THE SCARLET FLOWER {In memory of L S, Turgenev I. N the name of His Imperial Majesty, the Emperor Peter I., I declare this lunatic asylum open to inspection.' These words were uttered in a loud resonant voice. The asylum clerk, who was entering the patient's name in a large ragged book on an inky table, could not refrain from smiling. But the two young men in charge of the patient did not smile ; they could hardly stand on their feet, so exhausted were they after two days and nights spent without sleep, alone with the madman, whom they had just brought by train. At the last station but one his fury had increased ; they had managed to obtain a strait - jacket, and, with the help of a gendarme and the railway officials, had put it on the patient. In this condition they had B
