“You say nothing, Kirylo Sidorovitch! I understand your silence. To be
sure, I cannot expect you with your frigid English manner to embrace
me. But never mind your manners. You have enough heart to have heard the
sound of weeping and gnashing of teeth this man raised in the land. That
would be enough to get over any philosophical hopes. He was uprooting
the tender plant. He had to be stopped. He was a dangerous man--a
convinced man. Three more years of his work would have put us back fifty
years into bondage--and look at all the lives wasted, at all the souls
lost in that time.”
His curt, self-confident voice suddenly lost its ring and it was in a
dull tone that he added, “Yes, brother, I have killed him. It’s weary
work.”
Razumov had sunk into a chair. Every moment he expected a crowd of
policemen to rush in. There must have been thousands of them out looking
for that man walking up and down in his room. Haldin was talking again
in a restrained, steady voice. Now and then he flourished an arm,
slowly, without excitement.
He told Razumov how he had brooded for a year; how he had not slept
properly for weeks. He and “Another” had a warning of the Minister’s
movements from “a certain person” late the evening before. He and that
“Another” prepared their “engines” and resolved to have no sleep till
“the deed” was done. They walked the streets under the falling snow with
the “engines” on them, exchanging not a word the livelong night. When
they happened to meet a police patrol they took each other by the arm
and pretended to be a couple of peasants on the spree. They reeled and
talked in drunken hoarse voices. Except for these strange outbreaks they
kept silence, moving on ceaselessly. Their plans had been previously
arranged. At daybreak they made their way to the spot which they
knew the sledge must pass. When it appeared in sight they exchanged a
muttered good-bye and separated. The “other” remained at the corner,
Haldin took up a position a little farther up the street....
After throwing his “engine” he ran off and in a moment was overtaken
by the panic-struck people flying away from the spot after the second
explosion. They were wild with terror. He was jostled once or twice. He
slowed down for the rush to pass him and then turned to the left into a
narrow street. There he was alone.
He marvelled at this immediate escape. The work was done. He could
hardly believe it. He fought with an almost irresistible longing to lie
down on the pavement and sleep. But this sort of faintness--a drowsy
faintness--passed off quickly. He walked faster, making his way to one
of the poorer parts of the town in order to look up Ziemianitch.
This Ziemianitch, Razumov understood, was a sort of town-peasant who had
got on; owner of a small number of sledges and horses for hire. Haldin
paused in his narrative to exclaim--
“A bright spirit! A hardy soul! The best driver in St. Petersburg. He
has a team of three horses there.... Ah! He’s a fellow!”
This man had declared himself willing to take out safely, at any time,
one or two persons to the second or third railway station on one of the
southern lines. But there had been no time to warn him the night before.
His usual haunt seemed to be a low-class eating-house on the outskirts
of the town. When Haldin got there the man was not to be found. He was
not expected to turn up again till the evening. Haldin wandered away
restlessly.
He saw the gate of a woodyard open and went in to get out of the wind
which swept the bleak broad thoroughfare. The great rectangular piles of
cut wood loaded with snow resembled the huts of a village. At first the
watchman who discovered him crouching amongst them talked in a friendly
manner. He was a dried-up old man wearing two ragged army coats one over
the other; his wizened little face, tied up under the jaw and over the
ears in a dirty red handkerchief, looked comical. Presently he grew
sulky, and then all at once without rhyme or reason began to shout
furiously.
“Aren’t you ever going to clear out of this, you loafer? We know all
about factory hands of your sort. A big, strong, young chap! You aren’t
even drunk. What do you want here? You don’t frighten us. Take yourself
and your ugly eyes away.”
Haldin stopped before the sitting Razumov. His supple figure, with
the white forehead above which the fair hair stood straight up, had an
aspect of lofty daring.
“He did not like my eyes,” he said. “And so...here I am.”
Razumov made an effort to speak calmly.
“But pardon me, Victor Victorovitch. We know each other so little....
