Approaching this part of Mr. Razumov’s story, my mind, the decent mind
of an old teacher of languages, feels more and more the difficulty of
the task.
The task is not in truth the writing in the narrative form a _precis_
of a strange human document, but the rendering--I perceive it now
clearly--of the moral conditions ruling over a large portion of this
earth’s surface; conditions not easily to be understood, much less
discovered in the limits of a story, till some key-word is found; a word
that could stand at the back of all the words covering the pages; a word
which, if not truth itself, may perchance hold truth enough to help the
moral discovery which should be the object of every tale.
I turn over for the hundredth time the leaves of Mr. Razumov’s record, I
lay it aside, I take up the pen--and the pen being ready for its office
of setting down black on white I hesitate. For the word that persists in
creeping under its point is no other word than “cynicism.”
For that is the mark of Russian autocracy and of Russian revolt. In its
pride of numbers, in its strange pretensions of sanctity, and in the
secret readiness to abase itself in suffering, the spirit of Russia is
the spirit of cynicism. It informs the declarations of her statesmen,
the theories of her revolutionists, and the mystic vaticinations of
prophets to the point of making freedom look like a form of debauch, and
the Christian virtues themselves appear actually indecent.... But I
must apologize for the digression. It proceeds from the consideration
of the course taken by the story of Mr. Razumov after his conservative
convictions, diluted in a vague liberalism natural to the ardour of his
age, had become crystallized by the shock of his contact with Haldin.
Razumov woke up for the tenth time perhaps with a heavy shiver. Seeing
the light of day in his window, he resisted the inclination to lay
himself down again. He did not remember anything, but he did not think
it strange to find himself on the sofa in his cloak and chilled to the
bone. The light coming through the window seemed strangely cheerless,
containing no promise as the light of each new day should for a young
man. It was the awakening of a man mortally ill, or of a man ninety
years old. He looked at the lamp which had burnt itself out. It stood
there, the extinguished beacon of his labours, a cold object of brass
and porcelain, amongst the scattered pages of his notes and small
piles of books--a mere litter of blackened paper--dead matter--without
significance or interest.
He got on his feet, and divesting himself of his cloak hung it on the
peg, going through all the motions mechanically. An incredible dullness,
a ditch-water stagnation was sensible to his perceptions as though life
had withdrawn itself from all things and even from his own thoughts.
There was not a sound in the house.
Turning away from the peg, he thought in that same lifeless manner that
it must be very early yet; but when he looked at the watch on his table
he saw both hands arrested at twelve o’clock.
“Ah! yes,” he mumbled to himself, and as if beginning to get roused
a little he took a survey of his room. The paper stabbed to the wall
arrested his attention. He eyed it from the distance without approval or
perplexity; but when he heard the servant-girl beginning to bustle about
in the outer room with the _samovar_ for his morning tea, he walked up
to it and took it down with an air of profound indifference.
While doing this he glanced down at the bed on which he had not slept
that night. The hollow in the pillow made by the weight of Haldin’s head
was very noticeable.
Even his anger at this sign of the man’s passage was dull. He did not
try to nurse it into life. He did nothing all that day; he neglected
even to brush his hair. The idea of going out never occurred to him--and
if he did not start a connected train of thought it was not because he
was unable to think. It was because he was not interested enough.
He yawned frequently. He drank large quantities of tea, he walked about
aimlessly, and when he sat down he did not budge for a long time. He
spent some time drumming on the window with his finger-tips quietly. In
his listless wanderings round about the table he caught sight of his own
face in the looking-glass and that arrested him. The eyes which returned
his stare were the most unhappy eyes he had ever seen. And this was the
first thing which disturbed the mental stagnation of that day.
He was not affected personally. He merely thought that life without
happiness is impossible. What was happiness? He yawned and went on
shuffling about and about between the walls of his room. Looking
forward was happiness--that’s all--nothing more. To look forward to
the gratification of some desire, to the gratification of some passion,
love, ambition, hate--hate too indubitably. Love and hate. And to escape
the dangers of existence, to live without fear, was also happiness.
There was nothing else. Absence of fear--looking forward. “Oh! the
miserable lot of humanity!” he exclaimed mentally; and added at once in
his thought, “I ought to be happy enough as far as that goes.” But he
was not excited by that assurance. On the contrary, he yawned again as
he had been yawning all day. He was mildly surprised to discover himself
being overtaken by night. The room grew dark swiftly though time had
seemed to stand still. How was it that he had not noticed the passing of
that day? Of course, it was the watch being stopped....
He did not light his lamp, but went over to the bed and threw himself on
it without any hesitation. Lying on his back, he put his hands under his
head and stared upward. After a moment he thought, “I am lying here like
that man. I wonder if he slept while I was struggling with the blizzard
in the streets. No, he did not sleep. But why should I not sleep?” and
he felt the silence of the night press upon all his limbs like a weight.
In the calm of the hard frost outside, the clear-cut strokes of the town
clock counting off midnight penetrated the quietness of his suspended
animation.
Again he began to think. It was twenty-four hours since that man left
his room. Razumov had a distinct feeling that Haldin in the fortress was
sleeping that night. It was a certitude which made him angry because
he did not want to think of Haldin, but he justified it to himself by
physiological and psychological reasons. The fellow had hardly slept for
weeks on his own confession, and now every incertitude was at an end
for him. No doubt he was looking forward to the consummation of his
martyrdom. A man who resigns himself to kill need not go very far for
resignation to die. Haldin slept perhaps more soundly than General T---,
whose task--weary work too--was not done, and over whose head hung the
sword of revolutionary vengeance.
