CHAPTER II

<h2><a id="link2HCH0022"/>
  CHAPTER II
</h2>
<p>
  It was nearly eight o’clock. The two young men hurried to Bakaleyev’s, to
  arrive before Luzhin.
</p>
<p>
  “Why, who was that?” asked Razumihin, as soon as they were in the street.
</p>
<p>
  “It was Svidrigaïlov, that landowner in whose house my sister was insulted
  when she was their governess. Through his persecuting her with his
  attentions, she was turned out by his wife, Marfa Petrovna. This Marfa
  Petrovna begged Dounia’s forgiveness afterwards, and she’s just died
  suddenly. It was of her we were talking this morning. I don’t know why I’m
  afraid of that man. He came here at once after his wife’s funeral. He is
  very strange, and is determined on doing something.... We must guard
  Dounia from him... that’s what I wanted to tell you, do you hear?”
 </p>
<p>
  “Guard her! What can he do to harm Avdotya Romanovna? Thank you, Rodya,
  for speaking to me like that.... We will, we will guard her. Where does he
  live?”
 </p>
<p>
  “I don’t know.”
 </p>
<p>
  “Why didn’t you ask? What a pity! I’ll find out, though.”
 </p>
<p>
  “Did you see him?” asked Raskolnikov after a pause.
</p>
<p>
  “Yes, I noticed him, I noticed him well.”
 </p>
<p>
  “You did really see him? You saw him clearly?” Raskolnikov insisted.
</p>
<p>
  “Yes, I remember him perfectly, I should know him in a thousand; I have a
  good memory for faces.”
 </p>
<p>
  They were silent again.
</p>
<p>
  “Hm!... that’s all right,” muttered Raskolnikov. “Do you know, I
  fancied... I keep thinking that it may have been an hallucination.”
 </p>
<p>
  “What do you mean? I don’t understand you.”
 </p>
<p>
  “Well, you all say,” Raskolnikov went on, twisting his mouth into a smile,
  “that I am mad. I thought just now that perhaps I really am mad, and have
  only seen a phantom.”
 </p>
<p>
  “What do you mean?”
 </p>
<p>
  “Why, who can tell? Perhaps I am really mad, and perhaps everything that
  happened all these days may be only imagination.”
 </p>
<p>
  “Ach, Rodya, you have been upset again!... But what did he say, what did
  he come for?”
 </p>
<p>
  Raskolnikov did not answer. Razumihin thought a minute.
</p>
<p>
  “Now let me tell you my story,” he began, “I came to you, you were asleep.
  Then we had dinner and then I went to Porfiry’s, Zametov was still with
  him. I tried to begin, but it was no use. I couldn’t speak in the right
  way. They don’t seem to understand and can’t understand, but are not a bit
  ashamed. I drew Porfiry to the window, and began talking to him, but it
  was still no use. He looked away and I looked away. At last I shook my
  fist in his ugly face, and told him as a cousin I’d brain him. He merely
  looked at me, I cursed and came away. That was all. It was very stupid. To
  Zametov I didn’t say a word. But, you see, I thought I’d made a mess of
  it, but as I went downstairs a brilliant idea struck me: why should we
  trouble? Of course if you were in any danger or anything, but why need you
  care? You needn’t care a hang for them. We shall have a laugh at them
  afterwards, and if I were in your place I’d mystify them more than ever.
  How ashamed they’ll be afterwards! Hang them! We can thrash them
  afterwards, but let’s laugh at them now!”
 </p>
<p>
  “To be sure,” answered Raskolnikov. “But what will you say to-morrow?” he
  thought to himself. Strange to say, till that moment it had never occurred
  to him to wonder what Razumihin would think when he knew. As he thought
  it, Raskolnikov looked at him. Razumihin’s account of his visit to Porfiry
  had very little interest for him, so much had come and gone since then.
