forty thousand souls under his care. He has to obey the Zemstvo, to go
where they tell him. He takes no notice of me."

"Yes," interrupted Paul, "I know. And the people themselves, do they
attempt to understand it--to follow out my instructions?"

The starosta spread out his thin hands in deprecation. He cringed a
little as he stood. He had Jewish blood in his veins, which, while it
raised him above his fellows in Osterno, carried with it the usual
tendency to cringe. It is in the blood; it is part of what the people
who stood without Pilate's palace took upon themselves and upon their
children.

"Your Excellency," he said, "knows what they are. It is slow. They make
no progress. For them one disease is as another. 'Bog dal e Bog vzial,'
they say. 'God gave and God took!'"

He paused, his black eyes flashing from one face to the other.

"Only the Moscow doctor, Excellency," he said significantly, "can manage
them."

Paul shrugged his shoulders. He rose from his seat, glancing at
Steinmetz, who was looking on in silence, with his queer, mocking smile.

"I will go with you now," he said. "It is late enough already."

The starosta bowed very low, but he said nothing.

Paul went to a cupboard and took from it an old fur coat, dragged at the