III
Approaching this part of Mr. Razumov's story, my
mind, the decent mind of an old teacher of
languages, feels more and more the difficulty of
the task.
The task is not in truth the writing in the
narrative form a _precis_ of a strange human
document, but the rendering--I perceive it now
clearly--of the moral conditions ruling over a
large portion of this earth's surface;
conditions not easily to be understood, much
less discovered in the limits of a story, till
some key-word is found; a word that could stand
at the back of all the words covering the pages;
a word which, if not truth itself, may perchance
hold truth enough to help the moral discovery
which should be the object of every tale.
I turn over for the hundredth time the leaves of
Mr. Razumov's record, I lay it aside, I take up
the pen--and the pen being ready for its office
of setting down black on white I hesitate. For
the word that persists in creeping under its
point is no other word than "cynicism."
For that is the mark of Russian autocracy and of
Russian revolt. In its pride of numbers, in its
strange pretensions of sanctity, and in the
secret readiness to abase itself in suffering,
the spirit of Russia is the spirit of cynicism.
It informs the declarations of her statesmen,
the theories of her revolutionists, and the
mystic vaticinations of prophets to the point of
making freedom look like a form of debauch, and
the Christian virtues themselves appear actually
indecent. . . . But I must apologize for the
digression. It proceeds from the consideration
of the course taken by the story of Mr. Razumov
after his conservative convictions, diluted in a
vague liberalism natural to the ardour of his
age, had become crystallized by the shock of his
contact with Haldin.
Razumov woke up for the tenth time perhaps with
a heavy shiver. Seeing the light of day in his
window, he resisted the inclination to lay
himself down again. He did not remember
anything, but he did not think it strange to
find himself on the sofa in his cloak and
chilled to the bone. The light coming through
the window seemed strangely cheerless,
containing no promise as the light of each new
day should for a young man. It was the
awakening of a man mortally ill, or of a man
ninety years old. He looked at the lamp which
had burnt itself out. It stood there, the
extinguished beacon of his labours, a cold
object of brass and porcelain, amongst the
scattered pages of his notes and small piles of
books--a mere litter of blackened paper--dead
matter--without significance or interest.
He got on his feet, and divesting himself of his
cloak hung it on the peg, going through all the
motions mechanically. An incredible dullness, a
ditch-water stagnation was sensible to his
perceptions as though life had withdrawn itself
from all things and even from his own thoughts.
There was not a sound in the house.
Turning away from the peg, he thought in that
same lifeless manner that it must be very early
yet; but when he looked at the watch on his
table he saw both hands arrested at twelve
o'clock.
"Ah! yes," he mumbled to himself, and as if
beginning to get roused a little he took a
survey of his room. The paper stabbed to the
wall arrested his attention. He eyed it from
the distance without approval or perplexity; but
when he heard the servant-girl beginning to
bustle about in the outer room with the
_samovar_ for his morning tea, he walked up to
it and took it down with an air of profound
indifference.
While doing this he glanced down at the bed on
which he had not slept that night. The hollow
in the pillow made by the weight of Haldin's
head was very noticeable.
Even his anger at this sign of the man's passage
was dull. He did not try to nurse it into life.
He did nothing all that day; he neglected even
to brush his hair. The idea of going out never
occurred to him--and if he did not start a
connected train of thought it was not because he
was unable to think. It was because he was not
interested enough.
He yawned frequently. He drank large quantities
of tea, he walked about aimlessly, and when he
sat down he did not budge for a long time. He
spent some time drumming on the window with his
finger-tips quietly. In his listless wanderings
round about the table he caught sight of his own
face in the looking-glass and that arrested him.
The eyes which returned his stare were the most
unhappy eyes he had ever seen. And this was the
first thing which disturbed the mental
stagnation of that day.
He was not affected personally. He merely
thought that life without happiness is
impossible. What was happiness? He yawned and
went on shuffling about and about between the
walls of his room. Looking forward was
happiness--that's all--nothing more. To look
forward to the gratification of some desire, to
the gratification of some passion, love,
ambition, hate--hate too indubitably. Love and
hate. And to escape the dangers of existence,
to live without fear, was also happiness. There
was nothing else. Absence of fear--looking
forward. "Oh! the miserable lot of humanity!"
he exclaimed mentally; and added at once in his
thought, "I ought to be happy enough as far as
that goes." But he was not excited by that
assurance. On the contrary, he yawned again as
he had been yawning all day. He was mildly
surprised to discover himself being overtaken by
night. The room grew dark swiftly though time
had seemed to stand still. How was it that he
had not noticed the passing of that day? Of
course, it was the watch being stopped. . . .
He did not light his lamp, but went over to the
bed and threw himself on it without any
hesitation. Lying on his back, he put his hands
under his head and stared upward. After a
moment he thought, "I am lying here like that
man. I wonder if he slept while I was
struggling with the blizzard in the streets.
No, he did not sleep. But why should I not
sleep?" and he felt the silence of the night
press upon all his limbs like a weight.
In the calm of the hard frost outside, the clear-
cut strokes of the town clock counting off
midnight penetrated the quietness of his
suspended animation.
Again he began to think. It was twenty-four
hours since that man left his room. Razumov had
a distinct feeling that Haldin in the fortress
was sleeping that night. It was a certitude
which made him angry because he did not want to
think of Haldin, but he justified it to himself
by physiological and psychological reasons. The
fellow had hardly slept for weeks on his own
confession, and now every incertitude was at an
end for him. No doubt he was looking forward to
the consummation of his martyrdom. A man who
resigns himself to kill need not go very far for
resignation to die. Haldin slept perhaps more
soundly than General T---, whose task--weary
work too--was not done, and over whose head hung
the sword of revolutionary vengeance.
Razumov, remembering the thick-set man with his
heavy jowl resting on the collar of his uniform,
the champion of autocracy, who had let no sign
of surprise, incredulity, or joy escape him, but
whose goggle eyes could express a mortal hatred
of all rebellion--Razumov moved uneasily on the
bed.
"He suspected me," he thought. "I suppose he
must suspect everybody. He would be capable of
suspecting his own wife, if Haldin had gone to
her boudoir with his confession."
