II
"Perhaps life is just that," reflected Razumov, pacing to and fro under the
trees of the little island, all alone with the bronze statue of Rousseau. "A
dream and a fear." The dusk deepened. The pages written over and torn out of
his notebook were the first-fruit of his "mission." No dream that. They
contained the assurance that he was on the eve of real discoveries. "I think
there is no longer anything in the way of my being completely accepted."
He had resumed his impressions in those pages, some of the conversations. He
even went so far as to write: "By the by, I have discovered the personality of
that terrible N.N. A horrible, paunchy brute. If I hear anything of his
future movements I shall send a warning."
The futility of all this overcame him like a curse. Even then he could not
believe in the reality of his mission. He looked round despairingly, as if for
some way to redeem his existence from that unconquerable feeling. He crushed
angrily in his hand the pages of the notebook. "This must be posted," he
thought.
He gained the bridge and returned to the north shore, where he remembered
having seen in one of the narrower streets a little obscure shop stocked with
cheap wood carvings, its walls lined with extremely dirty cardboard-bound
volumes of a small circulating library. They sold stationery there, too. A
morose, shabby old man dozed behind the counter. A thin woman in black, with a
sickly face, produced the envelope he had asked for without even looking at
him. Razumov thought that these people were safe to deal with because they no
longer cared for anything in the world. He addressed the envelope on the
counter with the German name of a certain person living in Vienna. But Razumov
knew that this, his first communication for Councillor Mikulin, would find its
way to the Embassy there, be copied in cypher by somebody trustworthy, and sent
on to its destination, all safe, along with the diplomatic correspondence.
That was the arrangement contrived to cover up the track of the information
from all unfaithful eyes, from all indiscretions, from all mishaps and
treacheries. It was to make him safe--absolutely safe.
He wandered out of the wretched shop and made for the post office. It was then
that I saw him for the second time that day. He was crossing the Rue Mont
Blanc with every appearance of an aimless stroller. He did not recognize me,
but I made him out at some distance. He was very good-looking, I thought, this
remarkable friend of Miss Haldin's brother. I watched him go up to the
letter-box and then retrace his steps. Again he passed me very close, but I am
certain he did not see me that time, either. He carried his head well up, but
he had the expression of a somnambulist struggling with the very dream which
drives him forth to wander in dangerous places. My thoughts reverted to
Natalia Haldin, to her mother. He was all that was left to them of their son
and brother.
The westerner in me was discomposed. There was something shocking in the
expression of that face. Had I been myself a conspirator, a Russian political
refugee, I could have perhaps been able to draw some practical conclusion from
this chance glimpse. As it was, it only discomposed me strongly, even to the
extent of awakening an indefinite apprehension in regard to Natalia Haldin.
All this is rather inexplicable, but such was the origin of the purpose I
formed there and then to call on these ladies in the evening, after my solitary
dinner. It was true that I had met Miss Haldin only a few hours before, but
Mrs. Haldin herself I had not seen for some considerable time. The truth is, I
had shirked calling of late.
Poor Mrs. Haldin! I confess she frightened me a little. She was one of those
natures, rare enough, luckily, in which one cannot help being interested,
because they provoke both terror and pity. One dreads their contact for
oneself, and still more for those one cares for, so clear it is that they are
born to suffer and to make others suffer, too. It is strange to think that, I
won't say liberty, but the mere liberalism of outlook which for us is a matter
of words, of ambitions, of votes (and if of feeling at all, then of the sort of
feeling which leaves our deepest affections untouched), may be for other beings
very much like ourselves and living under the same sky, a heavy trial of
fortitude, a matter of tears and anguish and blood. Mrs. Haldin had felt the
pangs of her own generation. There was that enthusiast brother of hers--the
officer they shot under Nicholas. A faintly ironic resignation is no armour
for a vulnerable heart. Mrs. Haldin, struck at through her children, was bound
to suffer afresh from the past, and to feel the anguish of the future. She was
of those who do not know how to heal themselves, of those who are too much
aware of their heart, who, neither cowardly nor selfish, look passionately at
its wounds--and count the cost.
