With the advocates entered the chief secretary and public prosecutor, a lean, clean-shaven young man of medium height, a very dark complexion, and sad, black eyes. Nekhludoff knew him at once, in spite of his curious uniform and the fact that he had not seen him for six years. He had been one of his best friends in Nekhludoff's student days.
"The public prosecutor Selenin?" Nekhludoff asked, turning to the advocate.
"Yes. Why?"
"I know him well. He is a fine fellow."
"And a good public prosecutor; business-like. Now he is the man you should have interested."
He will act according to his conscience in any case," said Nekhludoff, recalling the intimate relations and friendship between himself and Selenin, and the attractive qualities of the latter--purity, honesty, and good breeding in its best sense.
"Yes, there is no time now," whispered Fanarin, who was listening to the report of the case that had commenced.
The Court of Justice was accused of having left a decision of the Court of Law unaltered.
Nekhludoff listened and tried to make out the meaning of what was going on; but, just as in the Criminal Court, his chief difficulty was that not the evidently chief point, but some side issues, were being discussed. The case was that of a newspaper which had published the account of a swindle arranged by a director of a limited liability company. It seemed that the only important question was whether the director of the company really abused his trust, and how to stop him from doing it. But the questions under consideration were whether the editor had a right to publish this article of his contributor, and what he had been guilty of in publishing it: slander or libel, and in what way slander included libel, or libel included slander, and something rather incomprehensible to ordinary people about all sorts of statutes and resolutions passed by some General Department.
The only thing clear to Nekhludoff was that, in spite of what Wolf had so strenuously insisted on, the day before, i.e., that the Senate could not try a case on its merits, in this case he was evidently strongly in favour of repealing the decision of the Court of Justice, and that Selenin, in spite of his characteristic reticence, stated the opposite opinion with quite unexpected warmth. The warmth, which surprised Nekhludoff, evinced by the usually self-controlled Selenin, was due to his knowledge of the director's shabbiness in money matters, and the fact, which had accidentally come to his cars, that Wolf had been to a swell dinner party at the swindler's house only a few days before.
Now that Wolf spoke on the case, guardedly enough, but with evident bias, Selenin became excited, and expressed his opinion with too much nervous irritation for an ordinary business transaction.
It was clear that Selenin's speech had offended Wolf. He grew red, moved in his chair, made silent gestures of surprise, and at last rose, with a very dignified and injured look, together with the other senators, and went out into the debating-room.
"What particular case have you come about?" the usher asked again, addressing Fanarin.
"I have already told you: Maslova's case."
"Yes, quite so. It is to be heard to-day, but--"
"But what?" the advocate asked.
"Well, you see, this case was to be examined without taking sides, so that the senators will hardly come out again after passing the resolution. But I will inform them."
"What do you mean?"
"I'll inform them; I'll inform them." And the usher again put something down on his paper.
The Senators really meant to pronounce their decision concerning the libel case, and then to finish the other business, Maslova's case among it, over their tea and cigarettes, without leaving the debating-room.
