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14 AN OUTLAW'S DIARYThe density of the mist increased with the evening,and when I reached the old military cemetery it hadnearly absorbed the outlines of all objects. Overthe collapsing graves, between the many littlerotting wooden crosses, the tombstones dissolvedlike ghosts in the fog. In Pest by now the mistwould be a yellow reeking fog, while here it becamea thing of beauty. Nowadays everything that isbeautiful in the country turns to filth in Pest.Again I forgot to pay attention to the road, andmy thoughts harped on what I had lately seen.It was impossible that a few slums of a singletown should make a revolution when the wholecountry was against it . . .Then, I don't knowhow, I came to think of The Possessed— Dostoevski'swonderful novel.I remembered a reception which Ihad attended last winter. We talked of Russia,Lenin and Bolshevism, and I asked one of MichaelKarolyi's relations if Karolyi had ever read thatbook." Of course, and he loves it, too. He lent it tome to read."^There had %en curious rumours about Karolyi forsome time. '1"Is he learning from it how to make a revolution?" I asked,' but received no answer.I was tired ana walked on slowly. Along the roadthe old, leafless chestnut trees came towards me inhazy monotony, and there recurred to my memorythe little Russian town in Dostoevski's book,into which with his genius he has crowded a pictureof Russia as a whole. Young revolutionaries, backfrom Switzerland, meet accidentally in the littletown. The demoniacal leader of these morbidyouths, craving for power, destroys the existingorder and produces chaos. Consumptive students,alcoholics, syphilitic degenerates, prospectivesuicides, cracked intellects, murderers and despairingcowards gather round him and he forms a group offive from the select. And then he convinces themthat innumerable similar groups are waiting witheagerness for the signalto revolt. When his fivemen hesitate he tricks them to commit a murder, sothat the knowledge of common guilt should make hisslaves mutually suspicious of each other. At his