Such thoughts as these seasoned my modest, lonely bachelor's meal. If anybody
wishes to remark that this was a roundabout way of thinking of Natalia Haldin,
I can only retort that she was well worth some concern. She had all her life
before her. Let it be admitted, then, that I was thinking of Natalia Haldin's
life in terms of her mother's character, a manner of thinking about a girl
permissible for an old man, not too old yet to have become a stranger to pity.
There was almost all her youth before her; a youth robbed arbitrarily of its
natural lightness and joy, overshadowed by an un-European despotism; a terribly
sombre youth given over to the hazards of a furious strife between equally
ferocious antagonisms.
I lingered over my thoughts more than I should have done. One felt so
helpless, and even worse--so unrelated, in a way. At the last moment I
hesitated as to going there at all. What was the good?
The evening was already advanced when, turning into the Boulevard des
Philosophes, I saw the light in the window at the corner. The blind was down,
but I could imagine behind it Mrs. Haldin seated in the chair, in her usual
attitude, looking out for some one, which had lately acquired the poignant
quality of mad expectation.
I thought that I was sufficiently authorized by the light to knock at the door.
The ladies had not retired as yet. I only hoped they would not have any
visitors of their own nationality. A broken-down, retired Russian official was
to be found there sometimes in the evening. He was infinitely forlorn and
wearisome by his mere dismal presence. I think these ladies tolerated his
frequent visits because of an ancient friendship with Mr. Haldin, the father,
or something of that sort. I made up my mind that if I found him prosing away
there in his feeble voice I should remain but a very few minutes.
The door surprised me by swinging open before I could ring the bell. I was
confronted by Miss Haldin, in hat and jacket, obviously on the point of going
out. At that hour! For the doctor, perhaps?
Her exclamation of welcome reassured me. It sounded as if I had been the very
man she wanted to see. My curiosity was awakened. She drew me in, and the
faithful Anna, the elderly German maid, closed the door, but did not go away
afterwards. She remained near it as if in readiness to let me out presently.
It appeared that Miss Haldin had been on the point of going out to find me.
She spoke in a hurried manner very unusual with her. She would have gone
straight and rung at Mrs. Ziegler's door, late as it was, for Mrs. Ziegler's
habits. . . .
Mrs. Ziegler, the widow of a distinguished professor who was an intimate friend
of mine, lets me have three rooms out of her very large and fine apartment,
which she didn't give up after her husband's death; but I have my own entrance
opening on the same landing. It was an arrangement of at least ten years'
standing. I said that I was very glad that I had the idea to. . . .
Miss Haldin made no motion to take off her outdoor things. I observed her
heightened colour, something pronouncedly resolute in her tone. Did I know
where Mr. Razumov lived?
Where Mr. Razumov lived? Mr. Razumov? At this hour--so urgently? I threw my
arms up in sign of utter ignorance. I had not the slightest idea where he
lived. If I could have foreseen her question only three hours ago, I might
have ventured to ask him on the pavement before the new post office building,
and possibly he would have told me, but very possibly, too, he would have
dismissed me rudely to mind my own business. And possibly, I thought,
remembering that extraordinary hallucined, anguished, and absent expression, he
might have fallen down in a fit from the shock of being spoken to. I said
nothing of all this to Miss Haldin, not even mentioning that I had a glimpse of
the young man so recently. The impression had been so extremely unpleasant
that I would have been glad to forget it myself.
"I don't see where I could make inquiries," I murmured helplessly. I would
have been glad to be of use in any way, and would have set off to fetch any
man, young or old, for I had the greatest confidence in her common sense.
"What made you think of coming to me for that information?" I asked.
"It wasn't exactly for that," she said, in a low voice. She had the air of
some one confronted by an unpleasant task.
"Am I to understand that you must communicate with Mr. Razumov this evening?"
Natalia Haldin moved her head affirmatively; then, after a glance at the door
of the drawing-room, said in French--
"_C'est maman_," and remained perplexed for a moment. Always serious, not a
girl to be put out by any imaginary difficulties, my curiosity was suspended on
her lips, which remained closed for a moment. What was Mr. Razumov's connexion
with this mention of her mother? Mrs. Haldin had not been informed of her
son's friend's arrival in Geneva.
