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Updated: May 8, 2025
And this phenomenon, deserving justly to be classed amongst the marvels of science, induced in Mr Verloc an emotional state of dread and exasperation tending to express itself in violent swearing. But he said nothing. It was Karl Yundt who was heard, implacable to his last breath. “Lombroso is an ass.” Comrade Ossipon met the shock of this blasphemy by an awful, vacant stare.
Karl Yundt had come too, once, led under the arm by that “wicked old housekeeper of his.” He was “a disgusting old man.” Of Comrade Ossipon, whom she had received curtly, entrenched behind the counter with a stony face and a faraway gaze, she said nothing, her mental reference to the robust anarchist being marked by a short pause, with the faintest possible blush.
He was out of his mind with something he overheard about eating people’s flesh and drinking blood. What’s the good of talking like that?” There was a note of indignant scorn in her voice. Mr Verloc was fully responsive now. “Ask Karl Yundt,” he growled savagely. Mrs Verloc, with great decision, pronounced Karl Yundt “a disgusting old man.” She declared openly her affection for Michaelis.
With the insight of a kindred temperament he pronounced his verdict. A lazy lot—this Karl Yundt, nursed by a blear-eyed old woman, a woman he had years ago enticed away from a friend, and afterwards had tried more than once to shake off into the gutter.
He meant nothing to me. He was as insignificant as—I can’t call to mind anything insignificant enough to compare him with—except Karl Yundt perhaps. Like to like. The terrorist and the policeman both come from the same basket. Revolution, legality—counter moves in the same game; forms of idleness at bottom identical. He plays his little game—so do you propagandists.
Moved by the just indignation of a man well over forty, menaced in what is dearest to him—his repose and his security—he asked himself scornfully what else could have been expected from such a lot, this Karl Yundt, this Michaelis—this Ossipon. Pausing in his intention to turn off the gas burning in the middle of the shop, Mr Verloc descended into the abyss of moral reflections.
His lips seemed glued together for good; not a quiver passed over his heavy cheeks. With troubled eyes he looked for his round, hard hat, and put it on his round head. His round and obese body seemed to float low between the chairs under the sharp elbow of Karl Yundt.
Mrs Verloc declared her affection for Michaelis; mentioned her abhorrence of Karl Yundt, “nasty old man”; and of Ossipon she said nothing. As to Stevie, he could be no other than very pleased. Mr Michaelis was always so nice and kind to him. He seemed to like the boy. Well, the boy was a good boy.
“A difficult business,” Mr Verloc mumbled, feeling that this was the only safe thing to say. “What is the matter? Haven’t you the whole gang under your hand? The very pick of the basket? That old terrorist Yundt is here. I see him walking about Piccadilly in his green havelock almost every day. And Michaelis, the ticket-of-leave apostle—you don’t mean to say you don’t know where he is?
Jolly lucky for Yundt that she had persisted in coming up time after time, or else there would have been no one now to help him out of the ’bus by the Green Park railings, where that spectre took its constitutional crawl every fine morning. When that indomitable snarling old witch died the swaggering spectre would have to vanish too—there would be an end to fiery Karl Yundt.
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