</p>
<p>
  In the corridor they came upon Luzhin; he had arrived punctually at eight,
  and was looking for the number, so that all three went in together without
  greeting or looking at one another. The young men walked in first, while
  Pyotr Petrovitch, for good manners, lingered a little in the passage,
  taking off his coat. Pulcheria Alexandrovna came forward at once to greet
  him in the doorway, Dounia was welcoming her brother. Pyotr Petrovitch
  walked in and quite amiably, though with redoubled dignity, bowed to the
  ladies. He looked, however, as though he were a little put out and could
  not yet recover himself. Pulcheria Alexandrovna, who seemed also a little
  embarrassed, hastened to make them all sit down at the round table where a
  samovar was boiling. Dounia and Luzhin were facing one another on opposite
  sides of the table. Razumihin and Raskolnikov were facing Pulcheria
  Alexandrovna, Razumihin was next to Luzhin and Raskolnikov was beside his
  sister.
</p>
<p>
  A moment’s silence followed. Pyotr Petrovitch deliberately drew out a
  cambric handkerchief reeking of scent and blew his nose with an air of a
  benevolent man who felt himself slighted, and was firmly resolved to
  insist on an explanation. In the passage the idea had occurred to him to
  keep on his overcoat and walk away, and so give the two ladies a sharp and
  emphatic lesson and make them feel the gravity of the position. But he
  could not bring himself to do this. Besides, he could not endure
  uncertainty, and he wanted an explanation: if his request had been so
  openly disobeyed, there was something behind it, and in that case it was
  better to find it out beforehand; it rested with him to punish them and
  there would always be time for that.
</p>
<p>
  “I trust you had a favourable journey,” he inquired officially of
  Pulcheria Alexandrovna.
</p>
<p>
  “Oh, very, Pyotr Petrovitch.”
 </p>
<p>
  “I am gratified to hear it. And Avdotya Romanovna is not over-fatigued
  either?”
 </p>
<p>
  “I am young and strong, I don’t get tired, but it was a great strain for
  mother,” answered Dounia.
</p>
<p>
  “That’s unavoidable! our national railways are of terrible length. ‘Mother
  Russia,’ as they say, is a vast country.... In spite of all my desire to
  do so, I was unable to meet you yesterday. But I trust all passed off
  without inconvenience?”
 </p>
<p>
  “Oh, no, Pyotr Petrovitch, it was all terribly disheartening,” Pulcheria
  Alexandrovna hastened to declare with peculiar intonation, “and if Dmitri
  Prokofitch had not been sent us, I really believe by God Himself, we
  should have been utterly lost. Here, he is! Dmitri Prokofitch Razumihin,”
   she added, introducing him to Luzhin.
</p>
<p>
  “I had the pleasure... yesterday,” muttered Pyotr Petrovitch with a
  hostile glance sidelong at Razumihin; then he scowled and was silent.
</p>
<p>
  Pyotr Petrovitch belonged to that class of persons, on the surface very
  polite in society, who make a great point of punctiliousness, but who,
  directly they are crossed in anything, are completely disconcerted, and
  become more like sacks of flour than elegant and lively men of society.
  Again all was silent; Raskolnikov was obstinately mute, Avdotya Romanovna
  was unwilling to open the conversation too soon. Razumihin had nothing to
  say, so Pulcheria Alexandrovna was anxious again.
</p>
<p>
  “Marfa Petrovna is dead, have you heard?” she began having recourse to her
  leading item of conversation.
</p>
<p>
  “To be sure, I heard so. I was immediately informed, and I have come to
  make you acquainted with the fact that Arkady Ivanovitch Svidrigaïlov set
  off in haste for Petersburg immediately after his wife’s funeral. So at
  least I have excellent authority for believing.”
 </p>
<p>
  “To Petersburg? here?” Dounia asked in alarm and looked at her mother.
</p>
<p>
  “Yes, indeed, and doubtless not without some design, having in view the
  rapidity of his departure, and all the circumstances preceding it.”