Razumov sat up in anguish. Was he to remain a
political suspect all his days? Was he to go
through life as a man not wholly to be trusted--
with a bad secret police note tacked on to his
record? What sort of future could he look
forward to?
"I am now a suspect," he thought again; but the
habit of reflection and that desire of safety,
of an ordered life, which was so strong in him
came to his assistance as the night wore on.
His quiet, steady, and laborious existence would
vouch at length for his loyalty. There were
many permitted ways to serve one's country.
There was an activity that made for progress
without being revolutionary. The field of
influence was great and infinitely varied--once
one had conquered a name.
His thought like a circling bird reverted after
four-and-twenty hours to the silver medal, and
as it were poised itself there.
When the day broke he had not slept, not for a
moment, but he got up not very tired and quite
sufficiently self-possessed for all practical
purposes.
He went out and attended three lectures in the
morning. But the work in the library was a mere
dumb show of research. He sat with many volumes
open before him trying to make notes and
extracts. His new tranquillity was like a
flimsy garment, and seemed to float at the mercy
of a casual word. Betrayal! Why! the fellow
had done all that was necessary to betray
himself. Precious little had been needed to
deceive him.
"I have said no word to him that was not
strictly true. Not one word," Razumov argued
with himself.
Once engaged on this line of thought there could
be no question of doing useful work. The same
ideas went on passing through his mind, and he
pronounced mentally the same words over and over
again. He shut up all the books and rammed all
his papers into his pocket with convulsive
movements, raging inwardly against Haldin.
As he was leaving the library a long bony
student in a threadbare overcoat joined him,
stepping moodily by his side. Razumov answered
his mumbled greeting without looking at him at
all.
"What does he want with me? "he thought with a
strange dread of the unexpected which he tried
to shake off lest it should fasten itself upon
his life for good and all. And the other,
muttering cautiously with downcast eyes,
supposed that his comrade had seen the news of
de P---'s executioner--that was the expression
he used--having been arrested the night before
last. . . .
"I've been ill--shut up in my rooms," Razumov
mumbled through his teeth.
The tall student, raising his shoulders, shoved
his hands deep into his pockets. He had a
hairless, square, tallowy chin which trembled
slightly as he spoke, and his nose nipped bright
red by the sharp air looked like a false nose of
painted cardboard between the sallow cheeks.
His whole appearance was stamped with the mark
of cold and hunger. He stalked deliberately at
Razumov's elbow with his eyes on the ground.
"It's an official statement," he continued in
the same cautious mutter." It may be a lie.
But there was somebody arrested between midnight
and one in the morning on Tuesday. This is
certain."
And talking rapidly under the cover of his
downcast air, he told Razumov that this was
known through an inferior Government clerk
employed at the Central Secretariat. That man
belonged to one of the revolutionary circles.
"The same, in fact, I am affiliated to,"
remarked the student.
They were crossing a wide quadrangle. An
infinite distress possessed Razumov, annihilated
his energy, and before his eyes everything
appeared confused and as if evanescent. He
dared not leave the fellow there. "He may be
affiliated to the police," was the thought that
passed through his mind. "Who could tell?" But
eyeing the miserable frost-nipped, famine-struck
figure of his companion he perceived the
absurdity of his suspicion.
"But I--you know--I don't belong to any circle.
I. . . ."
He dared not say any more. Neither dared he
mend his pace. The other, raising and setting
down his lamentably shod feet with exact
deliberation, protested in a low tone that it
was not necessary for everybody to belong to an
organization. The most valuable personalities
remained outside. Some of the best work was
done outside the organization. Then very fast,
with whispering, feverish lips--
"The man arrested in the street was Haldin."
And accepting Razumov's dismayed silence as
natural enough, he assured him that there was no
mistake. That Government clerk was on night
duty at the Secretariat. Hearing a great noise
of footsteps in the hall and aware that
political prisoners were brought over sometimes
at night from the fortress, he opened the door
of the room in which he was working, suddenly.
Before the gendarme on duty could push him back
and slam the door in his face, he had seen a
prisoner being partly carried, partly dragged
along the hall by a lot of policemen. He was
being used very brutally. And the clerk had
recognized Haldin perfectly. Less than half an
hour afterwards General T--- arrived at the
Secretariat to examine that prisoner personally.
"Aren't you astonished?" concluded the gaunt
student.
"No," said Razumov roughly--and at once
regretted his answer.
"Everybody supposed Haldin was in the provinces--
with his people. Didn't you? "
The student turned his big hollow eyes upon
Razumov, who said unguardedly--
"His people are abroad."
He could have bitten his tongue out with
vexation. The student pronounced in a tone of
profound meaning-
" So! You alone were aware. . ." and stopped.
"They have sworn my ruin," thought Razumov."
Have you spoken of this to anyone else?" he
asked with bitter curiosity.
The other shook his head.
"No, only to you. Our circle thought that as
Haldin had been often heard expressing a warm
appreciation of your character. . . ."
Razumov could not restrain a gesture of angry
despair which the other must have misunderstood
in some way, because he ceased speaking and
turned away his black, lack-lustre eyes.
They moved side by side in silence. Then the
gaunt student began to whisper again, with
averted gaze--
"As we have at present no one affiliated inside
the fortress so as to make it possible to
furnish him with a packet of poison, we have
considered already some sort of retaliatory
action--to follow very soon. . . ."
Razumov trudging on interrupted--
"Were you acquainted with Haldin? Did he know
where you live?"
"I had the happiness to hear him speak twice,"
his companion answered in the feverish whisper
contrasting with the gloomy apathy of his face
and bearing. "He did not know where I live. . .
. I am lodging poorly with an artisan family. .
. . I have just a corner in a room. It is not
very practicable to see me there, but if you
should need me for anything I am ready. . . .
Razumov trembled with rage and fear. He was
beside himself, but kept his voice low.
"You are not to come near me. You are not to
speak to me. Never address a single word to me.
I forbid you."
"Very well," said the other submissively,
showing no surprise whatever at this abrupt
prohibition. "You don't wish for secret
reasons. . . perfectly. . . I understand."
