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about Russia from all sides. The fact that I heard this young man Nechaev speak does not mean that I stand behind him. On the contrary, I repeat, I reject everything he stands for, and have said so many times, in public and in private.’
    â€˜Including the welfare of the people? Doesn’t Nechaev stand for the welfare of the people? Isn’t that what he is striving for?’
    â€˜I fail to understand the force of these questions. Nechaev stands first and foremost for the violent overthrow of all the institutions of society, in the name of a principle of equality – equal happiness for all or, if not that, then equal misery for all. It is not a principle that he attempts to justify. In fact he seems to despise justification in general as a waste of time, as useless intellection. Please don’t try to associate me with Nechaev.’
    â€˜Very well, I accept the reproof. Though I am surprised, I might add – I would not have thought of you as a martinet for principles. But to business. The list of names you see in front of you – do you recognize any of them?’
    â€˜I recognize some of them. A handful.’
    â€˜It is a list of people who are to be assassinated, as soon as the signal is given, in the name of the People’s Vengeance, which as you know is the clandestine organization that Nechaev has brought into being. The assassinations are meant to precipitate a general uprising and to lead to the overthrow of the state. If you turn to the end, you will come to an appendix which names entire classes of people who are thereupon, in the wake of the overthrow, to suffer summary execution. They include the entire higher judiciary and all officers of the police and officials of the Third Section of the rank of captain and higher. The list was found among your son’s papers.’
    Having delivered this information, Maximov tilts his chair back and smiles amicably.
    â€˜And does that mean that my son is an assassin?’
    â€˜Of course not! How could he be when no one has been assassinated? What you have there is, so to speak, a draft, a speculative draft. In fact, my opinion – my opinion as a private individual – is that it is a list such as a young man with a grudge against society might concoct in the space of an afternoon, perhaps as a way of showing off to the very young woman to whom he is dictating – showing off his power of life and death, his completely illusory power. Nevertheless, assassination, the plotting of assassination, threats against officialdom – these are serious matters, don’t you agree?’
    â€˜Very serious. Your duty is clear, you don’t need my advice. If and when Nechaev returns to his native country, you must arrest him. As for my son, what can you do? Arrest him too?’
    â€˜Ha ha! You will have your joke, Fyodor Mikhailovich! No, we could not arrest him even if we wanted to, for he has gone to a better place. But he has left things behind. He has left papers, more papers than any self-respecting conspirator ought to. He has left behind questions too. Such as: Why did he take his life? Let me ask you: Why do you think he took his life?’
    The room swims before his eyes. The investigator’s face looms like a huge pink balloon.
    â€˜He did not take his life,’ he whispers. ‘You understand nothing about him.’
    â€˜Of course not! Of your stepson and the vicissitudes of his existence I understand not a whit, nor do I pretend to. What I hope to understand in a material, investigative sense, however, is what drove him to his death. Was he threatened, for instance? Did one of his associates threaten to disclose him? And did fear of the consequences unsettle him so deeply that he took his own life? Or did he perhaps not take his life at all? Is it possible that, for reasons of which we are still ignorant, he was found to be a traitor to the People’s Vengeance and murdered in this particularly