 </p>
<p>
  “Good heavens! won’t he leave Dounia in peace even here?” cried Pulcheria
  Alexandrovna.
</p>
<p>
  “I imagine that neither you nor Avdotya Romanovna have any grounds for
  uneasiness, unless, of course, you are yourselves desirous of getting into
  communication with him. For my part I am on my guard, and am now
  discovering where he is lodging.”
 </p>
<p>
  “Oh, Pyotr Petrovitch, you would not believe what a fright you have given
  me,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna went on: “I’ve only seen him twice, but I
  thought him terrible, terrible! I am convinced that he was the cause of
  Marfa Petrovna’s death.”
 </p>
<p>
  “It’s impossible to be certain about that. I have precise information. I
  do not dispute that he may have contributed to accelerate the course of
  events by the moral influence, so to say, of the affront; but as to the
  general conduct and moral characteristics of that personage, I am in
  agreement with you. I do not know whether he is well off now, and
  precisely what Marfa Petrovna left him; this will be known to me within a
  very short period; but no doubt here in Petersburg, if he has any
  pecuniary resources, he will relapse at once into his old ways. He is the
  most depraved, and abjectly vicious specimen of that class of men. I have
  considerable reason to believe that Marfa Petrovna, who was so unfortunate
  as to fall in love with him and to pay his debts eight years ago, was of
  service to him also in another way. Solely by her exertions and
  sacrifices, a criminal charge, involving an element of fantastic and
  homicidal brutality for which he might well have been sentenced to
  Siberia, was hushed up. That’s the sort of man he is, if you care to
  know.”
 </p>
<p>
  “Good heavens!” cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna. Raskolnikov listened
  attentively.
</p>
<p>
  “Are you speaking the truth when you say that you have good evidence of
  this?” Dounia asked sternly and emphatically.
</p>
<p>
  “I only repeat what I was told in secret by Marfa Petrovna. I must observe
  that from the legal point of view the case was far from clear. There was,
  and I believe still is, living here a woman called Resslich, a foreigner,
  who lent small sums of money at interest, and did other commissions, and
  with this woman Svidrigaïlov had for a long while close and mysterious
  relations. She had a relation, a niece I believe, living with her, a deaf
  and dumb girl of fifteen, or perhaps not more than fourteen. Resslich
  hated this girl, and grudged her every crust; she used to beat her
  mercilessly. One day the girl was found hanging in the garret. At the
  inquest the verdict was suicide. After the usual proceedings the matter
  ended, but, later on, information was given that the child had been...
  cruelly outraged by Svidrigaïlov. It is true, this was not clearly
  established, the information was given by another German woman of loose
  character whose word could not be trusted; no statement was actually made
  to the police, thanks to Marfa Petrovna’s money and exertions; it did not
  get beyond gossip. And yet the story is a very significant one. You heard,
  no doubt, Avdotya Romanovna, when you were with them the story of the
  servant Philip who died of ill treatment he received six years ago, before
  the abolition of serfdom.”
 </p>
<p>
  “I heard, on the contrary, that this Philip hanged himself.”
 </p>
<p>
  “Quite so, but what drove him, or rather perhaps disposed him, to suicide
  was the systematic persecution and severity of Mr. Svidrigaïlov.”
 </p>
<p>
  “I don’t know that,” answered Dounia, dryly. “I only heard a queer story
  that Philip was a sort of hypochondriac, a sort of domestic philosopher,
  the servants used to say, ‘he read himself silly,’ and that he hanged
  himself partly on account of Mr. Svidrigaïlov’s mockery of him and not his
  blows. When I was there he behaved well to the servants, and they were
  actually fond of him, though they certainly did blame him for Philip’s
  death.”