He edged away at once, not looking up even; and
Razumov saw his gaunt, shabby, famine-stricken
figure cross the street obliquely with lowered
head and that peculiar exact motion of the feet.
He watched him as one would watch a vision out
of a nightmare, then he continued on his way,
trying not to think. On his landing the
landlady seemed to be waiting for him. She was
a short, thick, shapeless woman with a large
yellow face wrapped up everlastingly in a black
woollen shawl. When she saw him come up the
last flight of stairs she flung both her arms up
excitedly, then clasped her hands before her
face.
"Kirylo Sidorovitch--little father--what have
you been doing? And such a quiet young man,
too! The police are just gone this moment after
searching your rooms."
Razumov gazed down at her with silent,
scrutinizing attention. Her puffy yellow
countenance was working with emotion. She
screwed up her eyes at him entreatingly.
"Such a sensible young man! Anybody can see you
are sensible. And now--like this--all at once.
. . . What is the good of mixing yourself up
with these Nihilists? Do give over, little
father. They are unlucky people."
Razumov moved his shoulders slightly.
"Or is it that some secret enemy has been
calumniating you, Kirylo Sidorovitch? The world
is full of black hearts and false denunciations
nowadays. There is much fear about."
"Have you heard that I have been denounced by
some one?" asked Razumov, without taking his
eyes off her quivering face.
But she had not heard anything. She had tried
to find out by asking the police captain while
his men were turning the room upside down. The
police captain of the district had known her for
the last eleven years and was a humane person.
But he said to her on the landing, looking very
black and vexed--
"My good woman, do not ask questions. I don't
know anything myself. The order comes from
higher quarters."
And indeed there had appeared, shortly after the
arrival of the policemen of the district, a very
superior gentleman in a fur coat and a shiny
hat, who sat down in the room and looked through
all the papers himself. He came alone and went
away by himself, taking nothing with him. She
had been trying to put things straight a little
since they left.
Razumov turned away brusquely and entered his
rooms.
All his books had been shaken and thrown on the
floor. His landlady followed him, and stooping
painfully began to pick them up into her apron.
His papers and notes which were kept always
neatly sorted (they all related to his studies)
had been shuffled up and heaped together into a
ragged pile in the middle of the table.
This disorder affected him profoundly,
unreasonably. He sat down and stared. He had a
distinct sensation of his very existence being
undermined in some mysterious manner, of his
moral supports falling away from him one by one.
He even experienced a slight physical giddiness
and made a movement as if to reach for something
to steady himself with.
The old woman, rising to her feet with a low
groan, shot all the books she had collected in
her apron on to the sofa and left the room
muttering and sighing.
It was only then that he noticed that the sheet
of paper which for one night had remained
stabbed to the wall above his empty bed was
lying on top of the pile.
When he had taken it down the day before he had
folded it in four, absent-mindedly, before
dropping it on the table. And now he saw it
lying uppermost, spread out, smoothed out even
and covering all the confused pile of pages, the
record of his intellectual life for the last
three years. It had not been flung there. It
had been placed there--smoothed out, too! He
guessed in that an intention of profound meaning-
-or perhaps some inexplicable mockery.
He sat staring at the piece of paper till his
eyes began to smart. He did not attempt to put
his papers in order, either that evening or the
next day--which he spent at home in a state of
peculiar irresolution. This irresolution bore
upon the question whether he should continue to
live--neither more nor less. But its nature was
very far removed from the hesitation of a man
contemplating suicide. The idea of laying
violent hands upon his body did not occur to
Razumov. The unrelated organism bearing that
label, walking, breathing, wearing these
clothes, was of no importance to anyone, unless
maybe to the landlady. The true Razumov had his
being in the willed, in the determined future--
in that future menaced by the lawlessness of
autocracy--for autocracy knows no law--and the
lawlessness of revolution. The feeling that his
moral personality was at the mercy of these
lawless forces was so strong that he asked
himself seriously if it were worth while to go
on accomplishing the mental functions of that
existence which seemed no longer his own.
"What is the good of exerting my intelligence,
of pursuing the systematic development of my
faculties and all my plans of work?" he asked
himself. "I want to guide my conduct by
reasonable convictions, but what security have I
against something--some destructive horror--
walking in upon me as I sit here?. . ."
Razumov looked apprehensively towards the door
of the outer room as if expecting some shape of
evil to turn the handle and appear before him
silently.
"A common thief," he said to himself," finds
more guarantees in the law he is breaking, and
even a brute like Ziemianitch has his
consolation." Razumov envied the materialism of
the thief and the passion of the incorrigible
lover. The consequences of their actions were
always clear and their lives remained their own.
But he slept as soundly that night as though he
had been consoling himself in the manner of
Ziemianitch. He dropped off suddenly, lay like
a log, remembered no dream on waking. But it
was as if his soul had gone out in the night to
gather the flowers of wrathful wisdom. He got
up in a mood of grim determination and as if
with a new knowledge of his own nature. He
looked mockingly on the heap of papers on his
table; and left his room to attend the lectures,
muttering to himself, "We shall see."
He was in no humour to talk to anybody or hear
himself questioned as to his absence from
lectures the day before. But it was difficult
to repulse rudely a very good comrade with a
smooth pink face and fair hair, bearing the
nickname amongst his fellow-students of "Madcap
Kostia." He was the idolized only son of a very
wealthy and illiterate Government contractor,
and attended the lectures only during the
periodical fits of contrition following upon
tearful paternal remonstrances. Noisily
blundering like a retriever puppy, his elated
voice and great gestures filled the bare academy
corridors with the joy of thoughtless animal
life, provoking indulgent smiles at a great
distance. His usual discourses treated of
trotting horses, wine-parties in expensive
restaurants, and the merits of persons of easy
virtue, with a disarming artlessness of outlook.
He pounced upon Razumov about midday, somewhat
less uproariously than his habit was, and led
him aside.
"Just a moment, Kirylo Sidorovitch. A few words
here in this quiet corner."
He felt Razumov's reluctance, and insinuated his
hand under his arm caressingly.
