Even his anger at this sign of the man’s passage was dull.  He did not try to nurse it into life.  He did nothing all that day; he neglected even to brush his hair.  The idea of going out never occurred to him—­and if he did not start a connected train of thought it was not because he was unable to think.  It was because he was not interested enough.

He yawned frequently.  He drank large quantities of tea, he walked about aimlessly, and when he sat down he did not budge for a long time.  He spent some time drumming on the window with his finger-tips quietly.  In his listless wanderings round about the table he caught sight of his own face in the looking-glass and that arrested him.  The eyes which returned his stare were the most unhappy eyes he had ever seen.  And this was the first thing which disturbed the mental stagnation of that day.

He was not affected personally.  He merely thought that life without happiness is impossible.  What was happiness?  He yawned and went on shuffling about and about between the walls of his room.  Looking forward was happiness—­that’s all—­nothing more.  To look forward to the gratification of some desire, to the gratification of some passion, love, ambition, hate—­hate too indubitably.  Love and hate.  And to escape the dangers of existence, to live without fear, was also happiness.  There was nothing else.  Absence of fear—­looking forward.  “Oh! the miserable lot of humanity!” he exclaimed mentally; and added at once in his thought, “I ought to be happy enough as far as that goes.”  But he was not excited by that assurance.  On the contrary, he yawned again as he had been yawning all day.  He was mildly surprised to discover himself being overtaken by night.  The room grew dark swiftly though time had seemed to stand still.  How was it that he had not noticed the passing of that day?  Of course, it was the watch being stopped....

He did not light his lamp, but went over to the bed and threw himself on it without any hesitation.  Lying on his back, he put his hands under his head and stared upward.  After a moment he thought, “I am lying here like that man.  I wonder if he slept while I was struggling with the blizzard in the streets.  No, he did not sleep.  But why should I not sleep?” and he felt the silence of the night press upon all his limbs like a weight.

In the calm of the hard frost outside, the clear-cut strokes of the town clock counting off midnight penetrated the quietness of his suspended animation.

Again he began to think.  It was twenty-four hours since that man left his room.  Razumov had a distinct feeling that Haldin in the fortress was sleeping that night.  It was a certitude which made him angry because he did not want to think of Haldin, but he justified it to himself by physiological and psychological reasons.  The fellow had hardly slept for weeks on his own confession, and now every incertitude was at an end for him.  No doubt he was looking forward to the consummation of his martyrdom.  A man who resigns himself to kill need not go very far for resignation to die.  Haldin slept perhaps more soundly than General T—–­, whose task—­weary work too—­was not done, and over whose head hung the sword of revolutionary vengeance.