And presently he noted the
watch pointing at the hour of his own going forth into the falling snow
on that terrible errand.
"Complicity," he muttered faintly, and resumed his pacing, keeping his
eye on the hands as they crept on slowly to the time of his return.
"And, after all," he thought suddenly, "I might have been the chosen
instrument of Providence. This is a manner of speaking, but there may be
truth in every manner of speaking. What if that absurd saying were true
in its essence?"
He meditated for a while, then sat down, his legs stretched out, with
stony eyes, and with his arms hanging down on each side of the chair
like a man totally abandoned by Providence--desolate.
He noted the time of Haldin's departure and continued to sit still for
another half-hour; then muttering, "And now to work," drew up to the
table, seized the pen and instantly dropped it under the influence of a
profoundly disquieting reflection: "There's three weeks gone by and no
word from Mikulin."
What did it mean! Was he forgotten? Possibly. Then why not remain
forgotten--creep in somewhere? Hide. But where? How? With whom? In what
hole? And was it to be for ever, or what?
But a retreat was big with shadowy dangers. The eye of the social
revolution was on him, and Razumov for a moment felt an unnamed and
despairing dread, mingled with an odious sense of humiliation.
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