This Ziemianitch, Razumov understood, was a sort of townpeasant who had got on; owner of a small number of sledges and horses for hire. Haldin paused in his narrative to exclaim
"A bright spirit! A hardy soul! The best driver in St. Petersburg. He has a team of three horses there Ah! He's a fellow!"
This man had declared himself willing to take out safely, at any time, one or two persons to the second or third railway station on one of the southern lines. But there had been no time to warn him the night before. His usual haunt seemed to be a lowclass eatinghouse on the outskirts of the town. When Haldin got there the man was not to be found. He was not expected to turn up again till the evening. Haldin wandered away restlessly.
He saw the gate of a woodyard open and went in to get out of the wind which swept the bleak broad thoroughfare. The great rectangular piles of cut wood loaded with snow resembled the huts of a village. At first the watchman who discovered him crouching amongst them talked in a friendly manner. He was a driedup old man wearing two ragged army coats one over the other; his wizened little face, tied up under the jaw and over the ears in a dirty red handkerchief, looked comical. Presently he grew sulky, and then all at once without rhyme or reason began to shout furiously.
"Aren't you ever going to clear out of this, you loafer? We know all about factory hands of your sort. A big, strong, young chap! You aren't even drunk. What do you want here? You don't frighten us. Take yourself and your ugly eyes away."
Haldin stopped before the sitting Razumov. His supple figure, with the white forehead above which the fair hair stood straight up, had an aspect of lofty daring.
"He did not like my eyes," he said. "And sohere I am."
Razumov made an effort to speak calmly.
"But pardon me, Victor Victorovitch. We know each other so little I don't see why you"
"Confidence," said Haldin.
This word sealed Razumov's lips as if a hand had been clapped on his mouth. His brain seethed with arguments.
"And sohere you are," he muttered through his teeth.
The other did not detect the tone of anger. Never suspected it.
"Yes. And nobody knows I am here. You are the last person that could be suspectedshould I get caught. That's an advantage, you see. And thenspeaking to a superior mind like yours I can well say all the truth. It occurred to me that youyou have no one belonging to youno ties, no one to suffer for it if this came out by some means. There have been enough ruined Russian homes as it is. But I don't see how my passage through your rooms can be ever known. If I should be got hold of, I'll know how to keep silentno matter what they may be pleased to do to me," he added grimly.
He began to walk again while Razumov sat still appalled.
"You thought that" he faltered out almost sick with indignation.
"Yes, Razumov. Yes, brother. Some day you shall help to build. You suppose that I am a terrorist, nowa destructor of what is, But consider that the true destroyers are they who destroy the spirit of progress and truth, not the avengers who merely kill the bodies of the persecutors of human dignity. Men like me are necessary to make room for selfcontained, thinking men like you. Well, we have made the sacrifice of our lives, but all the same I want to escape if it can be done. It is not my life I want to save, but my power to do. I won't live idle. Oh no! Don't make any mistake, Razumov. Men like me are rare. And, besides, an example like this is more awful to oppressors when the perpetrator vanishes without a trace. They sit in their offices and palaces and quake. All I want you to do is to help me to vanish. No great matter that. Only to go by and by and see Ziemianitch for me at that place where I went this morning. Just tell him, 'He whom you know wants a wellhorsed sledge to pull up half an hour after midnight at the seventh lamppost on the left counting from the upper end of Karabelnaya. If nobody gets in, the sledge is to run round a block or two, so as to come back past the same spot in ten minutes' time.'"
Razumov wondered why he had not cut short that talk and told this man to go away long before. Was it weakness or what?
He concluded that it was a sound instinct. Haldin must have been seen. It was impossible that some people should not have noticed the face and appearance of the man who threw the second bomb. 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 attendedit was almost impossible for a student to keep out of that sort of thing, without becoming suspect to his comrades.