Haldin was a noticeable person. The police in their thousands must have had his description within the hour. With every moment the danger grew. Sent out to wander in the streets he could not escape being caught in the end.
The police would very soon find out all about him. They would set about discovering a conspiracy. Everybody Haldin had ever known would be in the greatest danger. Unguarded expressions, little facts in themselves innocent would be counted for crimes.
Razumov remembered certain words he said, the speeches he had listened to, the harmless gatherings he had attended--it was almost impossible for a student to keep out of that sort of thing, without becoming suspect to his comrades.
Razumov saw himself shut up in a fortress, worried, badgered, perhaps ill-used. He saw himself deported by an administrative order, his life broken, ruined, and robbed of all hope. He saw himself--at best--leading a miserable existence under police supervision, in some small, faraway provincial town, without friends to assist his necessities or even take any steps to alleviate his lot--as others had. Others had fathers, mothers, brothers, relations, connexions, to move heaven and earth on their behalf --he had no one. The very officials that sentenced him some morning would forget his existence before sunset.
He saw his youth pass away from him in misery and half starvation--his strength give way, his mind become an abject thing. He saw himself creeping, broken down and shabby, about the streets--dying unattended in some filthy hole of a room, or on the sordid bed of a Government hospital.
He shuddered. Then the peace of bitter calmness came over him.
It was best to keep this man out of the streets till he could be got rid of with some chance of escaping. That was the best that could be done. Razumov, of course, felt the safety of his lonely existence to be permanently endangered. This evening's doings could turn up against him at any time as long as this man lived and the present institutions endured. They appeared to him rational and indestructible at that moment. They had a force of harmony--in contrast with the horrible discord of this man's presence. He hated the man. He said quietly--"Yes, of course, I will go. 'You must give me precise directions, and for the rest--depend on me."
"Ah! You are a fellow! Collected--cool as a cucumber. A regular Englishman. Where did you get your soul from? There aren't many like you. Look here, brother! Men like me leave no posterity, but their souls are not lost. No man's soul is ever lost. It works for itself--or else where would be the sense of self-sacrifice, of martyrdom, of conviction, of faith--the labours of the soul? What will become of my soul when I die in the way I must die--soon--very soon perhaps? It shall not perish.