 </p>
<p>
  “I perceive, Avdotya Romanovna, that you seem disposed to undertake his
  defence all of a sudden,” Luzhin observed, twisting his lips into an
  ambiguous smile, “there’s no doubt that he is an astute man, and
  insinuating where ladies are concerned, of which Marfa Petrovna, who has
  died so strangely, is a terrible instance. My only desire has been to be
  of service to you and your mother with my advice, in view of the renewed
  efforts which may certainly be anticipated from him. For my part it’s my
  firm conviction, that he will end in a debtor’s prison again. Marfa
  Petrovna had not the slightest intention of settling anything substantial
  on him, having regard for his children’s interests, and, if she left him
  anything, it would only be the merest sufficiency, something insignificant
  and ephemeral, which would not last a year for a man of his habits.”
 </p>
<p>
  “Pyotr Petrovitch, I beg you,” said Dounia, “say no more of Mr.
  Svidrigaïlov. It makes me miserable.”
 </p>
<p>
  “He has just been to see me,” said Raskolnikov, breaking his silence for
  the first time.
</p>
<p>
  There were exclamations from all, and they all turned to him. Even Pyotr
  Petrovitch was roused.
</p>
<p>
  “An hour and a half ago, he came in when I was asleep, waked me, and
  introduced himself,” Raskolnikov continued. “He was fairly cheerful and at
  ease, and quite hopes that we shall become friends. He is particularly
  anxious, by the way, Dounia, for an interview with you, at which he asked
  me to assist. He has a proposition to make to you, and he told me about
  it. He told me, too, that a week before her death Marfa Petrovna left you
  three thousand roubles in her will, Dounia, and that you can receive the
  money very shortly.”
 </p>
<p>
  “Thank God!” cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna, crossing herself. “Pray for her
  soul, Dounia!”
 </p>
<p>
  “It’s a fact!” broke from Luzhin.
</p>
<p>
  “Tell us, what more?” Dounia urged Raskolnikov.
</p>
<p>
  “Then he said that he wasn’t rich and all the estate was left to his
  children who are now with an aunt, then that he was staying somewhere not
  far from me, but where, I don’t know, I didn’t ask....”
 </p>
<p>
  “But what, what does he want to propose to Dounia?” cried Pulcheria
  Alexandrovna in a fright. “Did he tell you?”
 </p>
<p>
  “Yes.”
 </p>
<p>
  “What was it?”
 </p>
<p>
  “I’ll tell you afterwards.”
 </p>
<p>
  Raskolnikov ceased speaking and turned his attention to his tea.
</p>
<p>
  Pyotr Petrovitch looked at his watch.
</p>
<p>
  “I am compelled to keep a business engagement, and so I shall not be in
  your way,” he added with an air of some pique and he began getting up.
</p>
<p>
  “Don’t go, Pyotr Petrovitch,” said Dounia, “you intended to spend the
  evening. Besides, you wrote yourself that you wanted to have an
  explanation with mother.”
 </p>
<p>
  “Precisely so, Avdotya Romanovna,” Pyotr Petrovitch answered impressively,
  sitting down again, but still holding his hat. “I certainly desired an
  explanation with you and your honoured mother upon a very important point
  indeed. But as your brother cannot speak openly in my presence of some
  proposals of Mr. Svidrigaïlov, I, too, do not desire and am not able to
  speak openly... in the presence of others... of certain matters of the
  greatest gravity. Moreover, my most weighty and urgent request has been
  disregarded....”
 </p>
<p>
  Assuming an aggrieved air, Luzhin relapsed into dignified silence.
</p>
<p>
  “Your request that my brother should not be present at our meeting was
  disregarded solely at my insistance,” said Dounia. “You wrote that you had
  been insulted by my brother; I think that this must be explained at once,
  and you must be reconciled. And if Rodya really has insulted you, then he
  <i>should</i> and <i>will</i> apologise.”
 </p>
<p>
  Pyotr Petrovitch took a stronger line.
