rs. He
checked himself, passed his hand over his forehead, confused, like a man
who has been dreaming aloud.

"Where could a student be running if not to his lectures in the morning?
At night it's another matter. I did not care if all the house had been
there to look at me. But I don't suppose there was anyone. It's best not
to be seen or heard. Aha! The people that are neither seen nor heard are
the lucky ones--in Russia. Don't you admire my luck?"

"Astonishing," she said. "If you have luck as well as determination,
then indeed you are likely to turn out an invaluable acquisition for the
work in hand."

Her tone was earnest; and it seemed to Razumov that it was speculative,
even as though she were already apportioning him, in her mind, his share
of the work. Her eyes were cast down. He waited, not very alert now, but
with the grip of the ever-present danger giving him an air of
attentive gravity. Who could have written about him in that letter
from Petersburg? A fellow student, surely--some imbecile victim of
revolutionary propaganda, some foolish slave of foreign, subversive
ideals. A long, famine-stricken, red-nosed figure presented itself to
his mental search. That must have been the fellow!

He smiled inwardly at the absolute wrong-headedness of the whole thing,
the self-deception of a criminal idealist shattering his existence like
a thunder-clap out of a clear sky, and re-echoing amongst the wreckage
in the false assumptions of those other fools. Fancy that hungry and
piteous imbecile furnishing to the curiosity of the revolutionist
refugees this utterly fantastic detail! He appreciated it as by no means
constituting a danger. On the contrary. As things stood it was for his
advantage rather, a piece of sinister luck which had only to be accepted
with proper caution.

"And yet, Razumov," he heard the musing voice of the woman, "you have
not the face of a lucky man." She raised her eyes with renewed interest.
"And so that was the way of it. After doing your work you simply walked
off and made for your rooms. That sort of thing succeeds sometimes. I
suppose it was agreed beforehand that, once the business over, each of
you would go his own way?"

Razumov preserved the seriousness of his expression and the deliberate,
if cautious, manner of speaking.

"Was not that the best thing to do?" he asked, in a dispassionate tone.
"And anyway," he added, after waiting a moment, "we did not give much
thought to what