Razumov, remembering the thick-set man with his heavy jowl resting on
the collar of his uniform, the champion of autocracy, who had let no
sign of surprise, incredulity, or joy escape him, but whose goggle eyes
could express a mortal hatred of all rebellion--Razumov moved uneasily
on the bed.
“He suspected me,” he thought. “I suppose he must suspect everybody. He
would be capable of suspecting his own wife, if Haldin had gone to her
boudoir with his confession.”
Razumov sat up in anguish. Was he to remain a political suspect all his
days? Was he to go through life as a man not wholly to be trusted--with
a bad secret police note tacked on to his record? What sort of future
could he look forward to?
“I am now a suspect,” he thought again; but the habit of reflection and
that desire of safety, of an ordered life, which was so strong in him
came to his assistance as the night wore on. His quiet, steady, and
laborious existence would vouch at length for his loyalty. There were
many permitted ways to serve one’s country. There was an activity that
made for progress without being revolutionary. The field of influence
was great and infinitely varied--once one had conquered a name.
His thought like a circling bird reverted after four-and-twenty hours to
the silver medal, and as it were poised itself there.
When the day broke he had not slept, not for a moment, but he got up
not very tired and quite sufficiently self-possessed for all practical
purposes.
He went out and attended three lectures in the morning. But the work in
the library was a mere dumb show of research. He sat with many volumes
open before him trying to make notes and extracts. His new tranquillity
was like a flimsy garment, and seemed to float at the mercy of a casual
word. Betrayal! Why! the fellow had done all that was necessary to
betray himself. Precious little had been needed to deceive him.
“I have said no word to him that was not strictly true. Not one word,”
Razumov argued with himself.
Once engaged on this line of thought there could be no question of doing
useful work. The same ideas went on passing through his mind, and he
pronounced mentally the same words over and over again. He shut up all
the books and rammed all his papers into his pocket with convulsive
movements, raging inwardly against Haldin.
As he was leaving the library a long bony student in a threadbare
overcoat joined him, stepping moodily by his side. Razumov answered his
mumbled greeting without looking at him at all.
“What does he want with me?” he thought with a strange dread of the
unexpected which he tried to shake off lest it should fasten itself
upon his life for good and all. And the other, muttering cautiously with
downcast eyes, supposed that his comrade had seen the news of de P---‘s
executioner--that was the expression he used--having been arrested the
night before last....
“I’ve been ill--shut up in my rooms,” Razumov mumbled through his teeth.
The tall student, raising his shoulders, shoved his hands deep into his
pockets. He had a hairless, square, tallowy chin which trembled slightly
as he spoke, and his nose nipped bright red by the sharp air looked like
a false nose of painted cardboard between the sallow cheeks. His whole
appearance was stamped with the mark of cold and hunger. He stalked
deliberately at Razumov’s elbow with his eyes on the ground.
“It’s an official statement,” he continued in the same cautious mutter.
“It may be a lie. But there was somebody arrested between midnight and
one in the morning on Tuesday. This is certain.”
And talking rapidly under the cover of his downcast air, he told Razumov
that this was known through an inferior Government clerk employed at
the Central Secretariat. That man belonged to one of the revolutionary
circles. “The same, in fact, I am affiliated to,” remarked the student.
They were crossing a wide quadrangle. An infinite distress possessed
Razumov, annihilated his energy, and before his eyes everything appeared
confused and as if evanescent. He dared not leave the fellow there. “He
may be affiliated to the police,” was the thought that passed through
his mind. “Who could tell?” But eyeing the miserable frost-nipped,
famine-struck figure of his companion he perceived the absurdity of his
suspicion.
“But I--you know--I don’t belong to any circle. I....”
He dared not say any more. Neither dared he mend his pace. The
other, raising and setting down his lamentably shod feet with exact
deliberation, protested in a low tone that it was not necessary for
everybody to belong to an organization. The most valuable personalities
remained outside. Some of the best work was done outside the
organization. Then very fast, with whispering, feverish lips--
“The man arrested in the street was Haldin.”
And accepting Razumov’s dismayed silence as natural enough, he assured
him that there was no mistake. That Government clerk was on night duty
at the Secretariat. Hearing a great noise of footsteps in the hall and
aware that political prisoners were brought over sometimes at night from
the fortress, he opened the door of the room in which he was working,
suddenly. Before the gendarme on duty could push him back and slam the
door in his face, he had seen a prisoner being partly carried, partly
dragged along the hall by a lot of policemen. He was being used very
brutally. And the clerk had recognized Haldin perfectly. Less than half
an hour afterwards General T--- arrived at the Secretariat to examine
that prisoner personally.
“Aren’t you astonished?” concluded the gaunt student.
“No,” said Razumov roughly--and at once regretted his answer.
“Everybody supposed Haldin was in the provinces--with his people. Didn’t
you?”
The student turned his big hollow eyes upon Razumov, who said
unguardedly--
“His people are abroad.”
He could have bitten his tongue out with vexation. The student
pronounced in a tone of profound meaning--
“So! You alone were aware,...” and stopped.
“They have sworn my ruin,” thought Razumov. “Have you spoken of this to
anyone else?” he asked with bitter curiosity.
The other shook his head.
“No, only to you. Our circle thought that as Haldin had been often heard
expressing a warm appreciation of your character....”
Razumov could not restrain a gesture of angry despair which the other
must have misunderstood in some way, because he ceased speaking and
turned away his black, lack-lustre eyes.
They moved side by side in silence. Then the gaunt student began to
whisper again, with averted gaze--
“As we have at present no one affiliated inside the fortress so as
to make it possible to furnish him with a packet of poison, we have
considered already some sort of retaliatory action--to follow very
soon....”