</p>
<p>
  “There are insults, Avdotya Romanovna, which no goodwill can make us
  forget. There is a line in everything which it is dangerous to overstep;
  and when it has been overstepped, there is no return.”
 </p>
<p>
  “That wasn’t what I was speaking of exactly, Pyotr Petrovitch,” Dounia
  interrupted with some impatience. “Please understand that our whole future
  depends now on whether all this is explained and set right as soon as
  possible. I tell you frankly at the start that I cannot look at it in any
  other light, and if you have the least regard for me, all this business
  must be ended to-day, however hard that may be. I repeat that if my
  brother is to blame he will ask your forgiveness.”
 </p>
<p>
  “I am surprised at your putting the question like that,” said Luzhin,
  getting more and more irritated. “Esteeming, and so to say, adoring you, I
  may at the same time, very well indeed, be able to dislike some member of
  your family. Though I lay claim to the happiness of your hand, I cannot
  accept duties incompatible with...”
 </p>
<p>
  “Ah, don’t be so ready to take offence, Pyotr Petrovitch,” Dounia
  interrupted with feeling, “and be the sensible and generous man I have
  always considered, and wish to consider, you to be. I’ve given you a great
  promise, I am your betrothed. Trust me in this matter and, believe me, I
  shall be capable of judging impartially. My assuming the part of judge is
  as much a surprise for my brother as for you. When I insisted on his
  coming to our interview to-day after your letter, I told him nothing of
  what I meant to do. Understand that, if you are not reconciled, I must
  choose between you—it must be either you or he. That is how the
  question rests on your side and on his. I don’t want to be mistaken in my
  choice, and I must not be. For your sake I must break off with my brother,
  for my brother’s sake I must break off with you. I can find out for
  certain now whether he is a brother to me, and I want to know it; and of
  you, whether I am dear to you, whether you esteem me, whether you are the
  husband for me.”
 </p>
<p>
  “Avdotya Romanovna,” Luzhin declared huffily, “your words are of too much
  consequence to me; I will say more, they are offensive in view of the
  position I have the honour to occupy in relation to you. To say nothing of
  your strange and offensive setting me on a level with an impertinent boy,
  you admit the possibility of breaking your promise to me. You say ‘you or
  he,’ showing thereby of how little consequence I am in your eyes... I
  cannot let this pass considering the relationship and... the obligations
  existing between us.”
 </p>
<p>
  “What!” cried Dounia, flushing. “I set your interest beside all that has
  hitherto been most precious in my life, what has made up the <i>whole</i>
  of my life, and here you are offended at my making too <i>little</i>
  account of you.”
 </p>
<p>
  Raskolnikov smiled sarcastically, Razumihin fidgeted, but Pyotr Petrovitch
  did not accept the reproof; on the contrary, at every word he became more
  persistent and irritable, as though he relished it.
</p>
<p>
  “Love for the future partner of your life, for your husband, ought to
  outweigh your love for your brother,” he pronounced sententiously, “and in
  any case I cannot be put on the same level.... Although I said so
  emphatically that I would not speak openly in your brother’s presence,
  nevertheless, I intend now to ask your honoured mother for a necessary
  explanation on a point of great importance closely affecting my dignity.
  Your son,” he turned to Pulcheria Alexandrovna, “yesterday in the presence
  of Mr. Razsudkin (or... I think that’s it? excuse me I have forgotten your
  surname,” he bowed politely to Razumihin) “insulted me by misrepresenting
  the idea I expressed to you in a private conversation, drinking coffee,
  that is, that marriage with a poor girl who has had experience of trouble
  is more advantageous from the conjugal point of view than with one who has
  lived in luxury, since it is more profitable for the moral character. Your
  son intentionally exaggerated the significance of my words and made them
  ridiculous, accusing me of malicious intentions, and, as far as I could
  see, relied upon your correspondence with him. I shall consider myself
  happy, Pulcheria Alexandrovna, if it is possible for you to convince me of
  an opposite conclusion, and thereby considerately reassure me. Kindly let
  me know in what terms precisely you repeated my words in your letter to
  Rodion Romanovitch.”
