"As to extirpating," she croaked at the attentive Razumov, "there is only one class in Russia which must be extirpated. Only one. And that class consists of only one family. You understand me? That one family must be extirpated."
Her rigidity was frightful, like the rigor of a corpse galvanized into harsh speech and glittering stare by the force of murderous hate. The sight fascinated Razumovyet he felt more selfpossessed than at any other time since he had entered this weirdly bare room. He was interested. But the great feminist by his side again uttered his appeal
"Eleanor!"
She disregarded it. Her carmine lips vaticinated with an extraordinary rapidity. The liberating spirit would use arms before which rivers would part like Jordan, and ramparts fall down like the walls of Jericho. The deliverance from bondage would be effected by plagues and by signs, by wonders and by war. The women
"Eleanor!"
She ceased; she had heard him at last. She pressed her hand to her forehead.
"What is it? Ah yes! That girlthe sister of"
It was Miss Haldin that she meant. That young girl and her mother had been leading a very retired life. They were provincial ladieswere they not? The mother had been very beautifultraces were left yet. Peter Ivanovitch, when he called there for the first time, was greatly struckBut the cold way they received him was really surprising.
"He is one of our national glories," Madams de S cried out, with sudden vehemence. "All the world listens to him."
"I don't know these ladies," said Razumov loudly rising from his chair.
"What are you saying, Kirylo Sidorovitch? I understand that she was talking to you here, in the garden, the other day."
"Yes, in the garden," said Razumov gloomily. Then, with an effort, "She made herself known to me."
"And then ran away from us all," Madame de S continued, with ghastly vivacity. "After coming to the very door! What a peculiar proceeding! Well, I have been a shy little provincial girl at one time. Yes, Razumov" (she fell into this familiarity intentionally, with an appalling grimace of graciousness. Razumov gave a perceptible start), "yes, that's my origin. A simple provincial family."
"You are a marvel," Peter Ivanovich uttered.
But it was to Razumov that she gave her death'shead smile. Her tone was quite imperious.
"You must bring the wild young thing here. She is wanted. I reckon upon your successmind!"
"She is not a wild young thing," muttered Razumov, in a surly voice.
"Well, thenthat's all the same. She may be one of these young conceited democrats. Do you know what I think? I think she is very much like you in character. There is a smouldering fire of scorn in you. You are darkly selfsufficient, but I can see your very soul."
Her shiny eyes had a dry, intense stare, which, missing Razumov, gave him an absurd notion that she was looking at something which was visible to her behind him. He cursed himself for an impressionable fool, and asked with forced calmness
"What is it you see? Anything resembling me?"
She moved her rigidly set face from left to right, negatively.
"Some sort of phantom in my image?" pursued Razumov slowly. "For, I suppose, a soul when it is seen is just that. A vain thing. There are phantoms of the living as well as of the dead."
The tenseness of Madame de S's stare had relaxed, and now she looked at Razumov in a silence that became disconcerting.
"I myself have had an experience," he stammered out, as if compelled. "I've seen a phantom once." The unnaturally red lips moved to frame a question harshly.
"Of a dead person?"
"No. Living."
"A friend?"
"No."
"An enemy?"
"I hated him."
"Ah! It was not a woman, then?"
"A woman!" repeated Razumov, his eyes looking straight into the eyes of Madame de S. "Why should it have been a woman? And why this conclusion? Why should I not have been able to hate a woman?"
As a matter of fact, the idea of hating a woman was new to him. At that moment he hated Madame de S. But it was not exactly hate. It was more like the abhorrence that may be caused by a wooden or plaster figure of a repulsive kind. She moved no more than if she were such a figure; even her eyes, whose unwinking stare plunged into his own, though shining, were lifeless, as though they were as artificial as her teeth. For the first time Razumov became aware of a faint perfume, but faint as it was it nauseated him exceedingly. Again Peter Ivanovitch tapped him slightly on the shoulder. Thereupon he bowed, and was about to turn away when he received the unexpected favour of a bony, inanimate hand extended to him, with the two words in hoarse French
"Au revoir!"
He bowed over the skeleton hand and left the room, escorted by the great man, who made him go out first. The voice from the sofa cried after them
"Au revoir!"
He bowed over the skeleton hand and left the room, escorted by the great man, who made him go out first. The voice from the sofa cried after them
"You remain here, Pierre."
"Certainly, ma chere amie."
