A gesture from Sophia Antonovna, “Leave him to me,” had sent the two men away—­the buzzing of the inarticulate voice growing fainter and fainter, and the thin pipe of “What now? what’s the matter?” reduced to the proportions of a squeaking toy by the distance.  They had left him to her.  So many things could be left safely to the experience of Sophia Antonovna.  And at once, her black eyes turned to Razumov, her mind tried to get at the heart of that outburst.  It had some meaning.  No one is born an active revolutionist.  The change comes disturbingly, with the force of a sudden vocation, bringing in its train agonizing doubts, assertive violences, an unstable state of the soul, till the final appeasement of the convert in the perfect fierceness of conviction.  She had seen—­often had only divined—­scores of these young men and young women going through an emotional crisis.  This young man looked like a moody egotist.  And besides, it was a special—­a unique case.  She had never met an individuality which interested and puzzled her so much.

“Take care, Razumov, my good friend.  If you carry on like this you will go mad.  You are angry with everybody and bitter with yourself, and on the look out for something to torment yourself with.”

“It’s intolerable!” Razumov could only speak in gasps.  “You must admit that I can have no illusions on the attitude which...it isn’t clear...or rather only too clear.”

He made a gesture of despair.  It was not his courage that failed him.  The choking fumes of falsehood had taken him by the throat—­the thought of being condemned to struggle on and on in that tainted atmosphere without the hope of ever renewing his strength by a breath of fresh air.

“A glass of cold water is what you want.”  Sophia Antonovna glanced up the grounds at the house and shook her head, then out of the gate at the brimful placidity of the lake.  With a half-comical shrug of the shoulders, she gave the remedy up in the face of that abundance.

“It is you, my dear soul, who are flinging yourself at something which does not exist.  What is it?  Self-reproach, or what?  It’s absurd.  You couldn’t have gone and given yourself up because your comrade was taken.”

She remonstrated with him reasonably, at some length too.  He had nothing to complain of in his reception.  Every new-comer was discussed more or less.  Everybody had to be thoroughly understood before being accepted.  No one that she could remember had been shown from the first so much confidence.  Soon, very soon, perhaps sooner than he expected, he would be given an opportunity of showing his devotion to the sacred task of crushing the Infamy.

Razumov, listening quietly, thought:  “It may be that she is trying to lull my suspicions to sleep.  On the other hand, it is obvious that most of them are fools.”  He moved aside a couple of paces and, folding his arms on his breast, leaned back against the stone pillar of the gate.