The phantom of Haldin had been indeed walked over, was left
behind lying powerless and passive on the pavement covered with snow.
And this was the phantom's mother consumed with grief and white as a
ghost. He had felt a pitying surprise. But that, of course, was of no
importance. Mothers did not matter. He could not shake off the poignant
impression of that silent, quiet, white-haired woman, but a sort of
sternness crept into his thoughts. These were the consequences. Well,
what of it? "Am I then on a bed of roses?" he had exclaimed to himself,
sitting at some distance with his eyes fixed upon that figure of sorrow.
He had said all he had to say to her, and when he had finished she had
not uttered a word. She had turned away her head while he was speaking.
The silence which had fallen on his last words had lasted for five
minutes or more. What did it mean? Before its incomprehensible character
he became conscious of anger in his stern mood, the old anger against
Haldin reawakened by the contemplation of Haldin's mother. And was
it not something like enviousness which gripped his heart, as if of
a privilege denied to him alone of all the men that had ever passed
through this world? It was the other who had attained to repose and yet
continued to exist in the affection of that mourning old woman, in
the thoughts of all these people posing for lovers of humanity.
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