68 BY ORDER OF THE CZAR.
informed him that he had resolved to let his property in the province of Vilnavitch, the governorship of which was no longer to his liking, and take up his abode in St. Peters- burg. He did not give his faithful servant any further information, but he had in his heart a big scheme of intrigue against Petronovitch, and in favor not only of the Jews but of Holy Russia. Possessed of greath wealth, he would devote it now in earnest to the great cause j he would lay himself out for popularity ; he would seem to be a Royalist of the Royalists ; he would win his way to the Czar's confidence ; he would be a social and political power, in order that he might the easier swoop to his revenge, and be all the more able at the right time to turn and rend the personages with whom he would make a pre- tence of friendship. How far the part which the count proposed to himself was a noble one the reader must judge for himself; how far he succeeded in his plans of patriot- ism and vengeance the narrator will inform the reader in due course.
If Andrea Ferrari had been the arch-fiend of evil him- self, he felt that he could not have brought more calamities upon his friends than had befallen them, as he conceived, through his unconscious agency. While he upbraided him- self, he nevertheless could not. but be conscious of the fact that after all he had only hastened the troubles that were about to fall upon Czarovna. Given Petronovitch for Governor, and the agents of the false ukase in the town, something terrible must have happened sooner or later ; at the same time, but for him there might have been time to save Anna and the rabbi and Nathan Klosstock.
These thoughts raced through his mind even at the height of the rioting about the scaffold. His usual grip left him. He hesitated and was lost or rather saved ; for had he not hesitated he would have rushed into action,, and to what purpose ? The knout, imprisonment, or death !
