ing in the last instance is but
criticism. I may perhaps be allowed to express my wonder at this action
of the police being delayed for two full days during which, of course,
I could have annihilated everything compromising by burning it--let us
say--and getting rid of the very ashes, for that matter."

"You are angry," remarked the official, with an unutterable simplicity
of tone and manner. "Is that reasonable?"

Razumov felt himself colouring with annoyance.

"I am reasonable. I am even--permit me to say--a thinker, though to
be sure, this name nowadays seems to be the monopoly of hawkers of
revolutionary wares, the slaves of some French or German thought--devil
knows what foreign notions. But I am not an intellectual mongrel. I
think like a Russian. I think faithfully--and I take the liberty to call
myself a thinker. It is not a forbidden word, as far as I know."

"No. Why should it be a forbidden word?" Councillor Mikulin turned in
his seat with crossed legs and resting his elbow on the table propped
his head on the knuckles of a half-closed hand. Razumov noticed a thick
forefinger clasped by a massive gold band set with a blood-red stone--a
signet ring that, looking as if it could weigh half a pound, was
an appropriate ornament for that ponderous man with the accurate
middle-parting of glossy hair above a rugged Socratic forehead.

"Could it be a wig?" Razumov detected himself wondering with an
unexpected detachment. His self-confidence was much shaken. He resolved
to chatter no more. Reserve! Reserve! All he had to do was to keep
the Ziemianitch episode secret with absolute determination, when the
questions came. Keep Ziemianitch strictly out of all the answers.

Councillor Mikulin looked at him dimly. Razumov's self-confidence
abandoned him completely. It seemed impossible to keep Ziemianitch out.
Every question would lead to that, because, of course, there was nothing
else. He made an effort to brace himself up. It was a failure. But
Councillor Mikulin was surprisingly detached too.

"Why should it be forbidden?" he repeated. "I too consider myself
a thinking man, I assure you. The principal condition is to think
correctly. I admit it is difficult sometimes at first for a young man
abandoned to himself--with his generous impulses undisciplined, so to
speak--at the mercy of every wild wind that blows. Religious belief, of
course, is a great...."

Councillor Mikulin glanced down his beard, and Razumov, wh