ing a flaring safety signal. The
first, great white hairless face, double chin, prominent stomach, which
he seemed to carry forward consciously within a strongly distended
overcoat, only nodded and averted his eyes peevishly; his
companion--lean, flushed cheekbones, a military red moustache below a
sharp, salient nose--approached at once Sophia Antonovna, greeting her
warmly. His voice was very strong but inarticulate. It sounded like a
deep buzzing. The woman revolutionist was quietly cordial.

"This is Razumov," she announced in a clear voice.

The lean new-comer made an eager half-turn. "He will want to embrace
me," thought our young man with a deep recoil of all his being, while
his limbs seemed too heavy to move. But it was a groundless alarm. He
had to do now with a generation of conspirators who did not kiss each
other on both cheeks; and raising an arm that felt like lead he dropped
his hand into a largely-outstretched palm, fleshless and hot as if
dried up by fever, giving a bony pressure, expressive, seeming to say,
"Between us there's no need of words." The man had big, wide-open eyes.
Razumov fancied he could see a smile behind their sadness.

"This is Razumov," Sophia Antonovna repeated loudly for the benefit of
the fat man, who at some distance displayed the profile of his stomach.

No one moved. Everything, sounds, attitudes, movements, and immobility
seemed to be part of an experiment, the result of which was a thin voice
piping with comic peevishness--

"Oh yes! Razumov. We have been hearing of nothing but Mr. Razumov for
months. For my part, I confess I would rather have seen Haldin on this
spot instead of Mr. Razumov."

The squeaky stress put on the name "Razumov--Mr. Razumov" pierced the
ear ridiculously, like the falsetto of a circus clown beginning an
elaborate joke. Astonishment was Razumov's first response, followed by
sudden indignation.

"What's the meaning of this?" he asked in a stern tone.

"Tut! Silliness. He's always like that." Sophia Antonovna was obviously
vexed. But she dropped the information, "Necator," from her lips just
loud enough to be heard by Razumov. The abrupt squeaks of the fat man
seemed to proceed from that thing like a balloon he carried under his
overcoat. The stolidity of his attitude, the big feet, the lifeless,
hanging hands, the enormous bloodless cheek, the thin wisps of hair
straggling down the fat nape of the neck, fascinated Razumov into a
stare on the v