And remembering how, when he met the young author of the article, he had shown up his ignorance in conversation, he, therefore, understood the animus of the criticism.
The appearance of this article was followed by a silence, unbroken by either voice or journal, and Sergyeï Ivanovitch saw that his six years' labor, into which he had put so much of his heart and soul, had been wasted.
And his position was made all the more trying because, now that his book was off his hands, he had nothing especial to occupy the larger part of his time.
He was bright, well educated, in perfect health, and very active; and he did not know how to employ his industry. Conversations with callers, visits to the club, and the meetings of committees, where there was a chance for him to talk, took some of his time; but he, a man long wonted to life in the city, did not permit himself to talk with every one, as his inexperienced brother did when he was in Moscow; so that he had much leisure and a superfluity of intellectual energy.
To his joy, just at this time, which was so trying to him because of the failure of his book, and after his interest in dissenters, American subjects, the famine in Samara, expositions, spiritualism, was exhausted, the Slavic question began to engross public attention; and Sergyeï Ivanovitch, who had been one of its earliest advocates, gave himself up to it with enthusiasm.
Among Sergyeï Ivanovitch's friends nothing else was thought about or talked about except the Serbian war. All the things that lazy people are accustomed to do was done for the help of these brother Slavs. Balls, concerts, dinners, matches, ladies' finery, beer, drinking-saloons,—everything bore witness of sympathy for the Slavs.
With much that was said and written on this subject, Sergyeï Ivanovitch could not agree. He saw that the Slav question was one of those fashionable movements that always carry people to extremes. He saw that many people with petty personal ends in view took