"No--pray do. I don't want to talk to you about
any of my silly scrapes. What are my scrapes?
Absolutely nothing. Mere childishness. The
other night I flung a fellow out of a certain
place where I was having a fairly good time. A
tyrannical little beast of a quill-driver from
the Treasury department. He was bullying the
people of the house. I rebuked him. 'You are
not behaving humanely to God's creatures that
are a jolly sight more estimable than yourself,'
I said. I can't bear to see any tyranny,
Kirylo Sidorovitch. Upon my word I can't. He
didn't take it in good part at all. 'Who's that
impudent puppy ?' he begins to shout. I was in
excellent form as it happened, and he went
through the closed window very suddenly. He
flew quite a long way into the yard. I raged
like--like a--minotaur. The women clung to me
and screamed, the fiddlers got under the table.
. . . Such fun! My dad had to put his hand
pretty deep into his pocket, I can tell you."
He chuckled.
"My dad is a very useful man. Jolly good thing
it is for me, too. I do get into unholy
scrapes."
His elation fell. That was just it. What was
his life? Insignificant; no good to anyone; a
mere festivity. It would end some fine day in
his getting his skull split with a champagne
bottle in a drunken brawl. At such times, too,
when men were sacrificing themselves to ideas.
But he could never get any ideas into his head.
His head wasn't worth anything better than to be
split by a champagne bottle.
Razumov, protesting that he had no time, made an
attempt to get away. The other's tone changed
to confidential earnestness.
"For God's sake, Kirylo, my dear soul, let me
make some sort of sacrifice. It would not be a
sacrifice really. I have my rich dad behind me.
There's positively no getting to the bottom of
his pocket."
And rejecting indignantly Razumov's suggestion
that this was drunken raving, he offered to lend
him some money to escape abroad with. He could
always get money from his dad. He had only to
say that he had lost it at cards or something of
that sort, and at the same time promise solemnly
not to miss a single lecture for three months on
end. That would fetch the old man; and he,
Kostia, was quite equal to the sacrifice.
Though he really did not see what was the good
for him to attend the lectures. It was
perfectly hopeless.
"Won't you let me be of some use?" he pleaded to
the silent Razumov, who with his eyes on the
ground and utterly unable to penetrate the real
drift of the other's intention, felt a strange
reluctance to clear up the point.
"What makes you think I want to go abroad?" he
asked at last very quietly.
Kostia lowered his voice.
"You had the police in your rooms yesterday.
There are three or four of us who have heard of
that. Never mind how we know. It is sufficient
that we do. So we have been consulting
together."
"Ah! You got to know that so soon," muttered
Razumov negligently.
"Yes. We did. And it struck us that a man like
you. . . "
"What sort of a man do you take me to be?"
Razumov interrupted him.
"A man of ideas--and a man of action too. But
you are very deep, Kirylo. There's no getting
to the bottom of your mind. Not for fellows
like me. But we all agreed that you must be
preserved for our country. Of that we have no
doubt whatever--I mean all of us who have heard
Haldin speak of you on certain occasions. A man
doesn't get the police ransacking his rooms
without there being some devilry hanging over
his head. . . . And so if you think that it
would be better for you to bolt at once. . . ."
Razumov tore himself away and walked down the
corridor, leaving the other motionless with his
mouth open. But almost at once he returned and
stood before the amazed Kostia, who shut his
mouth slowly. Razumov looked him straight in
the eyes, before saying with marked deliberation
and separating his words-
"I thank--you--very--much."
He went away again rapidly. Kostia, recovering
from his surprise at these manoeuvres, ran up
behind him pressingly.
"No! Wait! Listen. I really mean it. It would
be like giving your compassion to a starving
fellow. Do you hear, Kirylo? And any disguise
you may think of, that too I could procure from
a costumier, a Jew I know. Let a fool be made
serviceable according to his folly. Perhaps
also a false beard or something of that kind may
be needed.
"Razumov turned at bay.
"There are no false beards needed in this
business, Kostia--you good-hearted lunatic, you.
What do you know of my ideas? My ideas may be
poison to you." The other began to shake his
head in energetic protest.
"What have you got to do with ideas? Some of
them would make an end of your dad's money-bags.
Leave off meddling with what you don't
understand. Go back to your trotting horses and
your girls, and then you'll be sure at least of
doing no harm to anybody, and hardly any to
yourself."
The enthusiastic youth was overcome by this
disdain.
"You're sending me back to my pig's trough,
Kirylo. That settles it. I am an unlucky beast-
-and I shall die like a beast too. But mind--
it's your contempt that has done for me."
Razumov went off with long strides. That this
simple and grossly festive soul should have
fallen too under the revolutionary curse
affected him as an ominous symptom of the time.
He reproached himself for feeling troubled.
Personally he ought to have felt reassured.
There was an obvious advantage in this
conspiracy of mistaken judgment taking him for
what he was not. But was it not strange?
Again he experienced that sensation of his
conduct being taken out of his hands by Haldin's
revolutionary tyranny. His solitary and
laborious existence had been destroyed--the only
thing he could call his own on this earth. By
what right? he asked himself furiously. In
what name?
What infuriated him most was to feel that the
"thinkers" of the University were evidently
connecting him with Haldin--as a sort of
confidant in the background apparently. A
mysterious connexion! Ha ha!. . . He had been
made a personage without knowing anything about
it. How that wretch Haldin must have talked
about him! Yet it was likely that Haldin had
said very little. The fellow's casual
utterances were caught up and treasured and
pondered over by all these imbeciles. And was
not all secret revolutionary action based upon
folly, self-deception, and lies?
"Impossible to think of anything else," muttered
Razumov to himself. "I'll become an idiot if
this goes on. The scoundrels and the fools are
murdering my intelligence."
He lost all hope of saving his future, which
depended on the free use of his intelligence.
He reached the doorway of his house in a state
of mental discouragement which enabled him to
receive with apparent indifference an official-
looking envelope from the dirty hand of the
dvornik.
"A gendarme brought it," said the man. " He
asked if you were at home. I told him 'No, he's
not at home.' So he left it. 'Give it into his
own hands,' says he. Now you've got it--eh?"
