a, she had seen
Razumov too. He lived, not "in the centre," but "in the south." She
described to me a little two-roomed wooden house, in the suburb of some
very small town, hiding within the high plank-fence of a yard overgrown
with nettles. He was crippled, ill, getting weaker every day, and Tekla
the Samaritan tended him unweariedly with the pure joy of unselfish
devotion. There was nothing in that task to become disillusioned about.

I did not hide from Sophia Antonovna my surprise that she should have
visited Mr. Razumov. I did not even understand the motive. But she
informed me that she was not the only one.

"Some of _us_ always go to see him when passing through. He is
intelligent. We has ideas.... He talks well, too."

Presently I heard for the first time of Razumov's public confession in
Laspara's house. Sophia Antonovna gave me a detailed relation of what
had occurred there. Razumov himself had told her all about it, most
minutely.

Then, looking hard at me with her brilliant black eyes--

"There are evil moments in every life. A false suggestion enters one's
brain, and then fear is born--fear of oneself, fear for oneself. Or else
a false courage--who knows? Well, call it what you like; but tell me,
how many of them would deliver themselves up deliberately to perdition
(as he himself says in that book) rather than go on living, secretly
debased in their own eyes? How many?... And please mark this--he
was safe when he did it. It was just when he believed himself safe
and more--infinitely more--when the possibility of being loved by
that admirable girl first dawned upon him, that he discovered that his
bitterest railings, the worst wickedness, the devil work of his hate and
pride, could never cover up the ignominy of the existence before him.
There's character in such a discovery."

I accepted her conclusion in silence. Who would care to question the
grounds of forgiveness or compassion? However, it appeared later on,
that there was some compunction, too, in the charity extended by the
revolutionary world to Razumov the betrayer. Sophia Antonovna continued
uneasily--

"And then, you know, he was the victim of an outrage. It was not
authorized. Nothing was decided as to what was to be done with him. He
had confessed voluntarily. And that Nikita who burst the drums of his
ears purposely, out on the landing, you know, as if carried away by
indignation--well, he has turned out to be a scoundrel of the worst