Page:Ossendowski - From President to Prison.djvu/362

350 I had seven roubles and must watch every kopeck, and I wanted to accept nothing from Zaleski. I quitted the house in the morning while the Professor was still asleep and left a card with the servant, telling him that I should not be back for luncheon or dinner. I tramped from one factory to another, then from one office to another, but nowhere was there any work for me. I did not write to my mother, as I did not wish to give her pain or thoughts that would rob her of her peace. I dined in a far from premier rang restaurant, where my meal cost me fifteen kopecks (seven and a half cents). When I returned home in the evening, I always put on a bold face and appeared as care-free and cheerful as I could before the Professor.

One evening I happened to have come in before he had arrived, but in a very few minutes he burst into the hall and began calling me. I ran to him and was struck by the picture of the waving white locks and the over-excited eyes of my usually calm old patron.

"Read, read!" he almost shouted, as he handed me the evening paper.

He pointed out to me an item in the column of city accidents, which he had underscored with red. There was the news that my former employer, the owner of the asphalt factory, while driving through the Nevsky Prospect, had been seized with a fit of apoplexy and had died immediately afterwards.

"You're a sorcerer!" exclaimed Zaleski, as I finished reading. "You foretold death for him, and he seemed in a great hurry to verify your prophecy."

But this did not alter at all my material state, and I found myself wandering through the town the following morning quite as usual and dreaming about a dinner for fifteen kopecks. An incident occurred on this particular