“Well!  And what have you arranged?”

The emotion was so great that Razumov was glad to put his hands against the wall.  A diabolical impulse to say, “I have given you up to the police,” frightened him exceedingly.  But he did not say that.  He said, without turning round, in a muffled voice—­

“It’s done.”

Again he heard Haldin sigh.  He walked to the table, sat down with the lamp before him, and only then looked towards the bed.

In the distant corner of the large room far away from the lamp, which was small and provided with a very thick china shade, Haldin appeared like a dark and elongated shape—­rigid with the immobility of death.  This body seemed to have less substance than its own phantom walked over by Razumov in the street white with snow.  It was more alarming in its shadowy, persistent reality than the distinct but vanishing illusion.

Haldin was heard again.

“You must have had a walk—­such a walk,...” he murmured deprecatingly.  “This weather....”

Razumov answered with energy—­

“Horrible walk....  A nightmare of a walk.”

He shuddered audibly.  Haldin sighed once more, then—­

“And so you have seen Ziemianitch—­brother?”

“I’ve seen him.”

Razumov, remembering the time he had spent with the Prince, thought it prudent to add, “I had to wait some time.”

“A character—­eh?  It’s extraordinary what a sense of the necessity of freedom there is in that man.  And he has sayings too—­simple, to the point, such as only the people can invent in their rough sagacity.  A character that....”

“I, you understand, haven’t had much opportunity....”  Razumov muttered through his teeth.

Haldin continued to stare at the ceiling.

“You see, brother, I have been a good deal in that house of late.  I used to take there books—­leaflets.  Not a few of the poor people who live there can read.  And, you see, the guests for the feast of freedom must be sought for in byways and hedges.  The truth is, I have almost lived in that house of late.  I slept sometimes in the stable.  There is a stable....”

“That’s where I had my interview with Ziemianitch,” interrupted Razumov gently.  A mocking spirit entered into him and he added, “It was satisfactory in a sense.  I came away from it much relieved.”

“Ah! he’s a fellow,” went on Haldin, talking slowly at the ceiling.  “I came to know him in that way, you see.  For some weeks now, ever since I resigned myself to do what had to be done, I tried to isolate myself.  I gave up my rooms.  What was the good of exposing a decent widow woman to the risk of being worried out of her mind by the police?  I gave up seeing any of our comrades....”

Razumov drew to himself a half-sheet of paper and began to trace lines on it with a pencil.

“Upon my word,” he thought angrily, “he seems to have thought of everybody’s safety but mine.”