“What can he want with me precisely—­I wonder?” he asked himself.

As if that mental question had evoked the familiar phantom, Haldin stood suddenly before him in the room with an extraordinary completeness of detail.  Though the short winter day had passed already into the sinister twilight of a land buried in snow, Razumov saw plainly the narrow leather strap round the Tcherkess coat.  The illusion of that hateful presence was so perfect that he half expected it to ask, “Is the outer door closed?” He looked at it with hatred and contempt.  Souls do not take a shape of clothing.  Moreover, Haldin could not be dead yet.  Razumov stepped forward menacingly; the vision vanished—­and turning short on his heel he walked out of his room with infinite disdain.

But after going down the first flight of stairs it occurred to him that perhaps the superior authorities of police meant to confront him with Haldin in the flesh.  This thought struck him like a bullet, and had he not clung with both hands to the banister he would have rolled down to the next landing most likely.  His legs were of no use for a considerable time....  But why?  For what conceivable reason?  To what end?

There could be no rational answer to these questions; but Razumov remembered the promise made by the General to Prince K—–.  His action was to remain unknown.

He got down to the bottom of the stairs, lowering himself as it were from step to step, by the banister.  Under the gate he regained much of his firmness of thought and limb.  He went out into the street without staggering visibly.  Every moment he felt steadier mentally.  And yet he was saying to himself that General T—–­ was perfectly capable of shutting him up in the fortress for an indefinite time.  His temperament fitted his remorseless task, and his omnipotence made him inaccessible to reasonable argument.

But when Razumov arrived at the Secretariat he discovered that he would have nothing to do with General T—–.  It is evident from Mr. Razumov’s diary that this dreaded personality was to remain in the background.  A civilian of superior rank received him in a private room after a period of waiting in outer offices where a lot of scribbling went on at many tables in a heated and stuffy atmosphere.

The clerk in uniform who conducted him said in the corridor—­

“You are going before Gregor Matvieitch Mikulin.”

There was nothing formidable about the man bearing that name.  His mild, expectant glance was turned on the door already when Razumov entered.  At once, with the penholder he was holding in his hand, he pointed to a deep sofa between two windows.  He followed Razumov with his eyes while that last crossed the room and sat down.  The mild gaze rested on him, not curious, not inquisitive—­certainly not suspicious—­almost without expression.  In its passionless persistence there was something resembling sympathy.