He said to himself that there was nothing to think about, and began
walking towards his home.

He walked quietly. It was a common experience to walk thus home to bed
after an evening spent somewhere with his fellows or in the cheaper
seats of a theatre. After he had gone a little way the familiarity of
things got hold of him. Nothing was changed. There was the familiar
corner; and when he turned it he saw the familiar dim light of the
provision shop kept by a German woman. There were loaves of stale bread,
bunches of onions and strings of sausages behind the small window-panes.
They were closing it. The sickly lame fellow whom he knew so well by
sight staggered out into the snow embracing a large shutter.

Nothing would change. There was the familiar gateway yawning black with
feeble glimmers marking the arches of the different staircases.

The sense of life's continuity depended on trifling bodily impressions.
The trivialities of daily existence were an armour for the soul. And
this thought reinforced the inward quietness of Razumov as he began to
climb the stairs familiar to his feet in the dark, with his hand on the
familiar clammy banister. The exceptional could not prevail against the
material contacts which make one day resemble another. To-morrow would
be like yesterday.

It was only on the stage that the unusual was outwardly acknowledged.

"I suppose," thought Razumov, "that if I had made up my mind to blow out
my brains on the landing I would be going up these stairs as quietly
as I am doing it now. What's a man to do? What must be must be.
Extraordinary things do happen. But when they have happened they are