He went back to his sweeping, and Razumov
climbed his stairs, envelope in hand. Once in
his room he did not hasten to open it. Of
course this official missive was from the
superior direction of the police. A suspect! A
suspect!
He stared in dreary astonishment at the
absurdity of his position. He thought with a
sort of dry, unemotional melancholy; three years
of good work gone, the course of forty more
perhaps jeopardized--turned from hope to terror,
because events started by human folly link
themselves into a sequence which no sagacity can
foresee and no courage can break through.
Fatality enters your rooms while your landlady's
back is turned; you come home and find it in
possession bearing a man's name, clothed in
flesh--wearing a brown cloth coat and long boots-
-lounging against the stove. It asks you, "Is
the outer door closed?"--and you don't know
enough to take it by the throat and fling it
downstairs. You don't know. You welcome the
crazy fate. "Sit down," you say. And it is all
over. You cannot shake it off any more. It
will cling to you for ever. Neither halter nor
bullet can give you back the freedom of your
life and the sanity of your thought. . . . It
was enough to dash one's head against a wall.
Razumov looked slowly all round the walls as if
to select a spot to dash his head against. Then
he opened the letter. It directed the student
Kirylo Sidorovitch Razumov to present himself
without delay at the General Secretariat.
Razumov had a vision of General T---'s goggle
eyes waiting for him--the embodied power of
autocracy, grotesque and terrible. He embodied
the whole power of autocracy because he was its
guardian. He was the incarnate suspicion, the
incarnate anger, the incarnate ruthlessness of a
political and social regime on its defence. He
loathed rebellion by instinct. And Razumov
reflected that the man was simply unable to
understand a reasonable adherence to the
doctrine of absolutism.
"What can he want with me precisely--I wonder?"
he asked himself.
As if that mental question had evoked the
familiar phantom, Haldin stood suddenly before
him in the room with an extraordinary
completeness of detail. Though the short winter
day had passed already into the sinister
twilight of a land buried in snow, Razumov saw
plainly the narrow leather strap round the
Tcherkess coat. The illusion of that hateful
presence was so perfect that he half expected it
to ask, "Is the outer door closed?" He looked at
it with hatred and contempt. Souls do not take
a shape of clothing. Moreover, Haldin could not
be dead yet. Razumov stepped forward menacingly;
the vision vanished--and turning short on his
heel he walked out of his room with infinite
disdain.
But after going down the first flight of stairs
it occurred to him that perhaps the superior
authorities of police meant to confront him with
Haldin in the flesh. This thought struck him
like a bullet, and had he not clung with both
hands to the banister he would have rolled down
to the next landing most likely. His legs were
of no use for a considerable time. . . . But
why? For what conceivable reason? To what end?
There could be no rational answer to these
questions; but Razumov remembered the promise
made by the General to Prince K---. His action
was to remain unknown.
He got down to the bottom of the stairs,
lowering himself as it were from step to step,
by the banister. Under the gate he regained much
of his firmness of thought and limb. He went
out into the street without staggering visibly.
Every moment he felt steadier mentally. And yet
he was saying to himself that General T--- was
perfectly capable of shutting him up in the
fortress for an indefinite time. His
temperament fitted his remorseless task, and his
omnipotence made him inaccessible to reasonable
argument.
But when Razumov arrived at the Secretariat he
discovered that he would have nothing to do with
General T---. It is evident from Mr. Razumov's
diary that this dreaded personality was to
remain in the background. A civilian of
superior rank received him in a private room
after a period of waiting in outer offices where
a lot of scribbling went on at many tables in a
heated and stuffy atmosphere.
The clerk in uniform who conducted him said in
the corridor--
"You are going before Gregor Matvieitch Mikulin."
There was nothing formidable about the man
bearing that name. His mild, expectant glance
was turned on the door already when Razumov
entered. At once, with the penholder he was
holding in his hand, he pointed to a deep sofa
between two windows. He followed Razumov with
his eyes while that last crossed the room and
sat down. The mild gaze rested on him, not
curious, not inquisitive--certainly not
suspicious--almost without expression. In its
passionless persistence there was something
resembling sympathy.
Razumov, who had prepared his will and his
intelligence to encounter General T--- himself,
was profoundly troubled. All the moral bracing
up against the possible excesses of power and
passion went for nothing before this sallow man,
who wore a full unclipped beard. It was fair,
thin, and very fine. The light fell in coppery
gleams on the protuberances of a high, rugged
forehead. And the aspect of the broad, soft
physiognomy was so homely and rustic that the
careful middle parting of the hair seemed a
pretentious affectation.
The diary of Mr. Razumov testifies to some
irritation on his part. I may remark here that
the diary proper consisting of the more or less
daily entries seems to have been begun on that
very evening after Mr. Razumov had returned home.
Mr. Razumov, then, was irritated. His strung-up
individuality had gone to pieces within him very
suddenly.
"I must be very prudent with him," he warned
himself in the silence during which they sat
gazing at each other. It lasted some little
time, and was characterized (for silences have
their character) by a sort of sadness imparted
to it perhaps by the mild and thoughtful manner
of the bearded official. Razumov learned later
that he was the chief of a department in the
General Secretariat, with a rank in the civil
service equivalent to that of a colonel in the
army.
Razumov's mistrust became acute. The main point
was, not to be drawn into saying too much. He
had been called there for some reason. What
reason? To be given to understand that he was a
suspect--and also no doubt to be pumped. As to
what precisely? There was nothing. Or perhaps
Haldin had been telling lies. . . . Every
alarming uncertainty beset Razumov. He could
bear the silence no longer, and cursing himself
for his weakness spoke first, though he had
promised himself not to do so on any account.
"I haven't lost a moment's time," he began in a
hoarse, provoking tone; and then the faculty of
speech seemed to leave him and enter the body of
Councillor Mikulin, who chimed in approvingly--
"Very proper. Very proper. Though as a matter
of fact. . . ."