"May I hope to see your mother this evening?" I inquired.
Miss Haldin extended her hand as if to bar the way.
"She is in a terrible state of agitation. Oh, you would not he able to detect.
. . . It's inward, but I who know mother, I am appalled. I haven't the
courage to face it any longer. It's all my fault; I suppose I cannot play a
part; I've never before hidden anything from mother. There has never been an
occasion for anything of that sort between us. But you know yourself the
reason why I refrained from telling her at once of Mr. Razumov's arrival here.
You understand, don't you? Owing to her unhappy state. And--there--I am no
actress. My own feelings being strongly engaged, I somehow . . . . I don't
know. She noticed something in my manner. She thought I was concealing
something from her. She noticed my longer absences, and, in fact, as I have
been meeting Mr. Razumov daily, I used to stay away longer than usual when I
went out. Goodness knows what suspicions arose in her mind. You know that she
has not been herself ever since. . . . So this evening she--who has been so
awfully silent: for weeks-began to talk all at once. She said that she did not
want to reproach me; that I had my character as she had her own; that she did
not want to pry into my affairs or even into my thoughts; for her part, she had
never had anything to conceal from her children. . . cruel things to listen to.
And all this in her quiet voice, with that poor, wasted face as calm as a
stone. It was unbearable."
Miss Haldin talked in an undertone and more rapidly than I had ever heard her
speak before. That in itself was disturbing. The ante-room being strongly
lighted, I could see under the veil the heightened colour of her face. She
stood erect, her left hand was resting lightly on a small table. The other
hung by her side without stirring. Now and then she caught her breath slightly.
"It was too startling. Just fancy! She thought that I was making preparations
to leave her without saying anything. I knelt by the side of her chair and
entreated her to think of what she was saying! She put her hand on my head,
but she persists in her delusion all the same. She had always thought that she
was worthy of her children's confidence, but apparently it was not so. Her son
could not trust her love nor yet her understanding--and now I was planning to
abandon her in the same cruel and unjust manner, and so on, and so on. Nothing
I could say. . . . It is morbid obstinacy. . . . She said that she felt there
was something, some change in me. . . . If my convictions were calling me
away, why this secrecy, as though she had been a coward or a weakling not safe
to trust? 'As if my heart could play traitor to my children,' she said. . . .
It was hardly to be borne. And she was smoothing my head all the time. . . .
It was perfectly useless to protest. She is ill. Her very soul is. . . ."
I did not venture to break the silence which fell between us. I looked into
her eyes, glistening through the veil.
"I! Changed!" she exclaimed in the same low tone. "My convictions calling me
away! It was cruel to hear this, because my trouble is that I am weak and
cannot see what I ought to do. You know that. And to end it all I did a
selfish thing. To remove her suspicions of myself I told her of Mr. Razumov.
It was selfish of me. You know we were completely right in agreeing to keep
the knowledge away from her. Perfectly right. Directly I told her of our poor
Victor's friend being here I saw how right we have been. She ought to have
been prepared; but in my distress I just blurted it out. Mother got terribly
excited at once. How long has he been here? What did he know, and why did he
not come to see us at once, this friend of her Victor? What did that mean?
Was she not to be trusted even with such memories as there were left of her
son?. . . Just think how I felt seeing her, white like a sheet, perfectly
motionless, with her thin hands gripping the arms of the chair. I told her it
was all my fault."
I could imagine the motionless dumb figure of the mother in her chair, there,
behind the door, near which the daughter was talking to me. The silence in
there seemed to call aloud for vengeance against an historical fact and the
modern instances of its working. That view flashed through my mind, but I
could not doubt that Miss Haldin had had an atrocious time of it. I quite
understood when she said that she could not face the night upon the impression
of that scene. Mrs. Haldin had given way to most awful imaginings, to most
fantastic and cruel suspicions. All this had to be lulled at all costs and
without loss of time. It was no shock to me to ]earn that Miss Haldin had said
to her, "I will go and bring him here at once." There was nothing absurd in
that cry, no exaggeration of sentiment. I was not even doubtful in my "Very
well, but how?"
