With a yell of horror the crowd broke
up and fled in all directions, except for those who fell dead or dying
where they stood nearest to the Minister-President, and one or two
others who did not fall till they had run a little way.
The first explosion had brought together a crowd as if by enchantment,
the second made as swiftly a solitude in the street for hundreds of
yards in each direction. Through the falling snow people looked from
afar at the small heap of dead bodies lying upon each other near the
carcases of the two horses. Nobody dared to approach till some Cossacks
of a street-patrol galloped up and, dismounting, began to turn over the
dead. Amongst the innocent victims of the second explosion laid out on
the pavement there was a body dressed in a peasant's sheepskin coat; but
the face was unrecognisable, there was absolutely nothing found in the
pockets of its poor clothing, and it was the only one whose identity was
never established.
That day Mr. Razumov got up at his usual hour and spent the morning
within the University buildings listening to the lectures and working
for some time in the library. He heard the first vague rumour of
something in the way of bomb-throwing at the table of the students'
ordinary, where he was accustomed to eat his two o'clock dinner.
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