up nervously and looks behind the throne, holds his breath to listen.
When people address him, he damns them savagely if they kneel, and if
they stand upright he accuses them of lack of respect. He asks that he
be relieved from the cares of state, and then trembles for fear his
people will take him at his word. When asked to remain ruler of Russia
he proceeds to curse his councilors and accuses them of loading him with
burdens that they themselves would not endeavor to bear.

He is a victim of amor senilis, and right here if Mansfield took one
step more his realism would be appalling, but he stops in time and
suggests what he dares not express. This tottering, doddering,
slobbering, sniffling old man is in love--he is about to wed a young,
beautiful girl. He selects jewels for her--he makes remarks about what
would become her beauty, jeers and laughs in cracked falsetto. In the
animality of youth there is something pleasing--it is natural--but the
vices of an old man, when they have become only mental, are most
revolting.

The people about _Ivan_ are in mortal terror of him, for he is still the
absolute monarch--he has the power to promote or disgrace, to take their
lives or let them go free. They laugh when he laughs, cry when he does,
and watch his fleeting moods with thumping hearts.

He is intensely religious and affects the robe and cowl of a priest.
Around his neck hangs the crucifix. His fear is that he will die with no
opportunity of confession and absolution. He prays to High Heaven every
moment, kisses the cross, and his toothless old mouth interjects prayers
to God and curses on man in the same breath.

If any one is talking to him he looks the other way, slips down until