His usual haunt seemed to be a low-class eating-house on the outskirts
of the town. When Haldin got there the man was not to be found. He was
not expected to turn up again till the evening. Haldin wandered away
restlessly.
He saw the gate of a woodyard open and went in to get out of the wind
which swept the bleak broad thoroughfare. The great rectangular piles of
cut wood loaded with snow resembled the huts of a village. At first the
watchman who discovered him crouching amongst them talked in a friendly
manner. He was a dried-up old man wearing two ragged army coats one over
the other; his wizened little face, tied up under the jaw and over the
ears in a dirty red handkerchief, looked comical. Presently he grew
sulky, and then all at once without rhyme or reason began to shout
furiously.
"Aren't you ever going to clear out of this, you loafer? We know all
about factory hands of your sort. A big, strong, young chap! You aren't
even drunk. What do you want here? You don't frighten us. Take yourself
and your ugly eyes away."
Haldin stopped before the sitting Razumov. His supple figure, with
the white forehead above which the fair hair stood straight up, had an
aspect of lofty daring.
"He did not like my eyes," he said. "And so...here I am."
Razumov made an effort to speak calmly.
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