He went to the window and stood there with slightly bent head on the
watch for the faint sound. "I will stay here till I hear something,"
he said to himself. He stood still, his ear turned to the panes. An
atrocious aching numbness with shooting pains in his back and legs
tortured him. He did not budge. His mind hovered on the borders of
delirium. He heard himself suddenly saying, "I confess," as a person
might do on the rack. "I am on the rack," he thought. He felt ready to
swoon. The faint deep boom of the distant clock seemed to explode in his
head--he heard it so clearly.... One!
If Haldin had not turned up the police would have been already here
ransacking the house. No sound reached him. This time it was done.
He dragged himself painfully to the table and dropped into the chair.
He flung the book away and took a square sheet of paper. It was like the
pile of sheets covered with his neat minute handwriting, only blank. He
took a pen brusquely and dipped it with a vague notion of going on with
the writing of his essay--but his pen remained poised over the sheet.
It hung there for some time before it came down and formed long scrawly
letters.
Still-faced and his lips set hard, Razumov began to write. When he wrote
a large hand his neat writing lost its character altogether--became
unsteady, almost childish.
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