“I shall give him up.”
Then for some twenty yards or more all was blank. He wrapped his cloak
closer round him. He pulled his cap well forward over his eyes.
“Betray. A great word. What is betrayal? They talk of a man betraying
his country, his friends, his sweetheart. There must be a moral bond
first. All a man can betray is his conscience. And how is my conscience
engaged here; by what bond of common faith, of common conviction, am
I obliged to let that fanatical idiot drag me down with him? On the
contrary--every obligation of true courage is the other way.”
Razumov looked round from under his cap.
“What can the prejudice of the world reproach me with? Have I provoked
his confidence? No! Have I by a single word, look, or gesture given him
reason to suppose that I accepted his trust in me? No! It is true that
I consented to go and see his Ziemianitch. Well, I have been to see him.
And I broke a stick on his back too--the brute.”
Something seemed to turn over in his head bringing uppermost a
singularly hard, clear facet of his brain.
“It would be better, however,” he reflected with a quite different
mental accent, “to keep that circumstance altogether to myself.”
He had passed beyond the turn leading to his lodgings, and had reached
a wide and fashionable street. Some shops were still open, and all the
restaurants. Lights fell on the pavement where men in expensive fur
coats, with here and there the elegant figure of a woman, walked with an
air of leisure. Razumov looked at them with the contempt of an austere
believer for the frivolous crowd. It was the world--those officers,
dignitaries, men of fashion, officials, members of the Yacht Club. The
event of the morning affected them all. What would they say if they knew
what this student in a cloak was going to do?
“Not one of them is capable of feeling and thinking as deeply as I can.
How many of them could accomplish an act of conscience?”
Razumov lingered in the well-lighted street. He was firmly decided.
Indeed, it could hardly be called a decision. He had simply discovered
what he had meant to do all along. And yet he felt the need of some
other mind’s sanction.