azumov raised his
voice at last. "And you can't deny the natural innocence of a brute.
But what's the use of disputing about names? You just try to give these
children the power and stature of men and see what they will be like.
You just give it to them and see.... But never mind. I tell you,
Peter Ivanovitch, that half a dozen young men do not come together
nowadays in a shabby student's room without your name being whispered,
not as a leader of thought, but as a centre of revolutionary
energies--the centre of action. What else has drawn me near you, do you
think? It is not what all the world knows of you, surely. It's precisely
what the world at large does not know. I was irresistibly drawn-let us
say impelled, yes, impelled; or, rather, compelled, driven--driven,"
repented Razumov loudly, and ceased, as if startled by the hollow
reverberation of the word "driven" along two bare corridors and in the
great empty hall.

Peter Ivanovitch did not seem startled in the least. The young man
could not control a dry, uneasy laugh. The great revolutionist remained
unmoved with an effect of commonplace, homely superiority.

"Curse him," said Razumov to himself, "he is waiting behind his
spectacles for me to give myself away." Then aloud, with a satanic
enjoyment of the scorn prompting him to play with the greatness of the
great man--

"Ah, Peter Ivanovitch, if you only knew the force which drew--no, which
_drove_ me towards you! The irresistible force."

He did not feel any desire to laugh now. This time Peter Ivanovitch
moved his head sideways, knowingly, as much as to say, "Don't I?" This
expressive movement was almost imperceptible. Razumov went on in secret
derision--

"All these days you have been trying to read me, Peter Ivanovitch. That
is natural. I have perceived it and I have been frank. Perhaps you may
think I have not been very expansive? But with a man like you it was not
needed; it would have looked like an impertinence, perhaps. And besides,
we Russians are prone to talk too much as a rule. I have always felt
that. And yet, as a nation, we are dumb. I assure you that I am not
likely to talk to you so much again--ha! ha!--"

Razumov, still keeping on the lower step, came a little nearer to the
great man.

"You have been condescending enough. I quite understood it was to lead
me on. You must render me the justice that I have not tried to please. I
have been impelled, compelled, or rather sent--let us say se