 </p>
<p>
  “I don’t remember,” faltered Pulcheria Alexandrovna. “I repeated them as I
  understood them. I don’t know how Rodya repeated them to you, perhaps he
  exaggerated.”
 </p>
<p>
  “He could not have exaggerated them, except at your instigation.”
 </p>
<p>
  “Pyotr Petrovitch,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna declared with dignity, “the
  proof that Dounia and I did not take your words in a very bad sense is the
  fact that we are here.”
 </p>
<p>
  “Good, mother,” said Dounia approvingly.
</p>
<p>
  “Then this is my fault again,” said Luzhin, aggrieved.
</p>
<p>
  “Well, Pyotr Petrovitch, you keep blaming Rodion, but you yourself have
  just written what was false about him,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna added,
  gaining courage.
</p>
<p>
  “I don’t remember writing anything false.”
 </p>
<p>
  “You wrote,” Raskolnikov said sharply, not turning to Luzhin, “that I gave
  money yesterday not to the widow of the man who was killed, as was the
  fact, but to his daughter (whom I had never seen till yesterday). You
  wrote this to make dissension between me and my family, and for that
  object added coarse expressions about the conduct of a girl whom you don’t
  know. All that is mean slander.”
 </p>
<p>
  “Excuse me, sir,” said Luzhin, quivering with fury. “I enlarged upon your
  qualities and conduct in my letter solely in response to your sister’s and
  mother’s inquiries, how I found you, and what impression you made on me.
  As for what you’ve alluded to in my letter, be so good as to point out one
  word of falsehood, show, that is, that you didn’t throw away your money,
  and that there are not worthless persons in that family, however
  unfortunate.”
 </p>
<p>
  “To my thinking, you, with all your virtues, are not worth the little
  finger of that unfortunate girl at whom you throw stones.”
 </p>
<p>
  “Would you go so far then as to let her associate with your mother and
  sister?”
 </p>
<p>
  “I have done so already, if you care to know. I made her sit down to-day
  with mother and Dounia.”
 </p>
<p>
  “Rodya!” cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna. Dounia crimsoned, Razumihin knitted
  his brows. Luzhin smiled with lofty sarcasm.
</p>
<p>
  “You may see for yourself, Avdotya Romanovna,” he said, “whether it is
  possible for us to agree. I hope now that this question is at an end, once
  and for all. I will withdraw, that I may not hinder the pleasures of
  family intimacy, and the discussion of secrets.” He got up from his chair
  and took his hat. “But in withdrawing, I venture to request that for the
  future I may be spared similar meetings, and, so to say, compromises. I
  appeal particularly to you, honoured Pulcheria Alexandrovna, on this
  subject, the more as my letter was addressed to you and to no one else.”
 </p>
<p>
  Pulcheria Alexandrovna was a little offended.
</p>
<p>
  “You seem to think we are completely under your authority, Pyotr
  Petrovitch. Dounia has told you the reason your desire was disregarded,
  she had the best intentions. And indeed you write as though you were
  laying commands upon me. Are we to consider every desire of yours as a
  command? Let me tell you on the contrary that you ought to show particular
  delicacy and consideration for us now, because we have thrown up
  everything, and have come here relying on you, and so we are in any case
  in a sense in your hands.”
 </p>
<p>
  “That is not quite true, Pulcheria Alexandrovna, especially at the present
  moment, when the news has come of Marfa Petrovna’s legacy, which seems
  indeed very apropos, judging from the new tone you take to me,” he added
  sarcastically.
</p>
<p>
  “Judging from that remark, we may certainly presume that you were
  reckoning on our helplessness,” Dounia observed irritably.
