Razumov, whose face was turned away from her, made a grimace like a man who hears a false note.
“Tell me: is it true that on the very morning of the deed you actually attended the lectures at the University?”
An appreciable fraction of a second elapsed before the real import of the question reached him, like a bullet which strikes some time after the flash of the fired shot. Luckily his disengaged hand was ready to grip a bar of the gate. He held it with a terrible force, but his presence of mind was gone. He could make only a sort of gurgling, grumpy sound.
“Come, Kirylo Sidorovitch!” she urged him. “I know you are not a boastful man. That one must say for you. You are a silent man. Too silent, perhaps. You are feeding on some bitterness of your own. You are not an enthusiast. You are, perhaps, all the stronger for that. But you might tell me. One would like to understand you a little more. I was so immensely struck.... Have you really done it?”
He got his voice back. The shot had missed him. It had been fired at random, altogether, more like a signal for coming to close quarters. It was to be a plain struggle for self-preservation. And she was a dangerous adversary too. But he was ready for battle; he was so ready that when he turned towards her not a muscle of his face moved.
“Certainly,” he said, without animation, secretly strung up but perfectly sure of himself. “Lectures—certainly, But what makes you ask?”
It was she who was animated.
“I had it in a letter, written by a young man in Petersburg; one of us, of course. You were seen—you were observed with your notebook, impassible, taking notes....”
He enveloped her with his fixed stare.
“What of that?”