But the spell was broken, and Razumov
interrupted him boldly, under a sudden
conviction that this was the safest attitude to
take. With a great flow of words he complained
of being totally misunderstood. Even as he
talked with a perception of his own audacity he
thought that the word "misunderstood" was better
than the word "mistrusted," and he repeated it
again with insistence. Suddenly he ceased,
being seized with fright before the attentive
immobility of the official. "What am I talking
about?" he thought, eyeing him with a vague
gaze. Mistrusted--not misunderstood--was the
right symbol for these people. Misunderstood
was the other kind of curse. Both had been
brought on his head by that fellow Haldin. And
his head ached terribly. He passed his hand
over his brow--an involuntary gesture of
suffering, which he was too careless to
restrain. At that moment Razumov beheld his own
brain suffering on the rack--a long, pale figure
drawn asunder horizontally with terrific force
in the darkness of a vault, whose face he failed
to see. It was as though he had dreamed for an
infinitesimal fraction of time of some dark
print of the Inquisition.
It is not to be seriously supposed that Razumov
had actually dozed off and had dreamed in the
presence of Councillor Mikulin, of an old print
of the Inquisition. He was indeed extremely
exhausted, and he records a remarkably dream-
like experience of anguish at the circumstance
that there was no one whatever near the pale and
extended figure. The solitude of the racked
victim was particularly horrible to behold. The
mysterious impossibility to see the face, he
also notes, inspired a sort of terror. All
these characteristics of an ugly dream were
present. Yet he is certain that he never lost
the consciousness of himself on the sofa,
leaning forward with his hands between his knees
and turning his cap round and round in his
fingers. But everything vanished at the voice
of Councillor Mikulin. Razumov felt profoundly
grateful for the even simplicity of its tone.
"Yes. I have listened with interest. I
comprehend in a measure your. . . But, indeed,
you are mistaken in what you. . . . "Councillor
Mikulin uttered a series of broken sentences.
Instead of finishing them he glanced down his
beard. It was a deliberate curtailment which
somehow made the phrases more impressive. But
he could talk fluently enough, as became
apparent when changing his tone to
persuasiveness he went on: "By listening to you
as I did, I think I have proved that I do not
regard our intercourse as strictly official. In
fact, I don't want it to have that character at
all. . . . Oh yes! I admit that the request for
your presence here had an official form. But I
put it to you whether it was a form which would
have been used to secure the attendance of a. .
. ."
"Suspect," exclaimed Razumov, looking straight
into the official's eyes. They were big with
heavy eyelids, and met his boldness with a dim,
steadfast gaze. "A suspect." The open
repetition of that word which had been haunting
all his waking hours gave Razumov a strange sort
of satisfaction. Councillor Mikulin shook his
head slightly. "Surely you do know that I've
had my rooms searched by the police?"
"I was about to say a 'misunderstood person,'
when you interrupted me," insinuated quietly
Councillor Mikulin.
Razumov smiled without bitterness. The renewed
sense of his intellectual superiority sustained
him in the hour of danger. He said a little
disdainfully--
"I know I am but a reed. But I beg you to allow
me the superiority of the thinking reed over the
unthinking forces that are about to crush him
out of existence. Practical thinking in the
last instance is but criticism. I may perhaps
be allowed to express my wonder at this action
of the police being delayed for two full days
during which, of course, I could have
annihilated everything compromising by burning
it--let us say--and getting rid of the very
ashes, for that matter."
"You are angry," remarked the official, with an
unutterable simplicity of tone and manner. "Is
that reasonable? "
Razumov felt himself colouring with annoyance.
"I am reasonable. I am even--permit me to say--
a thinker, though to be sure, this name nowadays
seems to be the monopoly of hawkers of
revolutionary wares, the slaves of some French
or German thought--devil knows what foreign
notions. But I am not an intellectual mongrel.
I think like a Russian. I think faithfully--and
I take the liberty to call myself a thinker. It
is not a forbidden word, as far as I know."
" No. Why should it be a forbidden word?"
Councillor Mikulin turned in his seat with
crossed legs and resting his elbow on the table
propped his head on the knuckles of a half-
closed hand. Razumov noticed a thick forefinger
clasped by a massive gold band set with a blood-
red stone--a signet ring that, looking as if it
could weigh half a pound, was an appropriate
ornament for that ponderous man with the
accurate middle-parting of glossy hair above a
rugged Socratic forehead.
"Could it be a wig?" Razumov detected himself
wondering with an unexpected detachment. His
self-confidence was much shaken. He resolved to
chatter no more. Reserve ! Reserve ! All he
had to do was to keep the Ziemianitch episode
secret with absolute determination, when the
questions came. Keep Ziemianitch strictly out
of all the answers.
Councillor Mikulin looked at him dimly.
Razumov's self-confidence abandoned him
completely. It seemed impossible to keep
Ziemianitch out. Every question would lead to
that, because, of course, there was nothing
else. He made an effort to brace himself up.
It was a failure. But Councillor Mikulin was
surprisingly detached too.
"Why should it be forbidden?" he repeated. "I
too consider myself a thinking man, I assure
you. The principal condition is to think
correctly. I admit it is difficult sometimes at
first for a young man abandoned to himself--with
his generous impulses undisciplined, so to speak-
-at the mercy of every wild wind that blows.
Religious belief, of course, is a great. . . ."
Councillor Mikulin glanced down his beard, and
Razumov, whose tension was relaxed by that
unexpected and discursive turn, murmured with
gloomy discontent-
"That man, Haldin, believed in God."
"Ah! You are aware," breathed out Councillor
Mikulin, making the point softly, as if with
discretion, but making it nevertheless plainly
enough, as if he too were put off his guard by
Razumov's remark. The young man preserved an
impassive, moody countenance, though he
reproached himself bitterly for a pernicious
fool, to have given thus an utterly false
impression of intimacy. He kept his eyes on the
floor. "I must positively hold my tongue unless
I am obliged to speak," he admonished himself.