</p>
<p>
  “But now in any case I cannot reckon on it, and I particularly desire not
  to hinder your discussion of the secret proposals of Arkady Ivanovitch
  Svidrigaïlov, which he has entrusted to your brother and which have, I
  perceive, a great and possibly a very agreeable interest for you.”
 </p>
<p>
  “Good heavens!” cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna.
</p>
<p>
  Razumihin could not sit still on his chair.
</p>
<p>
  “Aren’t you ashamed now, sister?” asked Raskolnikov.
</p>
<p>
  “I am ashamed, Rodya,” said Dounia. “Pyotr Petrovitch, go away,” she
  turned to him, white with anger.
</p>
<p>
  Pyotr Petrovitch had apparently not at all expected such a conclusion. He
  had too much confidence in himself, in his power and in the helplessness
  of his victims. He could not believe it even now. He turned pale, and his
  lips quivered.
</p>
<p>
  “Avdotya Romanovna, if I go out of this door now, after such a dismissal,
  then, you may reckon on it, I will never come back. Consider what you are
  doing. My word is not to be shaken.”
 </p>
<p>
  “What insolence!” cried Dounia, springing up from her seat. “I don’t want
  you to come back again.”
 </p>
<p>
  “What! So that’s how it stands!” cried Luzhin, utterly unable to the last
  moment to believe in the rupture and so completely thrown out of his
  reckoning now. “So that’s how it stands! But do you know, Avdotya
  Romanovna, that I might protest?”
 </p>
<p>
  “What right have you to speak to her like that?” Pulcheria Alexandrovna
  intervened hotly. “And what can you protest about? What rights have you?
  Am I to give my Dounia to a man like you? Go away, leave us altogether! We
  are to blame for having agreed to a wrong action, and I above all....”
 </p>
<p>
  “But you have bound me, Pulcheria Alexandrovna,” Luzhin stormed in a
  frenzy, “by your promise, and now you deny it and... besides... I have
  been led on account of that into expenses....”
 </p>
<p>
  This last complaint was so characteristic of Pyotr Petrovitch, that
  Raskolnikov, pale with anger and with the effort of restraining it, could
  not help breaking into laughter. But Pulcheria Alexandrovna was furious.
</p>
<p>
  “Expenses? What expenses? Are you speaking of our trunk? But the conductor
  brought it for nothing for you. Mercy on us, we have bound you! What are
  you thinking about, Pyotr Petrovitch, it was you bound us, hand and foot,
  not we!”
 </p>
<p>
  “Enough, mother, no more please,” Avdotya Romanovna implored. “Pyotr
  Petrovitch, do be kind and go!”
 </p>
<p>
  “I am going, but one last word,” he said, quite unable to control himself.
  “Your mamma seems to have entirely forgotten that I made up my mind to
  take you, so to speak, after the gossip of the town had spread all over
  the district in regard to your reputation. Disregarding public opinion for
  your sake and reinstating your reputation, I certainly might very well
  reckon on a fitting return, and might indeed look for gratitude on your
  part. And my eyes have only now been opened! I see myself that I may have
  acted very, very recklessly in disregarding the universal verdict....”
 </p>
<p>
  “Does the fellow want his head smashed?” cried Razumihin, jumping up.
</p>
<p>
  “You are a mean and spiteful man!” cried Dounia.
</p>
<p>
  “Not a word! Not a movement!” cried Raskolnikov, holding Razumihin back;
  then going close up to Luzhin, “Kindly leave the room!” he said quietly
  and distinctly, “and not a word more or...”
 </p>
<p>
  Pyotr Petrovitch gazed at him for some seconds with a pale face that
  worked with anger, then he turned, went out, and rarely has any man
  carried away in his heart such vindictive hatred as he felt against
  Raskolnikov. Him, and him alone, he blamed for everything. It is
  noteworthy that as he went downstairs he still imagined that his case was
  perhaps not utterly lost, and that, so far as the ladies were concerned,
  all might “very well indeed” be set right again.
</p>