“From quite another direction. From a distance, too. A considerable
distance.”
Razumov shrugged his shoulders. The two men from a distance, after
having reached the wall of the terrace, disappeared suddenly at its foot
as if the earth had opened to swallow them up.
“Oh, well, they have just come from America.” The woman in the crimson
blouse shrugged her shoulders too a little before making that statement.
“The time is drawing near,” she interjected, as if speaking to herself.
“I did not tell them who you were. Yakovlitch would have wanted to
embrace you.”
“Is that he with the wisp of hair hanging from his chin, in the long
coat?”
“You’ve guessed aright. That’s Yakovlitch.”
“And they could not find their way here from the station without you
coming on purpose from Zurich to show it to them? Verily, without women
we can do nothing. So it stands written, and apparently so it is.”
He was conscious of an immense lassitude under his effort to be
sarcastic. And he could see that she had detected it with those steady,
brilliant black eyes.
“What is the matter with you?”
“I don’t know. Nothing. I’ve had a devil of a day.”