All this time young Bohun was paralysed. He said that all his life now,
in spite of his having done quite decently in France, he would doubt his
capacity in a crisis because, during the whole of this affair, he never
stirred. But that was because it was all exactly like a dream. "I was in
the dream, you know, as well as the other fellows. You know those dreams
when you're doing your very damnedest to wake up--when you struggle and
sweat and know you'll die if something doesn't happen--well, it was like
that, except that I didn't struggle and swear, but just stood there,
like a painted picture, watching...."
Markovitch had nearly reached Semyonov's door (you remember that there
was a little square window of glass in the upper part of it) when he did
a funny thing. He stopped dead as though some one had rapped him on the
shoulder. He stopped and looked round, then, very slowly, as though he
were compelled, gazed with his nervous blinking eyes up at the portrait
of the old gentleman with the bushy eyebrows. Bohun looked up too and
saw (it was probably a trick of the faltering candle-light) that the old
man was not looking at him at all, but steadfastly, and, of course,
ironically at Markovitch.
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