It is not to be seriously supposed that Razumov had actually dozed off and had dreamed in the presence of Councillor Mikulin, of an old print of the Inquisition.  He was indeed extremely exhausted, and he records a remarkably dream-like experience of anguish at the circumstance that there was no one whatever near the pale and extended figure.  The solitude of the racked victim was particularly horrible to behold.  The mysterious impossibility to see the face, he also notes, inspired a sort of terror.  All these characteristics of an ugly dream were present.  Yet he is certain that he never lost the consciousness of himself on the sofa, leaning forward with his hands between his knees and turning his cap round and round in his fingers.  But everything vanished at the voice of Councillor Mikulin.  Razumov felt profoundly grateful for the even simplicity of its tone.

“Yes.  I have listened with interest.  I comprehend in a measure your...  But, indeed, you are mistaken in what you....”  Councillor Mikulin uttered a series of broken sentences.  Instead of finishing them he glanced down his beard.  It was a deliberate curtailment which somehow made the phrases more impressive.  But he could talk fluently enough, as became apparent when changing his tone to persuasiveness he went on:  “By listening to you as I did, I think I have proved that I do not regard our intercourse as strictly official.  In fact, I don’t want it to have that character at all....  Oh yes!  I admit that the request for your presence here had an official form.  But I put it to you whether it was a form which would have been used to secure the attendance of a....”

“Suspect,” exclaimed Razumov, looking straight into the official’s eyes.  They were big with heavy eyelids, and met his boldness with a dim, steadfast gaze.  “A suspect.”  The open repetition of that word which had been haunting all his waking hours gave Razumov a strange sort of satisfaction.  Councillor Mikulin shook his head slightly.  “Surely you do know that I’ve had my rooms searched by the police?”

“I was about to say a ‘misunderstood person,’ when you interrupted me,” insinuated quietly Councillor Mikulin.

Razumov smiled without bitterness.  The renewed sense of his intellectual superiority sustained him in the hour of danger.  He said a little disdainfully—­

“I know I am but a reed.  But I beg you to allow me the superiority of the thinking reed over the unthinking forces that are about to crush him out of existence.  Practical thinking in the last instance is but criticism.  I may perhaps be allowed to express my wonder at this action of the police being delayed for two full days during which, of course, I could have annihilated everything compromising by burning it—­let us say—­and getting rid of the very ashes, for that matter.”

“You are angry,” remarked the official, with an unutterable simplicity of tone and manner.  “Is that reasonable?”