Strangely enough it was this fear which seems to have kept him up to the end.  The passers-by were rare.  They came upon him suddenly, looming up black in the snowflakes close by, then vanishing all at once-without footfalls.

It was the quarter of the very poor.  Razumov noticed an elderly woman tied up in ragged shawls.  Under the street lamp she seemed a beggar off duty.  She walked leisurely in the blizzard as though she had no home to hurry to, she hugged under one arm a round loaf of black bread with an air of guarding a priceless booty:  and Razumov averting his glance envied her the peace of her mind and the serenity of her fate.

To one reading Mr. Razumov’s narrative it is really a wonder how he managed to keep going as he did along one interminable street after another on pavements that were gradually becoming blocked with snow.  It was the thought of Haldin locked up in his rooms and the desperate desire to get rid of his presence which drove him forward.  No rational determination had any part in his exertions.  Thus, when on arriving at the low eating-house he heard that the man of horses, Ziemianitch, was not there, he could only stare stupidly.

The waiter, a wild-haired youth in tarred boots and a pink shirt, exclaimed, uncovering his pale gums in a silly grin, that Ziemianitch had got his skinful early in the afternoon and had gone away with a bottle under each arm to keep it up amongst the horses—­he supposed.

The owner of the vile den, a bony short man in a dirty cloth caftan coming down to his heels, stood by, his hands tucked into his belt, and nodded confirmation.

The reek of spirits, the greasy rancid steam of food got Razumov by the throat.  He struck a table with his clenched hand and shouted violently—­

“You lie.”

Bleary unwashed faces were turned to his direction.  A mild-eyed ragged tramp drinking tea at the next table moved farther away.  A murmur of wonder arose with an undertone of uneasiness.  A laugh was heard too, and an exclamation, “There! there!” jeeringly soothing.  The waiter looked all round and announced to the room—­

“The gentleman won’t believe that Ziemianitch is drunk.”

From a distant corner a hoarse voice belonging to a horrible, nondescript, shaggy being with a black face like the muzzle of a bear grunted angrily—­

“The cursed driver of thieves.  What do we want with his gentlemen here?  We are all honest folk in this place.”

Razumov, biting his lip till blood came to keep himself from bursting into imprecations, followed the owner of the den, who, whispering “Come along, little father,” led him into a tiny hole of a place behind the wooden counter, whence proceeded a sound of splashing.  A wet and bedraggled creature, a sort of sexless and shivering scarecrow, washed glasses in there, bending over a wooden tub by the light of a tallow dip.

“Yes, little father,” the man in the long caftan said plaintively.  He had a brown, cunning little face, a thin greyish beard.  Trying to light a tin lantern he hugged it to his breast and talked garrulously the while.