om led nowhere. There was no exit, no means of
escape from it. He lifted the candle higher and looked about him more
attentively: there was certainly no one. He called Kirillov's name in a
low voice, then again louder; no one answered.

"Can he have got out by the window?" The casement in one window was, in
fact, open. "Absurd! He couldn't have got away through the casement."
Pyotr Stepanovitch crossed the room and went up to the window. "He
couldn't possibly." All at once he turned round quickly and was aghast
at something extraordinary.

Against the wall facing the windows on the right of the door stood a
cupboard. On the right side of this cupboard, in the corner formed by
the cupboard and the wall, stood Kirillov, and he was standing in a very
strange way; motionless, perfectly erect, with his arms held stiffly at
his sides, his head raised and pressed tightly back against the wall in
the very corner, he seemed to be trying to conceal and efface himself.
Everything seemed to show that he was hiding, yet somehow it was not
easy to believe it. Pyotr Stepanovitch was standing a little sideways
to the corner, and could only see the projecting parts of the figure.
He could not bring himself to move to the left to get a full view of
Kirillov and solve the mystery. His heart began beating violently, and
he felt a sudden rush of blind fury: he started from where he stood,
and, shouting and stamping with his feet, he rushed to the horrible
place.

But when he reached Kirillov he stopped short again, still more
overcome, horror-stricken. What struck him most was that, in spite of
his shout and his furious rush, the figure did not stir, did not move
in a single limb--as though it were of stone or of wax. The pallor of
the face was unnatural, the black eyes were quite unmoving and were
staring away at a point in the distance. Pyotr Stepanovitch lowered the
candle and raised it again, lighting up the figure from all points of
view and scrutinising it. He suddenly noticed that, although Kirillov
was looking straight before him, he could see him and was perhaps
watching him out of the corner of his eye. Then the idea occurred to him
to hold the candle right up to the wretch's face, to scorch him and see
what he would do. He suddenly fancied that Kirillov's chin twitched and
that something like a mocking smile passed over his lips--as though
he had guessed Pyotr Stepanovitch's thought. He shuddered and, beside
himself, clutched