“At the devil being still young after all these ages,” he answered composedly.  “But who was able to describe him, since the victim, you say, was dead-drunk at the time?”

“Oh!  The eating-house keeper has described him.  An overbearing, swarthy young man in a student’s cloak, who came rushing in, demanded Ziemianitch, beat him furiously, and rushed away without a word, leaving the eating-house keeper paralysed with astonishment.”

“Does he, too, believe it was the devil?”

“That I can’t say.  I am told he’s very reserved on the matter.  Those sellers of spirits are great scoundrels generally.  I should think he knows more of it than anybody.”

“Well, and you, Sophia Antonovna, what’s your theory?” asked Razumov in a tone of great interest.  “Yours and your informant’s, who is on the spot.”

“I agree with him.  Some police-hound in disguise.  Who else could beat a helpless man so unmercifully?  As for the rest, if they were out that day on every trail, old and new, it is probable enough that they might have thought it just as well to have Ziemianitch at hand for more information, or for identification, or what not.  Some scoundrelly detective was sent to fetch him along, and being vexed at finding him so drunk broke a stable fork over his ribs.  Later on, after they had the big game safe in the net, they troubled their heads no more about that peasant.”

Such were the last words of the woman revolutionist in this conversation, keeping so close to the truth, departing from it so far in the verisimilitude of thoughts and conclusions as to give one the notion of the invincible nature of human error, a glimpse into the utmost depths of self-deception.  Razumov, after shaking hands with Sophia Antonovna, left the grounds, crossed the road, and walking out on the little steamboat pier leaned over the rail.

His mind was at ease; ease such as he had not known for many days, ever since that night...the night.  The conversation with the woman revolutionist had given him the view of his danger at the very moment this danger vanished, characteristically enough.  “I ought to have foreseen the doubts that would arise in those people’s minds,” he thought.  Then his attention being attracted by a stone of peculiar shape, which he could see clearly lying at the bottom, he began to speculate as to the depth of water in that spot.  But very soon, with a start of wonder at this extraordinary instance of ill-timed detachment, he returned to his train of thought.  “I ought to have told very circumstantial lies from the first,” he said to himself, with a mortal distaste of the mere idea which silenced his mental utterance for quite a perceptible interval.  “Luckily, that’s all right now,” he reflected, and after a time spoke to himself, half aloud, “Thanks to the devil,” and laughed a little.