“You are a son, a brother, a nephew, a cousin—I don’t know what—to no end of people. I am just a man. Here I stand before you. A man with a mind. Did it ever occur to you how a man who had never heard a word of warm affection or praise in his life would think on matters on which you would think first with or against your class, your domestic tradition—your fireside prejudices?... Did you ever consider how a man like that would feel? I have no domestic tradition. I have nothing to think against. My tradition is historical. What have I to look back to but that national past from which you gentlemen want to wrench away your future? Am I to let my intelligence, my aspirations towards a better lot, be robbed of the only thing it has to go upon at the will of violent enthusiasts? You come from your province, but all this land is mine—or I have nothing. No doubt you shall be looked upon as a martyr some day—a sort of hero—a political saint. But I beg to be excused. I am content in fitting myself to be a worker. And what can you people do by scattering a few drops of blood on the snow? On this Immensity. On this unhappy Immensity! I tell you,” he cried, in a vibrating, subdued voice, and advancing one step nearer the bed, “that what it needs is not a lot of haunting phantoms that I could walk through—but a man!”
Haldin threw his arms forward as if to keep him off in horror.
“I understand it all now,” he exclaimed, with awestruck dismay. “I understand—at last.”
Razumov staggered back against the table. His forehead broke out in perspiration while a cold shudder ran down his spine.
“What have I been saying?” he asked himself. “Have I let him slip through my fingers after all?”
“He felt his lips go stiff like buckram, and instead of a reassuring smile only achieved an uncertain grimace.
“What will you have?” he began in a conciliating voice which got steady after the first trembling word or two. “What will you have? Consider—a man of studious, retired habits—and suddenly like this.... I am not practised in talking delicately. But...”
He felt anger, a wicked anger, get hold of him again.
“What were we to do together till midnight? Sit here opposite each other and think of your—your—shambles?”
Haldin had a subdued, heartbroken attitude. He bowed his head; his hands hung between his knees. His voice was low and pained but calm.