He tore watch and chain
off his waistcoat and laid them on the table well in the circle of
bright lamplight. Haldin, reclining on his elbow, did not stir. Razumov
was made uneasy by this attitude. "What move is he meditating over so
quietly?" he thought. "He must be prevented. I must keep on talking to
him."

He raised his voice.

"You are a son, a brother, a nephew, a cousin--I don't know what--to no
end of people. I am just a man. Here I stand before you. A man with a
mind. Did it ever occur to you how a man who had never heard a word of
warm affection or praise in his life would think on matters on which
you would think first with or against your class, your domestic
tradition--your fireside prejudices?... Did you ever consider how a
man like that would feel? I have no domestic tradition. I have nothing
to think against. My tradition is historical. What have I to look back
to but that national past from which you gentlemen want to wrench away
your future? Am I to let my intelligence, my aspirations towards a
better lot, be robbed of the only thing it has to go upon at the will of
violent enthusiasts? You come from your province, but all this land is
mine--or I have nothing. No doubt you shall be looked upon as a martyr
some day--a sort of hero--a political saint. But I beg to be excused. I
am content in fitting myself to be a worker. And what can you people do
by scattering a few drops of blood on the snow? On this Immensity. On
this unhappy Immensity! I tell you," he cried, in a vibrating, subdued
voice, and advancing one step nearer the bed, "that what it needs is not
a lot of haunting phantoms that I could walk through--but a man!"

Haldin threw his arms forward as if to keep him off in horror.

"I understand it all now," he exclaimed, with awestruck dismay. "I
understand--at last."

Razumov staggered back against the table. His forehead broke out in
perspiration while a cold shudder ran down his spine.

"What have I been saying?" he asked himself. "Have I let him slip
through my fingers after all?"

"He felt his lips go stiff like buckram, and instead of a reassuring
smile only achieved an uncertain grimace.

"What will you have?" he began in a conciliating voice which got steady
after the first trembling word or two. "What will you have? Consider--a
man of studious, retired habits--and suddenly like this.... I am not
practised in talking delicately. But..."

He felt anger, a wicked anger, get hold of