houlder. At that signal the lady companion, ensconced in her
corner, with round eyes like a watchful animal, would dart out to the
table and pour him out another tumblerful.

Razumov looked at her once or twice. She was anxious, tremulous, though
neither Madame de S-- nor Peter Ivanovitch paid the slightest attention
to her. "What have they done between them to that forlorn creature?"
Razumov asked himself. "Have they terrified her out of her senses with
ghosts, or simply have they only been beating her?" When she gave him
his second glass of tea, he noticed that her lips trembled in the manner
of a scared person about to burst into speech. But of course she said
nothing, and retired into her corner, as if hugging to herself the smile
of thanks he gave her.

"She may be worth cultivating," thought Razumov suddenly.

He was calming down, getting hold of the actuality into which he had
been thrown--for the first time perhaps since Victor Haldin had entered
his room...and had gone out again. He was distinctly aware of being
the object of the famous--or notorious--Madame de S--'s ghastly
graciousness.

Madame de S-- was pleased to discover that this young man was different
from the other types of revolutionist members of committees, secret
emissaries, vulgar and unmannerly fugitive professors, rough students,
ex-cobblers with apostolic faces, consumptive and ragged enthusiasts,
Hebrew youths, common fellows of all sorts that used to come and go
around Peter Ivanovitch--fanatics, pedants, proletarians all. It was
pleasant to talk to this young man of notably good appearance--for
Madame de S-- was not always in a mystical state of mind. Razumov's
taciturnity only excited her to a quicker, more voluble utterance. It
still dealt with the Balkans. She knew all the statesmen of that region,
Turks, Bulgarians, Montenegrins, Roumanians, Greeks, Armenians, and
nondescripts, young and old, the living and the dead. With some money an
intrigue could be started which would set the Peninsula in a blaze and
outrage the sentiment of the Russian people. A cry of abandoned brothers
could be raised, and then, with the nation seething with indignation, a
couple of regiments or so would be enough to begin a military revolution
in St. Petersburg and make an end of these thieves....

"Apparently I've got only to sit still and listen," the silent Razumov
thought to himself. "As to that hairy and obscene brute" (in such terms
did Mr. Razumov r