ked. You could translate it into English--with such a
teacher."

He nodded complimentarily in my direction. At the name of Razumov an
indescribable sound, a sort of feeble squeak, as of some angry small
animal, was heard in the corner occupied by the man who seemed much too
large for the chair on which he sat. I did not hear what Miss Haldin
said. Laspara spoke again.

"It's time to do something, Natalia Victorovna. But I suppose you have
your own ideas. Why not write something yourself? Suppose you came to
see us soon? We could talk it over. Any advice..."

Again I did not catch Miss Haldin's words. It was Laspara's voice once
more.

"Peter Ivanovitch? He's retired for a moment into the other room. We
are all waiting for him." The great man, entering at that moment, looked
bigger, taller, quite imposing in a long dressing-gown of some dark
stuff. It descended in straight lines down to his feet. He suggested
a monk or a prophet, a robust figure of same desert-dweller--something
Asiatic; and the dark glasses in conjunction with this costume made him
more mysterious than ever in the subdued light.

Little Laspara went back to his chair to look at the map, the only
brilliantly lit object in the room. Even from my distant position by the
door I could make out, by the shape of the blue part representing the
water, that it was a map of the Baltic provinces. Peter Ivanovitch
exclaimed slightly, advancing towards Miss Haldin, checked himself
on perceiving me, very vaguely no doubt; and peered with his dark,
bespectacled stare. He must have recognized me by my grey hair, because,
with a marked shrug of his broad shoulders, he turned to Miss Haldin in
benevolent indulgence. He seized her hand in his thick cushioned palm,
and put his other big paw over it like a lid.

While those two standing in the middle of the floor were exchanging a
few inaudible phrases no one else moved in the room: Laspara, with his
back to us, kneeling on the chair, his elbows propped on the big-scale
map, the shadowy enormity in the corner, the frankly staring man with
the goatee on the sofa, the woman in the red blouse by his side--not one
of them stirred. I suppose that really they had no time, for Miss Haldin
withdrew her hand immediately from Peter Ivanovitch and before I was
ready for her was moving to the door. A disregarded Westerner, I threw
it open hurriedly and followed her out, my last glance leaving them all
motionless in their varied p