Under Western Eyes by Joseph Conrad
page 61 of 418 (14%)
page 61 of 418 (14%)
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to the risk of being worried out of her mind by the police? I gave up
seeing any of our comrades...." Razumov drew to himself a half-sheet of paper and began to trace lines on it with a pencil. "Upon my word," he thought angrily, "he seems to have thought of everybody's safety but mine." Haldin was talking on. "This morning--ah! this morning--that was different. How can I explain to you? Before the deed was done I wandered at night and lay hid in the day, thinking it out, and I felt restful. Sleepless but restful. What was there for me to torment myself about? But this morning--after! Then it was that I became restless. I could not have stopped in that big house full of misery. The miserable of this world can't give you peace. Then when that silly caretaker began to shout, I said to myself, 'There is a young man in this town head and shoulders above common prejudices.'" "Is he laughing at me?" Razumov asked himself, going on with his aimless drawing of triangles and squares. And suddenly he thought: "My behaviour must appear to him strange. Should he take fright at my manner and rush off somewhere I shall be undone completely. That infernal General...." He dropped the pencil and turned abruptly towards the bed with the shadowy figure extended full length on it--so much more indistinct than the one over whose breast he had walked without faltering. Was this, |
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