It was perfectly right that she should think of me, but what could I do in my
ignorance of Mr. Razumov's quarters.
"And to think he may be living near by, within a stone's-throw, perhaps!" she
exclaimed.
I doubted it; but I would have gone off cheerfully to fetch him from the other
end of Geneva. I suppose she was certain of my readiness, since her first
thought was to come to me. But the service she meant to ask of me really was
to accompany her to the Chateau Borel.
I had an unpleasant mental vision of the dark road, of the sombre grounds, and
the desolately suspicious aspect of that home of necromancy and intrigue and
feminist adoration. I objected that Madame de S--- most likely would know
nothing of what we wanted to find out. Neither did I think it likely that the
young man would be found there. I remembered my glimpse of his face, and
somehow gained the conviction that a man who looked worse than if he had seen
the dead would want to shut himself up somewhere where he could be alone. I
felt a strange certitude that Mr. Razumov was going home when I saw him.
"It is really of Peter Ivanovitch that I was thinking," said Miss Haldin
quietly.
Ah! He, of course, would know. I looked at my watch. It was twenty minutes
past nine only. . . . Still.
"I would try his hotel, then," I advised. "He has rooms at the Cosmopolitan,
somewhere on the top floor."
I did not offer to go by myself, simply from mistrust of the reception I should
meet with. But I suggested the faithful Anna, with a note asking for the
information.
Anna was still waiting by the door at the other end of the room, and we two
discussed the matter in whispers. Miss Haldin thought she must go herself.
Anna was timid and slow. Time would be lost in bringing back the answer, and
from that point of view it was getting late, for it was by no means certain
that Mr. Razumov lived near by.
"If I go myself," Miss Haldin argued, "I can go straight to him from the hotel.
And in any case I should have to go out, because I must explain to Mr. Razumov
personally--prepare him in a way. You have no idea of mother's state of mind."
Her colour came and went. She even thought that both for her mother's sake and
for her own it was better that they should not be together for a little time.
Anna, whom her mother liked, would be at hand.
"She could take her sewing into the room," Miss Haldin continued, leading the
way to the door. Then, addressing in German the maid who opened it before us,
"You may tell my mother that this gentleman called and is gone with me to find
Mr. Razumov. She must not be uneasy if I am away for some length of time."
We passed out quickly into the street, and she took deep breaths of the cool
night air. "I did not even ask you," she murmured.
"I should think not," I said, with a laugh. The manner of my reception by the
great feminist could not be considered now. That he would be annoyed to see
me, and probably treat me to some solemn insolence, I had no doubt, but I
supposed that he would not absolutely dare to throw me out. And that was all I
cared for. "Won't you take my arm?" I asked.
She did so in silence, and neither of us said anything worth recording till I
let her go first into the great hall of the hotel. It was brilliantly lighted,
and with a good many people lounging about.
"I could very well go up there without you," I suggested.
"I don't like to be left waiting in this place," she said in a low voice.
"I will come too."
I led her straight to the lift then. At the top floor the attendant directed
us to the right: "End of the corridor."
The walls were white, the carpet red, electric lights blazed in profusion, and
the emptiness, the silence, the closed doors all alike and numbered, made me
think of the perfect order of some severely luxurious model penitentiary on the
solitary confinement principle. Up there under the roof of that enormous pile
for housing travellers no sound of any kind reached us, the thick crimson felt
muffled our footsteps completely. We hastened on, not looking at each other
till we found ourselves before the very last door of that long passage. Then
our eyes met, and we stood thus for a moment lending ear to a faint murmur of
voices inside.
"I suppose this is it," I whispered unnecessarily. I saw Miss Haldin's lips
move without a sound, and after my sharp knock the murmur of voices inside
ceased. A profound stillness lasted for a few seconds, and then the door was
brusquely opened by a short, black-eyed woman in a red blouse, with a great lot
of nearly white hair, done up negligently in an untidy and unpicturesque
manner. Her thin, jetty eyebrows were drawn together. I learned afterwards
with interest that she was the famous--or the notorious--Sophia Antonovna, but
I was struck then by the quaint Mephistophelian character of her inquiring
glance, because it was so curiously evil-less, so--I may say--un-devilish. It
got softened still more as she looked up at Miss Haldin, who stated, in her
rich, even voice, her wish to see Peter Ivanovitch for a moment.
