Every one shall be wanted presently. Every one."
He bent down from the landing over Razumov, who had lowered his eyes.
"The moment of action approaches," he murmured.
Razumov did not look up. He did not move till he heard the door of the
drawing-room close behind the greatest of feminists returning to his
painted Egeria. Then he walked down slowly into the hall. The door stood
open, and the shadow of the house was lying aslant over the greatest
part of the terrace. While crossing it slowly, he lifted his hat and
wiped his damp forehead, expelling his breath with force to get rid of
the last vestiges of the air he had been breathing inside. He looked at
the palms of his hands, and rubbed them gently against his thighs.
He felt, bizarre as it may seem, as though another self, an independent
sharer of his mind, had been able to view his whole person very
distinctly indeed. "This is curious," he thought. After a while he
formulated his opinion of it in the mental ejaculation: "Beastly!"
This disgust vanished before a marked uneasiness. "This is an effect of
nervous exhaustion," he reflected with weary sagacity. "How am I to
go on day after day if I have no more power of resistance--moral
resistance?"
He followed the path at the foot of the terrace. "Moral resistance,
moral resistance;" he kept on repeating these words mentally.
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