But
this rumour was made up of mere whispers, and this was Russia, where
it was not always safe, for a student especially, to appear too much
interested in certain kinds of whispers. Razumov was one of those
men who, living in a period of mental and political unrest, keep an
instinctive hold on normal, practical, everyday life. He was aware
of the emotional tension of his time; he even responded to it in an
indefinite way. But his main concern was with his work, his studies, and
with his own future.
Officially and in fact without a family (for the daughter of the
Archpriest had long been dead), no home influences had shaped his
opinions or his feelings. He was as lonely in the world as a man
swimming in the deep sea. The word Razumov was the mere label of
a solitary individuality. There were no Razumovs belonging to him
anywhere. His closest parentage was defined in the statement that he
was a Russian. Whatever good he expected from life would be given to or
withheld from his hopes by that connexion alone. This immense parentage
suffered from the throes of internal dissensions, and he shrank mentally
from the fray as a good-natured man may shrink from taking definite
sides in a violent family quarrel.
Razumov, going home, reflected that having prepared all the matters of
the forthcoming examination, he could now devote his time to the subject
of the prize essay.
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