"I am Miss Haldin," she added.
At this, with her brow completely smoothed out now, but without a word in
answer, the woman in the red blouse walked away to a sofa and sat down, leaving
the door wide open.
And from the sofa, her hands lying on her lap, she watched us enter, with her
black, glittering eyes.
Miss Haldin advanced into the middle of the room; I, faithful to my part of
mere attendant, remained by the door after closing it behind me. The room,
quite a large one, but with a low ceiling, was scantily furnished, and an
electric bulb with a porcelain shade pulled low down over a big table (with a
very large map spread on it) left its distant parts in a dim, artificial
twilight. Peter Ivanovitch was not to be seen, neither was Mr. Razumov
present. But, on the sofa, near Sophia Antonovna, a bony-faced man with a
goatee beard leaned forward with his hands on his knees, staring hard with a
kindly expression. In a remote corner a broad, pale face and a bulky shape
could be made out, uncouth, and as if insecure on the low seat on which it
rested. The only person known to me was little Julius Laspara, who seemed to
have been poring over the map, his feet twined tightly round the chair-legs.
He got down briskly and bowed to Miss Haldin, looking absurdly like a
hooknosed boy with a beautiful false pepper-and-salt beard. He advanced,
offering his seat, which Miss Haldin declined. She had only come in for a
moment to say a few words to Peter Ivanovitch.
His high-pitched voice became painfully audible in the room.
"Strangely enough, I was thinking of you this very afternoon, Natalia
Victorovna. I met Mr. Razumov. I asked him to write me an article on anything
he liked. You could translate it into English--with such a teacher."
He nodded complimentarily in my direction. At the name of Razumov an
indescribable sound, a sort of feeble squeak, as of some angry small animal,
was heard in the corner occupied by the man who seemed much too large for the
chair on which he sat. I did not hear what Miss Haldin said. Laspara spoke
again.
"It's time to do something, Natalia Victorovna. But I suppose you have your
own ideas. Why not write something yourself? Suppose you came to see us soon?
We could talk it over. Any advice. . . .
Again I did not catch Miss Haldin's words. It was Laspara's voice once more.
"Peter Ivanovitch? He's retired for a moment into the other room. We are all
waiting for him." The great man, entering at that moment, looked bigger,
taller, quite imposing in a long dressing-gown of some dark stuff. It
descended in straight lines down to his feet. He suggested a monk or a
prophet, a robust figure of same desert-dweller--something Asiatic; and the
dark glasses in conjunction with this costume made him more mysterious than
ever in the subdued light.
Little Laspara went back to his chair to look at the map, the only brilliantly
lit object in the room. Even from my distant position by the door I could make
out, by the shape of the blue part representing the water, that it was a map of
the Baltic provinces. Peter Ivanovitch exclaimed slightly, advancing towards
Miss Haldin, checked himself on perceiving me, very vaguely no doubt; and
peered with his dark, bespectacled stare. He must have recognized me by my
grey hair, because, with a marked shrug of his broad shoulders, he turned to
Miss Haldin in benevolent indulgence. He seized her hand in his thick
cushioned palm, and put his other big paw over it like a lid.
While those two standing in the middle of the floor were exchanging a few
inaudible phrases no one else moved in the room: Laspara, with his back to us,
kneeling on the chair, his elbows propped on the big-scale map, the shadowy
enormity in the corner, the frankly staring man with the goatee on the sofa,
the woman in the red blouse by his side--not one of them stirred. I suppose
that really they had no time, for Miss Haldin withdrew her hand immediately
from Peter Ivanovitch and before I was ready for her was moving to the door. A
disregarded Westerner, I threw it open hurriedly and followed her out, my last
glance leaving them all motionless in their varied poses: Peter Ivanovitch
alone standing up, with his dark glasses like an enormous blind teacher, and
behind him the vivid patch of light on the coloured map, pored over by the
diminutive Laspara.
