Klimkov began to dislike Sasha more and more, strengthened in his ill-will by the fact that nobody else cared for the diseased man.
Many of the spies were actually sick from the constant dread of attacks and death. Fear drove some, as it had Yelizar Titov, into an insane asylum.
"I was playing in the club yesterday," said Piotr, in a disconcerted tone, "when I felt something pressing on the nape of my neck and a cold shiver running up and down my back-bone. I looked around. There in the corner stood a tall man looking at me as if he were measuring me inch by inch. I could not play. I rose from the table, and I saw him move. I backed out, and ran down the stairs into the yard and out into the street. I took a cab, sat in it sidewise, and looked back. Suddenly the man appeared from somewhere in front of me, and crossed the street under the horse's very nose. Maybe it wasn't he. But in such a case you can't think. How I yelled! He stopped, and I jumped out of the cab, and off I went at a gallop, the cabman after me. Well, how I did run, the devil take it!"
"Such things happen," said Grokhotov, smiling. "I once hid myself for a similar reason in the yard. But it was still more horrible there, so I climbed up to a roof, and sat there behind the chimney until daybreak. A man must guard himself against another man. Such is the law of nature."
Krasavin once entered pale and sweating with staring eyes.
"They were following me," he announced gloomily, pressing his temples.
"Who?"
"They."
Solovyov endeavored to calm him.
"Lots of people walk the streets, Gavrilo. What's that to you?"