The Prophet's Mantle

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Hubert Bland

Edith Nesbit, Hubert Bland

The Prophet's Mantle

PROLOGUE

TO be the son of a noble of high position, to be the heir to vast estates in a western province, and to a palace in the capital, to have large sums safely invested in foreign banks, to be surrounded by every luxury that to most men makes life worth living, to be carefully inoculated with all the most cherished beliefs of the territorial aristocracy, and as carefully guarded from all liberal influences; to be all this does not generally lead a man to be a social reformer as well. Such causes, as a rule, do not produce a very revolutionary effect. But in Russia, tyranny, officialism, and the supreme sway of ignorance and brutality, seem to have reversed all ordinary rules, and upset all ordinary calculations. There the 'gentlemen of the pavement' are nobles, with a longer lineage than the Romanoffs, and progressive views find some of their most doughty champions in the ranks of the old nobility. So Count Michael Litvinoff was not such a startling phenomenon, nor such a glaring anomaly, as he would have been in any other country. His parents died when he was about eighteen, and after their death he spent most of his time in close study of physics, philosophy, and of the 'dismal science,' as expounded by its most advanced apostles. He wrote, too, extensively, though most of his works were published in countries where the censorship was not quite so strict as in his own. When he was about twenty-five, and was deep in the heart of his great work, 'The Social Enigma,' he woke up one morning with a conviction that all his last chapters were utter nonsense, and, what was worse, he couldn't for the life of him make out what they meant even when he read them over. Bewildered and anxious, he hastened to refer the matter to a personal friend and political ally, whose answer was brief and to the point.

'Nonsense? Why, the book's as clear as daylight, and as convincing as Euclid. You've been working too hard—overdoing it altogether. Go to the South of France for a month, and lose a few roubles at Monte Carlo. It will do you good.'

Michael Litvinoff took the first part of this advice; and though he did not take the second part, he did sometimes spend an hour in watching others lose their money.

One night he noticed a young man on whom fortune appeared to be frowning with more than her usual persistence and bitterness. Again and again he staked, and again and again he lost. At last he collected the few coins that remained of the good-sized heap with which he had begun, and staked them all. He lost again. He got up and walked out. Struck by the wild look in his eyes, Litvinoff followed him into the gardens of the Casino. At the end of a dark alley he stopped, pulled something from his breast, which might have been a cigar-case, opened it, and took out something which Litvinoff saw was not a cigar. The Count sprang forward, and knocked the other's hand up just in time to send a tiny bullet whizzing through the orange trees.

'Damn you!' cried the other, in English, turning furiously on Litvinoff. 'What the devil do you mean?'

'Come to my rooms,' said the Count simply; and the other, after a moment's hesitation and a glance of sullen defiance, actually obeyed, and in silence the two walked side by side out of the gardens.

When the door of his sitting-room was closed upon them, Count Litvinoff waved his new acquaintance to an easy-chair, and, taking one himself, remarked,—

'You're a nice sort of sportsman, aren't you? Suppose you have some tea and a cigar.'

'The cigar with pleasure; but tea is not much in my line.'

'Ah, I forgot; you English don't worship tea as we Russians do. By-the-way, as there's no one else to perform the ceremony, I may as well introduce myself. My name is Michael Litvinoff.'

The other looked up.

'Let me withdraw my refusal of your offer just now. I must confess that it would be pleasant to me to drink tea, or anything else in reason, in the company of the man who has written "Hopes and F