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Updated: June 12, 2025
At this Razumov became as motionless as the man with the lantern only his breast heaved for air as if ready to burst. Some dull sensation of pain must have penetrated at last the consoling night of drunkenness enwrapping the "bright Russian soul" of Haldin's enthusiastic praise. But Ziemianitch evidently saw nothing. His eyeballs blinked all white in the light once, twice then the gleam went out.
I imagined what her life was likely to be by the side of Mrs. Haldin's terrible immobility, inhabited by that fixed idea. But my concern was reduced to silence by my ignorance of her modes of feeling. Difference of nationality is a terrible obstacle for our complex Western natures. But Miss Haldin probably was too simple to suspect my embarrassment.
Would you have the goodness to tell me?" Razumov angrily described Haldin's clothing in a few jerky words. The General stared all the time, then addressing the Prince "We were not without some indications," he said in French. "A good woman who was in the street described to us somebody wearing a dress of the sort as the thrower of the second bomb.
Our daily relations were interrupted at this period for something like a fortnight. I had to absent myself unexpectedly from Geneva. On my return I lost no time in directing my steps up the Boulevard des Philosophes. Through the open door of the drawing-room I was annoyed to hear a visitor holding forth steadily in an unctuous deep voice. Mrs. Haldin's armchair by the window stood empty.
My correspondent was as familiar with Haldin's personal appearance as with your own," the woman affirmed decisively. "It's the red-nosed fellow beyond a doubt," Razumov said to himself, with reawakened uneasiness. Had his own visit to that accursed house passed unnoticed? It was barely possible. Yet it was hardly probable.
I cast about for some right thing to say, and suddenly in Miss Haldin's last words I perceived the clue to the nature of my mission. "No," I said gravely, if with a smile, "you cannot be expected to understand." His clean-shaven lip quivered ever so little before he said, as if wickedly amused "But haven't you heard just now? I was thanked by that young lady for understanding so well."
Vague they were to my Western mind and to my Western sentiment, but I could not forget that, standing by Miss Haldin's side, I was like a traveller in a strange country. It had also become clear to me that Miss Haldin was unwilling to enter into the details of the only material part of their visit to the Chateau Borel. But I was not hurt. Somehow I didn't feel it to be a want of confidence.
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.
Deep within, three shaggy little horses tied up to rings hung their heads together, motionless and shadowy in the dim light of the lantern. It must have been the famous team of Haldin's escape. Razumov peered fearfully into the gloom. His guide pawed in the straw with his foot. "Here he is. Ah! the little pigeon. A true Russian man. 'No heavy hearts for me, he says.
Nothing solid had passed his lips since the day before, but he was not in a state to analyse the origins of his weakness. He meant to take up his hat and depart with as few words as possible, but Miss Haldin's swift movement to shut the door took him by surprise. He half turned after her, but without raising his eyes, passively, just as a feather might stir in the disturbed air.
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