Haldin continued after waiting a while—­

“You say nothing, Kirylo Sidorovitch!  I understand your silence.  To be sure, I cannot expect you with your frigid English manner to embrace me.  But never mind your manners.  You have enough heart to have heard the sound of weeping and gnashing of teeth this man raised in the land.  That would be enough to get over any philosophical hopes.  He was uprooting the tender plant.  He had to be stopped.  He was a dangerous man—­a convinced man.  Three more years of his work would have put us back fifty years into bondage—­and look at all the lives wasted, at all the souls lost in that time.”

His curt, self-confident voice suddenly lost its ring and it was in a dull tone that he added, “Yes, brother, I have killed him.  It’s weary work.”

Razumov had sunk into a chair.  Every moment he expected a crowd of policemen to rush in.  There must have been thousands of them out looking for that man walking up and down in his room.  Haldin was talking again in a restrained, steady voice.  Now and then he flourished an arm, slowly, without excitement.

He told Razumov how he had brooded for a year; how he had not slept properly for weeks.  He and “Another” had a warning of the Minister’s movements from “a certain person” late the evening before.  He and that “Another” prepared their “engines” and resolved to have no sleep till “the deed” was done.  They walked the streets under the falling snow with the “engines” on them, exchanging not a word the livelong night.  When they happened to meet a police patrol they took each other by the arm and pretended to be a couple of peasants on the spree.  They reeled and talked in drunken hoarse voices.  Except for these strange outbreaks they kept silence, moving on ceaselessly.  Their plans had been previously arranged.  At daybreak they made their way to the spot which they knew the sledge must pass.  When it appeared in sight they exchanged a muttered good-bye and separated.  The “other” remained at the corner, Haldin took up a position a little farther up the street....

After throwing his “engine” he ran off and in a moment was overtaken by the panic-struck people flying away from the spot after the second explosion.  They were wild with terror.  He was jostled once or twice.  He slowed down for the rush to pass him and then turned to the left into a narrow street.  There he was alone.

He marvelled at this immediate escape.  The work was done.  He could hardly believe it.  He fought with an almost irresistible longing to lie down on the pavement and sleep.  But this sort of faintness—­a drowsy faintness—­passed off quickly.  He walked faster, making his way to one of the poorer parts of the town in order to look up Ziemianitch.

This Ziemianitch, Razumov understood, was a sort of town-peasant who had got on; owner of a small number of sledges and horses for hire.  Haldin paused in his narrative to exclaim—­