I don’t see why you....”
“Confidence,” said Haldin.
This word sealed Razumov’s lips as if a hand had been clapped on his
mouth. His brain seethed with arguments.
“And so--here you are,” he muttered through his teeth.
The other did not detect the tone of anger. Never suspected it.
“Yes. And nobody knows I am here. You are the last person that could
be suspected--should I get caught. That’s an advantage, you see. And
then--speaking to a superior mind like yours I can well say all the
truth. It occurred to me that you--you have no one belonging to you--no
ties, no one to suffer for it if this came out by some means. There
have been enough ruined Russian homes as it is. But I don’t see how my
passage through your rooms can be ever known. If I should be got hold
of, I’ll know how to keep silent--no matter what they may be pleased to
do to me,” he added grimly.
He began to walk again while Razumov sat still appalled.
“You thought that--” he faltered out almost sick with indignation.
“Yes, Razumov. Yes, brother. Some day you shall help to build. You
suppose that I am a terrorist, now--a destructor of what is, But
consider that the true destroyers are they who destroy the spirit of
progress and truth, not the avengers who merely kill the bodies of the
persecutors of human dignity. Men like me are necessary to make room for
self-contained, thinking men like you. Well, we have made the sacrifice
of our lives, but all the same I want to escape if it can be done. It
is not my life I want to save, but my power to do. I won’t live idle. Oh
no! Don’t make any mistake, Razumov. Men like me are rare. And, besides,
an example like this is more awful to oppressors when the perpetrator
vanishes without a trace. They sit in their offices and palaces and
quake. All I want you to do is to help me to vanish. No great matter
that. Only to go by and by and see Ziemianitch for me at that place
where I went this morning. Just tell him, ‘He whom you know wants a
well-horsed sledge to pull up half an hour after midnight at the seventh
lamp-post on the left counting from the upper end of Karabelnaya. If
nobody gets in, the sledge is to run round a block or two, so as to come
back past the same spot in ten minutes’ time.’”
Razumov wondered why he had not cut short that talk and told this man to
go away long before. Was it weakness or what?
He concluded that it was a sound instinct. Haldin must have been seen.
It was impossible that some people should not have noticed the face and
appearance of the man who threw the second bomb. Haldin was a noticeable
person. The police in their thousands must have had his description
within the hour. With every moment the danger grew. Sent out to wander
in the streets he could not escape being caught in the end.
The police would very soon find out all about him. They would set about
discovering a conspiracy. Everybody Haldin had ever known would be in
the greatest danger. Unguarded expressions, little facts in themselves
innocent would be counted for crimes. Razumov remembered certain words
he said, the speeches he had listened to, the harmless gatherings he
had attended--it was almost impossible for a student to keep out of that
sort of thing, without becoming suspect to his comrades.
Razumov saw himself shut up in a fortress, worried, badgered, perhaps
ill-used. He saw himself deported by an administrative order, his life
broken, ruined, and robbed of all hope. He saw himself--at best--leading
a miserable existence under police supervision, in some small, faraway
provincial town, without friends to assist his necessities or even
take any steps to alleviate his lot--as others had. Others had fathers,
mothers, brothers, relations, connexions, to move heaven and earth on
their behalf--he had no one. The very officials that sentenced him some
morning would forget his existence before sunset.
He saw his youth pass away from him in misery and half starvation--his
strength give way, his mind become an abject thing. He saw himself
creeping, broken down and shabby, about the streets--dying unattended
in some filthy hole of a room, or on the sordid bed of a Government
hospital.
He shuddered. Then the peace of bitter calmness came over him. It was
best to keep this man out of the streets till he could be got rid of
with some chance of escaping. That was the best that could be done.
Razumov, of course, felt the safety of his lonely existence to be
permanently endangered. This evening’s doings could turn up against
him at any time as long as this man lived and the present institutions
endured. They appeared to him rational and indestructible at that
moment. They had a force of harmony--in contrast with the horrible
discord of this man’s presence. He hated the man. He said quietly--
“Yes, of course, I will go. ‘You must give me precise directions, and
for the rest--depend on me.”
