He said to himself that there was nothing to think about, and began walking towards his home.

He walked quietly.  It was a common experience to walk thus home to bed after an evening spent somewhere with his fellows or in the cheaper seats of a theatre.  After he had gone a little way the familiarity of things got hold of him.  Nothing was changed.  There was the familiar corner; and when he turned it he saw the familiar dim light of the provision shop kept by a German woman.  There were loaves of stale bread, bunches of onions and strings of sausages behind the small window-panes.  They were closing it.  The sickly lame fellow whom he knew so well by sight staggered out into the snow embracing a large shutter.

Nothing would change.  There was the familiar gateway yawning black with feeble glimmers marking the arches of the different staircases.

The sense of life’s continuity depended on trifling bodily impressions.  The trivialities of daily existence were an armour for the soul.  And this thought reinforced the inward quietness of Razumov as he began to climb the stairs familiar to his feet in the dark, with his hand on the familiar clammy banister.  The exceptional could not prevail against the material contacts which make one day resemble another.  To-morrow would be like yesterday.

It was only on the stage that the unusual was outwardly acknowledged.

“I suppose,” thought Razumov, “that if I had made up my mind to blow out my brains on the landing I would be going up these stairs as quietly as I am doing it now.  What’s a man to do?  What must be must be.  Extraordinary things do happen.  But when they have happened they are done with.  Thus, too, when the mind is made up.  That question is done with.  And the daily concerns, the familiarities of our thought swallow it up—­and the life goes on as before with its mysterious and secret sides quite out of sight, as they should be.  Life is a public thing.”

Razumov unlocked his door and took the key out; entered very quietly and bolted the door behind him carefully.

He thought, “He hears me,” and after bolting the door he stood still holding his breath.  There was not a sound.  He crossed the bare outer room, stepping deliberately in the darkness.  Entering the other, he felt all over his table for the matchbox.  The silence, but for the groping of his hand, was profound.  Could the fellow be sleeping so soundly?

He struck a light and looked at the bed.  Haldin was lying on his back as before, only both his hands were under his head.  His eyes were open.  He stared at the ceiling.

Razumov held the match up.  He saw the clear-cut features, the firm chin, the white forehead and the topknot of fair hair against the white pillow.  There he was, lying flat on his back.  Razumov thought suddenly, “I have walked over his chest.”

He continued to stare till the match burnt itself out; then struck another and lit the lamp in silence without looking towards the bed any more.  He had turned his back on it and was hanging his coat on a peg when he heard Haldin sigh profoundly, then ask in a tired voice—­