And at once against his will the question,
"Hadn't I better tell him everything?"
presented itself with such force that he had to
bite his lower lip. Councillor Mikulin could
not, however, have nourished any hope of
confession. He went on--
"You tell me more than his judges were able to
get out of him. He was judged by a commission
of three. He would tell them absolutely
nothing. I have the report of the
interrogatories here, by me. After every
question there stands "Refuses to answer--
refuses to answer.' It's like that page after
page. You see, I have been entrusted with some
further investigations around and about this
affair. He has left me nothing to begin my
investigations on. A hardened miscreant. And
so, you say, he believed in. . . ."
Again Councillor Mikulin glanced down his beard
with a faint grimace; but he did not pause for
long. Remarking with a shade of scorn that
blasphemers also had that sort of belief, he
concluded by supposing that Mr. Razumov had
conversed frequently with Haldin on the subject.
"No," said Razumov loudly, without looking up.
"He talked and I listened. That is not a
conversation."
"Listening is a great art," observed Mikulin
parenthetically.
"And getting people to talk is another," mumbled
Razumov.
"Well, no--that is not very difficult," Mikulin
said innocently, "except, of course, in special
cases. For instance, this Haldin. Nothing
could induce him to talk. He was brought four
times before the delegated judges. Four secret
interrogatories--and even during the last, when
your personality was put forward. . . ."
"My personality put forward?" repeated Razumov,
raising his head brusquely. "I don't
understand." Councillor Mikulin turned squarely
to the table, and taking up some sheets of grey
foolscap dropped them one after another,
retaining only the last in his hand. He held it
before his eyes while speaking.
"It was--you see--judged necessary. In a case
of that gravity no means of action upon the
culprit should be neglected. You understand
that yourself, I am certain."
Razumov stared with enormous wide eyes at the
side view of Councillor Mikulin, who now was not
looking at him at all.
"So it was decided (I was consulted by General T-
--) that a certain question should be put to the
accused. But in deference to the earnest wishes
of Prince K--- your name has been kept out of
the documents and even from the very knowledge
of the judges themselves. Prince K---
recognized the propriety, the necessity of what
we proposed to do, but he was concerned for your
safety. Things do leak out--that we can't deny.
One cannot always answer for the discretion of
inferior officials. There was, of course, the
secretary of the special tribunal--one or two
gendarmes in the room. Moreover, as I have
said, in deference to Prince K--- even the
judges themselves were to be left in ignorance.
The question ready framed was sent to them by
General T--- (I wrote it out with my own hand)
with instructions to put it to the prisoner the
very last of all. Here it is."
Councillor Mikulin threw back his head into
proper focus and went on reading monotonously:
"Question--Has the man well known to you, in
whose rooms you remained for several hours on
Monday and on whose information you have been
arrested--has he had any previous knowledge of
your intention to commit a political murder?. .
. Prisoner refuses to reply.
"Question repeated. Prisoner preserves the same
stubborn silence.
"The venerable Chaplain of the Fortress being
then admitted and exhorting the prisoner to
repentance, entreating him also to atone for his
crime by an unreserved and full confession which
should help to liberate from the sin of
rebellion against the Divine laws and the sacred
Majesty of the Ruler, our Christ-loving land--
the prisoner opens his lips for the first time
during this morning's audience and in a loud,
clear voice rejects the venerable Chaplain's
ministrations.
"At eleven o'clock the Court pronounces in
summary form the death sentence.
"The execution is fixed for four o'clock in the
afternoon, subject to further instructions from
superior authorities."
Councillor Mikulin dropped the page of foolscap,
glanced down his beard, and turning to Razumov,
added in an easy, explanatory tone--
"We saw no object in delaying the execution.
The order to carry out the sentence was sent by
telegraph at noon. I wrote out the telegram
myself. He was hanged at four o'clock this
afternoon."
The definite information of Haldin's death gave
Razumov the feeling of general lassitude which
follows a great exertion or a great excitement.
He kept very still on the sofa, but a murmur
escaped him-
"He had a belief in a future existence."
Councillor Mikulin shrugged his shoulders
slightly, and Razumov got up with an effort.
There was nothing now to stay for in that room.
Haldin had been hanged at four o'clock. There
could be no doubt of that. He had, it seemed,
entered upon his future existence, long boots,
Astrakhan fur cap and all, down to the very
leather strap round his waist. A flickering,
vanishing sort of existence. It was not his
soul, it was his mere phantom he had left behind
on this earth--thought Razumov, smiling
caustically to himself while he crossed the
room, utterly forgetful of where he was and of
Councillor Mikulin's existence. The official
could have set a lot of bells ringing all over
the building without leaving his chair. He let
Razumov go quite up to the door before he spoke.
"Come, Kirylo Sidorovitch--what are you doing?"
Razumov turned his head and looked at him in
silence. He was not in the least disconcerted.
Councillor Mikulin's arms were stretched out on
the table before him and his body leaned forward
a little with an effort of his dim gaze.
"Was I actually going to clear out like this?"
Razumov wondered at himself with an impassive
countenance. And he was aware of this
impassiveness concealing a lucid astonishment.
"Evidently I was going out if he had not
spoken," he thought. "What would he have done
then? I must end this affair one way or
another. I must make him show his hand."
For a moment longer he reflected behind the mask
as it were, then let go the door-handle and came
back to the middle of the room.
"I'll tell you what you think," he said
explosively, but not raising his voice. "You
think that you are dealing with a secret
accomplice of that unhappy man. No, I do not
know that he was unhappy. He did not tell me.
He was a wretch from my point of view, because
to keep alive a false idea is a greater crime
than to kill a man. I suppose you will not deny
that? I hated him! Visionaries work
everlasting evil on earth. Their Utopias
inspire in the mass of mediocre minds a disgust
of reality and a contempt for the secular logic
of human development."
Razumov shrugged his shoulders and stared.
"What a tirade!" he thought. The silence and
immobility of Councillor Mikulin impressed him.
The bearded bureaucrat sat at his post,
mysteriously self-possessed like an idol with
dim, unreadable eyes. Razumov's voice changed
involuntarily.
"If you were to ask me where is the necessity of
my hate for such as Haldin, I would answer you--
there is nothing sentimental in it. I did not
hate him because he had committed the crime of
murder. Abhorrence is not hate. I hated him
simply because I am sane. It is in that
character that he outraged me. His death. . ."
