“We want that bird alive. It will be the devil if we can’t make him sing
a little before we are done with him.”
The grave-like silence of the room with its mute clock fell upon the
polite modulations of this terrible phrase. The Prince, hidden in the
chair, made no sound.
The General unexpectedly developed a thought.
“Fidelity to menaced institutions on which depend the safety of a
throne and of a people is no child’s play. We know that, _mon Prince,_
and--_tenez_--” he went on with a sort of flattering harshness, “Mr.
Razumov here begins to understand that too.”
His eyes which he turned upon Razumov seemed to be starting out of his
head. This grotesqueness of aspect no longer shocked Razumov. He said
with gloomy conviction--
“Haldin will never speak.”
“That remains to be seen,” muttered the General.
“I am certain,” insisted Razumov. “A man like this never speaks....
Do you imagine that I am here from fear?” he added violently. He felt
ready to stand by his opinion of Haldin to the last extremity.
“Certainly not,” protested the General, with great simplicity of tone.
“And I don’t mind telling you, Mr. Razumov, that if he had not come
with his tale to such a staunch and loyal Russian as you, he would
have disappeared like a stone in the water... which would have had a
detestable effect,” he added, with a bright, cruel smile under his stony
stare. “So you see, there can be no suspicion of any fear here.”
The Prince intervened, looking at Razumov round the back of the
armchair.
“Nobody doubts the moral soundness of your action. Be at ease in that
respect, pray.”
He turned to the General uneasily.
“That’s why I am here. You may be surprised why I should....”
The General hastened to interrupt.
“Not at all. Extremely natural. You saw the importance....”
“Yes,” broke in the Prince. “And I venture to ask insistently that mine
and Mr. Razumov’s intervention should not become public. He is a young
man of promise--of remarkable aptitudes.”
“I haven’t a doubt of it,” murmured the General. “He inspires
confidence.”
“All sorts of pernicious views are so widespread nowadays--they taint
such unexpected quarters--that, monstrous as it seems, he might suffer
...his studies...his...”
The General, with his elbows on the desk, took his head between his
hands.
“Yes. Yes. I am thinking it out.... How long is it since you left him
at your rooms, Mr. Razumov?”
Razumov mentioned the hour which nearly corresponded with the time of
his distracted flight from the big slum house. He had made up his mind
to keep Ziemianitch out of the affair completely. To mention him at all
would mean imprisonment for the “bright soul,” perhaps cruel floggings,
and in the end a journey to Siberia in chains. Razumov, who had beaten
Ziemianitch, felt for him now a vague, remorseful tenderness.
The General, giving way for the first time to his secret sentiments,
exclaimed contemptuously--
“And you say he came in to make you this confidence like this--for
nothing--_a propos des bottes_.”
Razumov felt danger in the air. The merciless suspicion of despotism had
spoken openly at last. Sudden fear sealed Razumov’s lips. The silence
of the room resembled now the silence of a deep dungeon, where time does
not count, and a suspect person is sometimes forgotten for ever. But the
Prince came to the rescue.
“Providence itself has led the wretch in a moment of mental aberration
to seek Mr. Razumov on the strength of some old, utterly misinterpreted
exchange of ideas--some sort of idle speculative conversation--months
ago--I am told--and completely forgotten till now by Mr. Razumov.”
“Mr. Razumov,” queried the General meditatively, after a short silence,
“do you often indulge in speculative conversation?”
“No, Excellency,” answered Razumov, coolly, in a sudden access of
self-confidence. “I am a man of deep convictions. Crude opinions are
in the air. They are not always worth combating. But even the silent
contempt of a serious mind may be misinterpreted by headlong utopists.”