Later on, much later on, at the time of the newspaper rumours (they were vague
and soon died out) of an abortive military conspiracy in Russia, I remembered
the glimpse I had of that motionless group with its central figure. No details
ever came out, but it was known that the revolutionary parties abroad had given
their assistance, had sent emissaries in advance, that even money was found to
dispatch a steamer with a cargo of arms and conspirators to invade the Baltic
provinces. And while my eyes scanned the imperfect disclosures (in which the
world was not much interested) I thought that the old, settled Europe had been
given in my person attending that Russian girl something like a glimpse behind
the scenes. A short, strange glimpse on the top floor of a great hotel of all
places in the world: the great man himself; the motionless great bulk in the
corner of the slayer of spies and gendarmes; Yakovlitch, the veteran of ancient
terrorist campaigns; the woman, with her hair as white as mine and the lively
black eyes, all in a mysterious half-light, with the strongly lighted map of
Russia on the table. The woman I had the opportunity to see again. As we were
waiting for the lift she came hurrying along the corridor, with her eyes
fastened on Miss Haldin's face, and drew her aside as if for a confidential
communication. It was not long. A few words only.
Going down in the lift, Natalia Haldin did not break the silence. It was only
when out of the hotel and as we moved along the quay in the fresh darkness
spangled by the quay lights, reflected in the black water of the little port on
our left hand, and with lofty piles of hotels on our right, that she spoke.
"That was Sophia Antonovna--you know the woman?. . . ."
"Yes, I know--the famous. . . ."
"The same. It appears that after we went out Peter Ivanovitch told them why I
had come. That was the reason she ran out after us. She named herself to me,
and then she said, 'You are the sister of a brave man who shall be remembered.
You may see better times.' I told her I hoped to see the time when all this
would be forgotten, even if the name of my brother were to be forgotten too.
Something moved me to say that, but you understand?"
"Yes," I said. "You think of the era of concord and justice."
"Yes. There is too much hate and revenge in that work. It must be done. It
is a sacrifice--and so let it be all the greater. Destruction is the work of
anger. Let the tyrants and the slayers be forgotten together, and only the
reconstructors be remembered.''
"And did Sophia Antonovna agree with you?" I asked sceptically.
"She did not say anything except, 'It is good for you to believe in love.' I
should think she understood me. Then she asked me if I hoped to see Mr.
Razumov presently. I said I trusted I could manage to bring him to see my
mother this evening, as my mother had learned of his being here and was
morbidly impatient to learn if he could tell us something of Victor. He was
the only friend of my brother we knew of, and a great intimate. She said, 'Oh!
Your brother--yes. Please tell Mr. Razumov that I have made public the story
which came to me from St. Petersburg. It concerns your brother's arrest,' she
added. 'He was betrayed by a man of the people who has since hanged himself.
Mr. Razumov will explain it all to you. I gave him the full information this
afternoon. And please tell Mr. Razumov that Sophia Antonovna sends him her
greetings. I am going away early in the morning--far away.'"
And Miss Haldin added, after a moment of silence-" I was so moved by what I
heard so unexpectedly that I simply could not speak to you before. . . . A man
of the people! Oh, our poor people!"
She walked slowly, as if tired out suddenly. Her head drooped; from the
windows of a building with terraces and balconies came the banal sound of hotel
music; before the low mean portals of the Casino two red posters blazed under
the electric lamps, with a cheap provincial effect.--and the emptiness of the
quays, the desert aspect of the streets, had an air of hypocritical
respectability and of inexpressible dreariness.
I had taken for granted she had obtained the address, and let myself be guided
by her. On the Mont Blanc bridge, where a few dark figures seemed lost in the
wide and long perspective defined by the lights, she said--
"It isn't very far from our house. I somehow thought it couldn't be. The
address is Rue de Carouge. I think it must be one of those big new houses for
artisans."
She took my arm confidingly, familiarly, and accelerated her pace. There was
something primitive in our proceedings. We did not think of the resources of
civilization. A late tramcar overtook us; a row of _fiacres_ stood by the
railing of the gardens. It never entered our heads to make use of these
conveyances. She was too hurried, perhaps, and as to myself--well, she had
taken my arm confidingly. As we were ascending the easy incline of the
Corraterie, all the shops shuttered and no light in any of the windows (as if
all the mercenary population had fled at the end of the day), she said
tentatively--
"I could run in for a moment to have a look at mother. It would not be much
out of the way."
