About this story
Sent to rouse the driver who was to smuggle Haldin past the police cordon, you find him too drunk to wake, and your rage at him costs the only escape route left. With patrols tightening across the city, you choose to report Haldin instead, then walk home to serve as the bait that draws the soldiers in.
How it opens
University StudentSnow has muffled Petersburg enough for Razumov to think in peace.
Your future depended upon examinations, disciplined solitude, and offending no authority.
University StudentRazumov has no family because the state itself must be his relation.
The university joke had granted you profundity in place of intimacy.
LandladyKirylo Sidorovitch, I closed the outer door; someone has left it unlatched.
Choose
Call for the servant before crossing the hall.
Go quietly and see what has been disturbed.
Return to the street and find a policeman.