"I ought to have told very
circumstantial lies from the first," he said to himself, with a mortal
distaste of the mere idea which silenced his mental utterance for quite
a perceptible interval. "Luckily, that's all right now," he reflected,
and after a time spoke to himself, half aloud, "Thanks to the devil,"
and laughed a little.
The end of Ziemianitch then arrested his wandering thoughts. He was not
exactly amused at the interpretation, but he could not help detecting
in it a certain piquancy. He owned to himself that, had he known of that
suicide before leaving Russia, he would have been incapable of making
such excellent use of it for his own purposes. He ought to be infinitely
obliged to the fellow with the red nose for his patience and ingenuity,
"A wonderful psychologist apparently," he said to himself sarcastically.
Remorse, indeed! It was a striking example of your true conspirator's
blindness, of the stupid subtlety of people with one idea. This was
a drama of love, not of conscience, Razumov continued to himself
mockingly. A woman the old fellow was making up to! A robust pedlar,
clearly a rival, throwing him down a flight of stairs.... And at
sixty, for a lifelong lover, it was not an easy matter to get over.
That was a feminist of a different stamp from Peter Ivanovitch.
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