I dissuaded her. If Mrs. Haldin really expected to see Razumov that night it
would have been unwise to show herself without him. The sooner we got hold of
the young man and brought him along to calm her mother's agitation the better.
She assented to my reasoning, and we crossed diagonally the Place de Theatre,
bluish grey with its floor of slabs of stone, under the electric light, and the
lonely equestrian statue all black in the middle. In the Rue de Carouge we
were in the poorer quarters and approaching the outskirts of the town. Vacant
building plots alternated with high, new houses. At the corner of a side
street the crude light of a whitewashed shop fell into the night, fan-like,
through a wide doorway. One could see from a distance the inner wall with its
scantily furnished shelves, and the deal counter painted brown. That was the
house. Approaching it along the dark stretch of a fence of tarred planks, we
saw the narrow pallid face of the cut angle, five single windows high, without
a gleam in them, and crowned by the heavy shadow of a jutting roof slope.
"We must inquire in the shop," Miss Haldin directed me.
A sallow, thinly whiskered man, wearing a dingy white collar and a frayed tie,
laid down a newspaper, and, leaning familiarly on both elbows far over the bare
counter, answered that the person I was inquiring for was indeed his
_locataire_ on the third floor, but that for the moment he was out.
"For the moment," I repeated, after a glance at Miss Haldin. "Does this mean
that you expect him back at once?"
He was very gentle, with ingratiating eyes and soft lips. He smiled faintly as
though he knew all about everything. Mr. Razumov, after being absent all day,
had returned early in the evening. He was very surprised about half an hour or
a little more since to see him come down again. Mr. Razumov left his key, and
in the course of some words which passed between them had remarked that he was
going out because he needed air.
>From behind the bare counter he went on smiling at us, his head held between
his hands. Air. Air. But whether that meant a long or a short absence it was
difficult to say. The night was very close, certainly.
After a pause, his ingratiating eyes turned to the door, he added--
"The storm shall drive him in."
"There's going to be a storm?" I asked.
"Why, yes!"
As if to confirm his words we heard a very distant, deep rumbling noise.
Consulting Miss Haldin by a glance, I saw her so reluctant to give up her quest
that I asked the shopkeeper, in case Mr. Razumov came home within half an hour,
to beg him to remain downstairs in the shop. We would look in again presently.
For all answer he moved his head imperceptibly. The approval of Miss Haldin
was expressed by her silence. We walked slowly down the street, away from the
town; the low garden walls of the modest villas doomed to demolition were
overhung by the boughs of trees and masses of foliage, lighted from below by
gas lamps. The violent and monotonous noise of the icy waters of the Arve
falling over a low dam swept towards us with a chilly draught of air across a
great open space, where a double line of lamp-lights outlined a street as yet
without houses. But on the other shore, overhung by the awful blackness of the
thunder-cloud, a solitary dim light seemed to watch us with a weary stare.
When we had strolled as far as the bridge, I said--
"We had better get back. . . ."
In the shop the sickly man was studying his smudgy newspaper, now spread out
largely on the counter. He just raised his head when I looked in and shook it
negatively, pursing up his lips. I rejoined Miss Haldin outside at once, and
we moved off at a brisk pace. She remarked that she would send Anna with a
note the first thing in the morning. I respected her taciturnity, silence
being perhaps the best way to show my concern.
The semi-rural street we followed on our return changed gradually to the usual
town thoroughfare, broad and deserted. We did not meet four people altogether,
and the way seemed interminable, because my companion's natural anxiety had
communicated itself sympathetically to me. At last we turned into the
Boulevard des Philosophes, more wide, more empty, more dead--the very
desolation of slumbering respectability. At the sight of the two lighted
windows, very conspicuous from afar, I had the mental vision of Mrs. Haldin in
her armchair keeping a dreadful, tormenting vigil under the evil spell of an
arbitrary rule: a victim of tyranny and revolution, a sight at once cruel and
absurd.
