Varvara Petrovna was prompted by the feminine composition of her character to a compelling desire to penetrate the secret of them.
She took to reading newspapers and magazines, prohibited publications printed abroad and even the revolutionary manifestoes which were just beginning to appear at the time (she was able to procure them all); but this only set her head in a whirl.

She fell to writing letters; she got few answers, and they grew more incomprehensible as time went on.

Stepan Trofimovitch was solemnly called upon to explain "these ideas" to her once for all, but she remained distinctly dissatisfied with his explanations.
Stepan Trofimovitch's view of the general movement was supercilious in the extreme.

In his eyes all it amounted to was that he was forgotten and of no use.

At last his name was mentioned, at first in periodicals published abroad as that of an exiled martyr, and immediately afterwards in Petersburg as that of a former star in a celebrated constellation.
He was even for some reason compared with Radishtchev.