He reached the doorway of his house in a state of mental discouragement
which enabled him to receive with apparent indifference an
official-looking envelope from the dirty hand of the dvornik.
"A gendarme brought it," said the man. "He asked if you were at home.
I told him 'No, he's not at home.' So he left it. 'Give it into his own
hands,' says he. Now you've got it--eh?"
He went back to his sweeping, and Razumov climbed his stairs, envelope
in hand. Once in his room he did not hasten to open it. Of course
this official missive was from the superior direction of the police. A
suspect! A suspect!
He stared in dreary astonishment at the absurdity of his position. He
thought with a sort of dry, unemotional melancholy; three years of good
work gone, the course of forty more perhaps jeopardized--turned from
hope to terror, because events started by human folly link themselves
into a sequence which no sagacity can foresee and no courage can break
through. Fatality enters your rooms while your landlady's back is
turned; you come home and find it in possession bearing a man's name,
clothed in flesh--wearing a brown cloth coat and long boots--lounging
against the stove. It asks you, "Is the outer door closed?"--and you
don't know enough to take it by the throat and fling it downstairs.
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