“Ah! You are a fellow! Collected--cool as a cucumber. A regular
Englishman. Where did you get your soul from? There aren’t many like
you. Look here, brother! Men like me leave no posterity, but their souls
are not lost. No man’s soul is ever lost. It works for itself--or else
where would be the sense of self-sacrifice, of martyrdom, of conviction,
of faith--the labours of the soul? What will become of my soul when I
die in the way I must die--soon--very soon perhaps? It shall not perish.
Don’t make a mistake, Razumov. This is not murder--it is war, war. My
spirit shall go on warring in some Russian body till all falsehood is
swept out of the world. The modern civilization is false, but a new
revelation shall come out of Russia. Ha! you say nothing. You are a
sceptic. I respect your philosophical scepticism, Razumov, but don’t
touch the soul. The Russian soul that lives in all of us. It has a
future. It has a mission, I tell you, or else why should I have been
moved to do this--reckless--like a butcher--in the middle of all these
innocent people--scattering death--I! I!... I wouldn’t hurt a fly!”
“Not so loud,” warned Razumov harshly.
Haldin sat down abruptly, and leaning his head on his folded arms burst
into tears. He wept for a long time. The dusk had deepened in the room.
Razumov, motionless in sombre wonder, listened to the sobs.
The other raised his head, got up and with an effort mastered his voice.
“Yes. Men like me leave no posterity,” he repeated in a subdued tone,
“I have a sister though. She’s with my old mother--I persuaded them to
go abroad this year--thank God. Not a bad little girl my sister. She has
the most trustful eyes of any human being that ever walked this earth.
She will marry well, I hope. She may have children--sons perhaps. Look
at me. My father was a Government official in the provinces, He had a
little land too. A simple servant of God--a true Russian in his way. His
was the soul of obedience. But I am not like him. They say I resemble
my mother’s eldest brother, an officer. They shot him in ‘28. Under
Nicholas, you know. Haven’t I told you that this is war, war.... But
God of Justice! This is weary work.”
Razumov, in his chair, leaning his head on his hand, spoke as if from
the bottom of an abyss.
“You believe in God, Haldin?”
“There you go catching at words that are wrung from one. What does it
matter? What was it the Englishman said: ‘There is a divine soul in
things...’ Devil take him--I don’t remember now. But he spoke the
truth. When the day of you thinkers comes don’t you forget what’s
divine in the Russian soul--and that’s resignation. Respect that in your
intellectual restlessness and don’t let your arrogant wisdom spoil its
message to the world. I am speaking to you now like a man with a rope
round his neck. What do you imagine I am? A being in revolt? No. It’s
you thinkers who are in everlasting revolt. I am one of the resigned.
When the necessity of this heavy work came to me and I understood that
it had to be done--what did I do? Did I exult? Did I take pride in
my purpose? Did I try to weigh its worth and consequences? No! I was
resigned. I thought ‘God’s will be done.’”
He threw himself full length on Razumov’s bed and putting the backs of
his hands over his eyes remained perfectly motionless and silent. Not
even the sound of his breathing could be heard. The dead stillness
or the room remained undisturbed till in the darkness Razumov said
gloomily--
“Haldin.”
“Yes,” answered the other readily, quite invisible now on the bed and
without the slightest stir.
“Isn’t it time for me to start?”
“Yes, brother.” The other was heard, lying still in the darkness as
though he were talking in his sleep. “The time has come to put fate to
the test.”
He paused, then gave a few lucid directions in the quiet impersonal
voice of a man in a trance. Razumov made ready without a word of answer.
As he was leaving the room the voice on the bed said after him--
“Go with God, thou silent soul.”
On the landing, moving softly, Razumov locked the door and put the key
in his pocket.