The young man preserved an impassive, moody countenance, though he
reproached himself bitterly for a pernicious fool, to have given thus an
utterly false impression of intimacy. He kept his eyes on the floor.
"I must positively hold my tongue unless I am obliged to speak," he
admonished himself. And at once against his will the question, "Hadn't
I better tell him everything?" presented itself with such force that he
had to bite his lower lip. Councillor Mikulin could not, however, have
nourished any hope of confession. He went on--
"You tell me more than his judges were able to get out of him. He was
judged by a commission of three. He would tell them absolutely nothing.
I have the report of the interrogatories here, by me. After every
question there stands 'Refuses to answer--refuses to answer.' It's like
that page after page. You see, I have been entrusted with some further
investigations around and about this affair. He has left me nothing to
begin my investigations on. A hardened miscreant. And so, you say, he
believed in...."
Again Councillor Mikulin glanced down his beard with a faint grimace;
but he did not pause for long. Remarking with a shade of scorn that
blasphemers also had that sort of belief, he concluded by supposing that
Mr. Razumov had conversed frequently with Haldin on the subject.
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