Razumov felt his voice growing thick in his
throat. The dimness of Councillor Mikulin's
eyes seemed to spread all over his face and made
it indistinct to Razumov's sight. He tried to
disregard these phenomena.
"Indeed," he pursued, pronouncing each word
carefully, "what is his death to me? If he were
lying here on the floor I could walk over his
breast. . . . The fellow is a mere phantom. . .
."
Razumov's voice died out very much against his
will. Mikulin behind the table did not allow
himself the slightest movement. The silence
lasted for some little time before Razumov could
go on again.
"He went about talking of me. Those
intellectual fellows sit in each other's rooms
and get drunk on foreign ideas in the same way
young Guards' officers treat each other with
foreign wines. Merest debauchery. . . . Upon
my Word,"--Razumov, enraged by a sudden
recollection of Ziemianitch, lowered his voice
forcibly,--"upon my word, we Russians are a
drunken lot. Intoxication of some sort we must
have: to get ourselves wild with sorrow or
maudlin with resignation; to lie inert like a
log or set fire to the house. What is a sober
man to do, I should like to know? To cut oneself
entirely from one's kind is impossible. To live
in a desert one must be a saint. But if a
drunken man runs out of the grog-shop, falls on
your neck and kisses you on both cheeks because
something about your appearance has taken his
fancy, what then--kindly tell me? You may break,
perhaps, a cudgel on his back and yet not
succeed in beating him off. . . ."
Councillor Mikulin raised his hand and passed it
down his face deliberately.
"That's. . . of course," he said in an undertone.
The quiet gravity of that gesture made Razumov
pause. It was so unexpected, too. What did it
mean? It had an alarming aloofness. Razumov
remembered his intention of making him show his
hand.
"I have said all this to Prince K---," he began
with assumed indifference, but lost it on seeing
Councillor Mikulin's slow nod of assent. "You
know it? You've heard. . . . Then why should I
be called here to be told of Haldin's execution?
Did you want to confront me with his silence
now that the man is dead? What is his silence
to me! This is incomprehensible. "You want in
some way to shake my moral balance."
"No. Not that," murmured Councillor Mikulin,
just audibly. "The service you have rendered is
appreciated. . . ."
"Is it?'' interrupted Razumov ironically.
". . .and your position too." Councillor
Mikulin did not raise his voice. "But only
think! You fall into Prince K---'s study as if
from the sky with your startling information. .
. . You are studying yet, Mr. Razumov, but we
are serving already--don't forget that. . . .
And naturally some curiosity was bound to. . . ."
Councillor Mikulin looked down his beard.
Razumov's lips trembled.
"An occurrence of that sort marks a man," the
homely murmur went on. "I admit I was curious
to see you. General T--- thought it would be
useful, too. . . . Don't think I am incapable
of understanding your sentiments. When I was
young like you I studied. . . ."
"Yes--you wished to see me," said Razumov in a
tone of profound distaste. "Naturally you have
the right--I mean the power. It all amounts to
the same thing. But it is perfectly useless, if
you were to look at me and listen to me for a
year. I begin to think there is something about
me which people don't seem able to make out.
It's unfortunate. I imagine, however, that
Prince K--- understands. He seemed to."
Councillor Mikulin moved slightly and spoke.
"Prince K--- is aware of everything that is
being done, and I don't mind informing you that
he approved my intention of becoming personally
acquainted with you."
Razumov concealed an immense disappointment
under the accents of railing surprise.
"So he is curious too!. . . Well--after all,
Prince K--- knows me very little. It is really
very unfortunate for me, but--it is not exactly
my fault."
Councillor Mikulin raised a hasty deprecatory
hand and inclined his head slightly over his
shoulder.
"Now, Mr. Razumov--is it necessary to take it in
that way? Everybody I am sure can. . . ."
He glanced rapidly down his beard, and when he
looked up again there was for a moment an
interested expression in his misty gaze.
Razumov discouraged it with a cold, repellent
smile.
"No. That's of no importance to be sure--except
that in respect of all this curiosity being
aroused by a very simple matter. . . . What is
to be done with it? It is unappeasable. I mean
to say there is nothing to appease it with. I
happen to have been born a Russian with
patriotic instincts--whether inherited or not I
am not in a position to say."
Razumov spoke consciously with elaborate
steadiness.
"Yes, patriotic instincts developed by a faculty
of independent thinking--of detached thinking.
In that respect I am more free than any social
democratic revolution could make me. It is more
than probable that I don't think exactly as you
are thinking. Indeed, how could it be? You
would think most likely at this moment that I am
elaborately lying to cover up the track of my
repentance."
Razumov stopped. His heart had grown too big
for his breast. Councillor Mikulin did not
flinch.
"Why so?" he said simply. "I assisted
personally at the search of your rooms. I
looked through all the papers myself. I have
been greatly impressed by a sort of political
confession of faith. A very remarkable
document. Now may I ask for what purpose. . . ."
"To deceive the police naturally," said Razumov
savagely. . . . "What is all this mockery? Of
course you can send me straight from this room
to Siberia. That would be intelligible. To
what is intelligible I can submit. But I
protest against this comedy of persecution. The
whole affair is becoming too comical altogether
for my taste. A comedy of errors, phantoms, and
suspicions. It's positively indecent. . . ."
Councillor Mikulin turned an attentive ear.
"Did you say phantoms?" he murmured.
"I could walk over dozens of them." Razumov,
with an impatient wave of his hand, went on
headlong, "But, really, I must claim the right
to be done once for all with that man. And in
order to accomplish this I shall take the
liberty. . . ."
Razumov on his side of the table bowed slightly
to the seated bureaucrat.
". . . To retire--simply to retire," he finished
with great resolution.
He walked to the door, thinking, "Now he must
show his hand. He must ring and have me
arrested before I am out of the building, or he
must let me go. And either way. . . ."
An unhurried voice said--
"Kirylo Sidorovitch." Razumov at the door
turned his head.
"To retire," he repeated.
"Where to?" asked Councillor Mikulin softly.
