Under Western Eyes - post II

As the story develops you are faced with the interesting situation where the narrator, who has up to now been using Razumov’s diary as the source material adding other comments about Russian characteristics to the narration, becomes part of the story. Although they have not yet met you can start to imagine the twists that will take place to enable them to do so.

Bullet points between pages 51 – 114

* Having shopped his fellow student, who is executed after failing to provide the police with any information, Razumov becomes associated with Haladin by default and others in the revolutionary circle presume he is one of them

* He is dragged in front of the police after having his rooms searched and accuses his interrogator of treating him as a suspect but then walks out with the question of where he will go left hanging in the air

* Then the action moves to Geneva where the narrator, who is a language teacher, has been employed to help Haladin’s sister learn English and so he comes across the Haladin sister and mother who expect great things of their brother and son

* The narrator discovers in an English paper the fact that Haladin has been executed for the politicians murder and shares it with the family, which in a way makes them more attractive to one section of the émigré Russian community

* Peter Ivanovitch, a celebrated revolutionary Russian feminist, tells Miss Haladin that Razumov is in Geneva and because he was a friend of her brother’s she sets out to meet him to find out more about the circumstances surrounding her brother’s arrest and execution

More tomorrow…