And there was some pressure, too, besides the persuasiveness.  Mr. Razumov was always being made to feel that he had committed himself.  There was no getting away from that feeling, from that soft, unanswerable, “Where to?” of Councillor Mikulin.  But no susceptibilities were ever hurt.  It was to be a dangerous mission to Geneva for obtaining, at a critical moment, absolutely reliable information from a very inaccessible quarter of the inner revolutionary circle.  There were indications that a very serious plot was being matured....  The repose indispensable to a great country was at stake....  A great scheme of orderly reforms would be endangered....  The highest personages in the land were patriotically uneasy, and so on.  In short, Councillor Mikulin knew what to say.  This skill is to be inferred clearly from the mental and psychological self-confession, self-analysis of Mr. Razumov’s written journal—­the pitiful resource of a young man who had near him no trusted intimacy, no natural affection to turn to.

How all this preliminary work was concealed from observation need not be recorded.  The expedient of the oculist gives a sufficient instance.  Councillor Mikulin was resourceful, and the task not very difficult.  Any fellow-student, even the red-nosed one, was perfectly welcome to see Mr. Razumov entering a private house to consult an oculist.  Ultimate success depended solely on the revolutionary self-delusion which credited Razumov with a mysterious complicity in the Haldin affair.  To be compromised in it was credit enough-and it was their own doing.  It was precisely that which stamped Mr. Razumov as a providential man, wide as poles apart from the usual type of agent for “European supervision.”

And it was that which the Secretariat set itself the task to foster by a course of calculated and false indiscretions.

It came at last to this, that one evening Mr. Razumov was unexpectedly called upon by one of the “thinking” students whom formerly, before the Haldin affair, he used to meet at various private gatherings; a big fellow with a quiet, unassuming manner and a pleasant voice.

Recognizing his voice raised in the ante-room, “May one come in?” Razumov, lounging idly on his couch, jumped up.  “Suppose he were coming to stab me?” he thought sardonically, and, assuming a green shade over his left eye, said in a severe tone, “Come in.”

The other was embarrassed; hoped he was not intruding.

“You haven’t been seen for several days, and I’ve wondered.”  He coughed a little.  “Eye better?”

“Nearly well now.”

“Good.  I won’t stop a minute; but you see I, that is, we—­anyway, I have undertaken the duty to warn you, Kirylo Sidorovitch, that you are living in false security maybe.”

Razumov sat still with his head leaning on his hand, which nearly concealed the unshaded eye.

“I have that idea, too.”

“That’s all right, then.  Everything seems quiet now, but those people are preparing some move of general repression.  That’s of course.  But it isn’t that I came to tell you.”  He hitched his chair closer, dropped his voice.  “You will be arrested before long—­we fear.”