what is he doing? And she says, oh, that’s a Nikolashka. Goodness me, what is that, I say. And you know what she says?”
    Olga and I shook heads in unison.
    Anastasia sighed with happiness. “Marfa tells me that ever since all the foreign people started coming to St. Petersburg, Prince Nicholas took charge of keeping an eye on them. And he now has policemen — only they’re not in uniform and they are all secret-like — and people call them Nikolashki, after the prince. And they follow the Chinamen around, for our protection.” She nodded to herself, satisfied, and fell silent.
    “That is so strange,” Olga said. “Are the Chinese really up to something?”
    I shrugged. “The ones I talked to certainly aren’t.”
    Olga smiled at that. “That’s right,” she said. “There is that young man you talk to, and his friends. They always sit behind you.”
    “Behind us,” I said. “And if you want to meet them, come with me this Saturday — they are having a social at their club.”
    “Club?” Olga asked, apprehensive.
    “Just off Fontanka, “I said. “A few blocks from Anichkov Bridge. The Chinese students always go there — I think they feel unwelcome everywhere else.”
    “This could be fun,” Olga decided. “It’s not dangerous, is it?”
    I shook my head. “Of course not. We’ll take Anastasia with us for propriety’s sake, and they are harmless, really. Besides, I’m sure Prince