But he left the room with Razumov, shutting the door behind him. The landing was prolonged into a bare corridor, right and left, desolate perspectives of white and gold decoration without a strip of carpet. The very light, pouring through a large window at the end, seemed dusty; and a solitary speck reposing on the balustrade of white marblethe silk tophat of the great feministasserted itself extremely, black and glossy in all that crude whiteness.
Peter Ivanovitch escorted the visitor without opening his lips. Even when they had reached the head of the stairs Peter Ivanovitch did not break the silence. Razumov's impulse to continue down the flight and out of the house without as much as a nod abandoned him suddenly. He stopped on the first step and leaned his back against the wall. Below him the great hall with its chequered floor of black and white seemed absurdly large and like some public place where a great power of resonance awaits the provocation of footfalls and voices. As if afraid of awakening the loud echoes of that empty house, Razumov adopted a low tone.
"I really have no mind to turn into a dilettante spiritualist."
Peter Ivanovitch shook his head slightly, very serious.
"Or spend my time in spiritual ecstasies or sublime meditations upon the gospel of feminism," continued Razumov. "I made my way here for my share of actionaction, most respected Peter Ivanovitch! It was not the great European writer who attracted me, here, to this odious town of liberty. It was somebody much greater. It was the idea of the chief which attracted me. There are starving young men in Russia who believe in you so much that it seems the only thing that keeps them alive in their misery. Think of that, Peter Ivanovitch! No! But only think of that!"
The great man, thus entreated, perfectly motionless and silent, was the very image of patient, placid respectability.
"Of course I don't speak of the people. They are brutes," added Razumov, in the same subdued but forcible tone. At this, a protesting murmur issued from the "heroic fugitive's" beard. A murmur of authority.
"Saychildren."
"No! Brutes!" Razumov insisted bluntly.
"But they are sound, they are innocent," the great man pleaded in a whisper.
"As far as that goes, a brute is sound enough." Razumov raised his voice at last. "And you can't deny the natural innocence of a brute. But what's the use of disputing about names? You just try to give these children the power and stature of men and see what they will be like. You just give it to them and see But never mind. I tell you, Peter Ivanovitch, that half a dozen young men do not come together nowadays in a shabby student's room without your name being whispered, not as a leader of thought, but as a centre of revolutionary energiesthe centre of action. What else has drawn me near you, do you think? It is not what all the world knows of you, surely. It's precisely what the world at large does not know. I was irresistibly drawnlet us say impelled, yes, impelled; or, rather, compelled, drivendriven," repented Razumov loudly, and ceased, as if startled by the hollow reverberation of the word "driven" along two bare corridors and in the great empty hall.
Peter Ivanovitch did not seem startled in the least. The young man could not control a dry, uneasy laugh. The great revolutionist remained unmoved with an effect of commonplace, homely superiority.
"Curse him," said Razumov to himself, "he is waiting behind his spectacles for me to give myself away." Then aloud, with a satanic enjoyment of the scorn prompting him to play with the greatness of the great man
"Ah, Peter Ivanovitch, if you only knew the force which drewno, which drove me towards you! The irresistible force."
He did not feel any desire to laugh now. This time Peter Ivanovitch moved his head sideways, knowingly, as much as to say, "Don't I?" This expressive movement was almost imperceptible. Razumov went on in secret derision
"All these days you have been trying to read me, Peter Ivanovitch. That is natural. I have perceived it and I have been frank. Perhaps you may think I have not been very expansive? But with a man like you it was not needed; it would have looked like an impertinence, perhaps. And besides, we Russians are prone to talk too much as a rule. I have always felt that. And yet, as a nation, we are dumb. I assure you that I am not likely to talk to you so much againha! ha!"
Razumov, still keeping on the lower step, came a little nearer to the great man.
"You have been condescending enough. I quite understood it was to lead me on. You must render me the justice that I have not tried to please. I have been impelled, compelled, or rather sentlet us say senttowards you for a work that no one but myself can do. You would call it a harmless delusion: a ridiculous delusion at which you don't even smile. It is absurd of me to talk like this, yet some day you shall remember these words, I hope. Enough of this. Here I stand before youconfessed! But one thing more I must add to complete it: a mere blind tool I can never consent to be."
Whatever acknowledgment Razumov was prepared for, he was not prepared to have both his hands seized in the great man's grasp. The swiftness of the movement was aggressive enough to startle. The burly feminist could not have been quicker had his purpose been to jerk Razumov treacherously up on the landing and bundle him behind one of the numerous closed doors near by. This idea actually occurred to Razumov; his hands being released after a darkly eloquent squeeze, he smiled, with a beating heart, straight at the beard and the spectacles hiding that impenetrable man.