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"I conclude," said Razumov, "that the moment has come for me to start on my mission." "The psychological Moment," Councillor Mikulin insisted softly very gravely as if awed. All the arrangements to give verisimilitude to the appearance of a difficult escape were made. Councillor Mikulin did not expect to see Mr. Razumov again before his departure.
She glanced vaguely down the broad walk the hand she put out to me eluded my grasp by an unexpected upward movement, and rested upon my shoulder. Her red lips were slightly parted, not in a smile, however, but expressing a sort of startled pleasure. She gazed towards the gates and said quickly, with a gasp "There! I knew it. Here he comes!" I understood that she must mean Mr. Razumov.
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.
The attorney was not to be thought of. He despised the little agent of chicane too much. One could not go and lay one's conscience before the policeman at the corner. Neither was Razumov anxious to go to the chief of his district's police a common-looking person whom he used to see sometimes in the street in a shabby uniform and with a smouldering cigarette stuck to his lower lip.
The stolidity of his attitude, the big feet, the lifeless, hanging hands, the enormous bloodless cheek, the thin wisps of hair straggling down the fat nape of the neck, fascinated Razumov into a stare on the verge of horror and laughter. Nikita, surnamed Necator, with a sinister aptness of alliteration! Razumov had heard of him.
I needed also a sympathetic friend for Miss Haldin, who otherwise would have been too much alone and unsupported to be perfectly credible. She would have had no one to whom she could give a glimpse of her idealistic faith, of her great heart, and of her simple emotions. Razumov is treated sympathetically. Why should he not be?
Sophia Antonovna nodded gravely. "I see. Every word you say confirms to my mind the suspicion communicated to me in that very interesting letter. This Ziemianitch was found one morning hanging from a hook in the stable dead." Razumov felt a profound trouble. It was visible, because Sophia Antonovna was moved to observe vivaciously "Aha! You begin to see."
She had lowered her eyelids. Razumov looked at her curiously. "Of course. You hear everything they say." She murmured without any animosity "So do the tables and chairs." He understood that the bitterness accumulated in the heart of that helpless creature had got into her veins, and, like some subtle poison, had decomposed her fidelity to that hateful pair.
For God's sake, Kirylo, my soul, the police may be here any moment, and when they get you they'll immure you somewhere for ages till your hair turns grey. I have down there the best trotter of dad's stables and a light sledge. We shall do thirty miles before the moon sets, and find some roadside station...." Razumov looked up amazed. The journey was decided unavoidable.
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.
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