“And what is it to you, what is it to you,” he cried out after a moment, even with some sort of despair, “what is it to you if I've now confessed that I did a bad thing? This stupid triumph over me—what is it to you? Ah, Sonya, was it for this that I came to you today!”

Sonya again wanted to say something, but kept silent.

“That is why I called you to go with me yesterday, because you are the only one I have left.”

“Called me where?” Sonya asked timidly.

“Not to steal, not to kill, don't worry, not for that,” he grinned caustically. “We're different. .. And you know, Sonya, it's only now, only now that I understand where I was calling you yesterday. And yesterday, when I was calling you, I didn't know where myself. I called you for one thing, I came to you for one thing: that you not leave me. You won't leave me, Sonya?”

She pressed his hand.

“And why, why did I tell her, why did I reveal it to her!” he exclaimed in despair after a moment, looking at her with infinite pain. “Now you're waiting for explanations from me, Sonya, you're sitting and waiting, I can see that; and what am I going to tell you? Because you won't understand any of it; you'll only wear yourself out with suffering . .. because of me! So, now you're crying and embracing me again—so, why are you embracing me? Because I couldn't endure it myself, and have come to shift the burden onto another: 'You suffer, too; it will be so much the easier for me!' Can you really love such a scoundrel?”

“But aren't you suffering as well?” cried Sonya.

The same feeling flooded his soul again, and softened it again for a moment.

“I have a wicked heart, Sonya; take note of that, it can explain a lot. That's why I came, because I'm wicked. There are those who wouldn't have come. But I am a coward and...a scoundrel! Well... and what if I am! All this is not it... I have to speak now, and I don't even know how to begin . . .”

He stopped and fell to thinking.

“Ahh, we're so different!” he cried out again. “We're not a match. And why, why did I come! I'll never forgive myself for it!”

“No, no, it's good that you came!” Sonya exclaimed. “It's better that I know! Much better!”

He looked at her with pain.

“Why not, after all!” he said, as if reconsidering, “since that is how it was! You see, I wanted to become a Napoleon, that's why I killed...Well, is it clear now?”

“N-no,” Sonya whispered, naively and timidly, “but go on, just go on! I'll understand, I'll understand everything within myself!” she kept entreating him.

“You will? All right, we'll see!”

He fell silent, and thought it over for a long time.

“The thing is that I once asked myself this question: how would it have been if Napoleon, for example, had happened to be in my place, and didn't have Toulon, or Egypt, or the crossing of Mont Blanc to start his career, but, instead of all these beautiful and monumental things, had quite simply some ridiculous old crone, a leginstrar's widow, whom on top of that he had to kill in order to filch money from her trunk (for his career, you understand)—well, so, could he have made himself do it if there was no other way out? Wouldn't he have shrunk from it because it was so unmonumental and...and sinful? Well, I tell you, I suffered a terribly long time over this 'question,' so that I was terribly ashamed when I finally realized (somehow all at once) not only that he would not shrink, but that it wouldn't even occur to him that it was unmonumental...and he wouldn't understand at all what there was to shrink from. And if there was indeed no other path for him, he'd up and throttle her before she could make a peep, without a moment's thoughtfulness! ... So I, too...came out of my thoughtfulness...I throttled her...following the example of my authority...And that's exactly how it was! You think it's funny? Yes, Sonya, the funniest thing is that maybe that's precisely how it was . . .”

Sonya did not think it was funny at all.

“You'd better tell me straight out. . . without examples,” she asked, still more timidly, and barely audibly.

He turned to her, looked at her sadly, and took her hands.

“You're right again, Sonya. It's all nonsense, almost sheer babble!

You see, my mother, as you know, has almost nothing. My sister received an education only by chance, and is doomed to drag herself about as a governess. All their hopes were in me alone. I was studying, but I couldn't support myself at the university and had to take a leave for a while. Even if things had managed to go on that way, then in about ten or twelve years (if circumstances turned out well) I could still only hope to become some sort of teacher or official with a thousand-rouble salary . . .” (He was speaking as if by rote.) “And by then my mother would have withered away with cares and grief, and I still wouldn't be able to set her at ease, and my sister...well, something even worse might have happened with my sister! ... And who wants to spend his whole life passing everything by, turning away from everything; to forget his mother, and politely endure, for example, his sister's offense? Why? So that, having buried them, he can acquire new ones—a wife and children—and then leave them, too, without a kopeck or a crust of bread? Well. . . well, so I decided to take possession of the old woman's money and use it for my first years, without tormenting my mother, to support myself at the university, and for the first steps after the university, and to do it all sweepingly, radically, so as to set up a whole new career entirely and start out on a new, independent path...Well...well, that's all...Well, that I killed the old woman—of course, it was a bad thing to do... well, but enough of that!”

In some sort of powerlessness he dragged himself to the end of his story and hung his head.

“Oh, that's not it, not it,” Sonya exclaimed in anguish, “how can it be so...no, that's not it, not it!”

“You can see for yourself that's not it! ... yet it's the truth, I told it sincerely!”

“What kind of truth is it! Oh, Lord!”

“I only killed a louse, Sonya, a useless, nasty, pernicious louse.”

“A human being—a louse!”

“Not a louse, I know it myself,” he replied, looking at her strangely. “Anyway, I'm lying, Sonya,” he added, “I've been lying for a long time...All that is not it; you're right in saying so. There are quite different reasons here, quite, quite different! ... I haven't talked with anyone for a long time, Sonya...I have a bad headache now.”

His eyes were burning with a feverish fire. He was almost beginning to rave; a troubled smile wandered over his lips. A terrible powerlessness showed through his agitated state of mind. Sonya realized how he was suffering. Her head, too, was beginning to spin. And he spoke so strangely: one seemed to understand something, but...”but what is it! What is it! Oh, Lord!” And she wrung her hands in despair.

“No, Sonya, that's not it!” he began again, suddenly raising his head, as if an unexpected turn of thought had struck him and aroused him anew. “That's not it! Better...suppose (yes! it's really better this way), suppose that I'm vain, jealous, spiteful, loathsome, vengeful, well...and perhaps also inclined to madness. (Let's have it all at once! There's been talk of madness already, I've noticed!) I just told you I couldn't support myself at the university. But, you know, maybe I could have. Mother would have sent me whatever was needed for the fees; and I could have earned enough for boots, clothes, and bread myself; that's certain! There were lessons; I was being offered fifty kopecks. Razumikhin works! But I turned spiteful and didn't want to. Precisely, I turned spiteful (it's a good phrase!). Then I hid in my corner like a spider. You were in my kennel, you saw it. . . And do you know, Sonya, low ceilings and cramped rooms cramp the soul and mind! Oh, how I hated that kennel! And yet I didn't want to leave it. I purposely didn't want to! For days on end I wouldn't go out, and didn't want to work, and didn't even want to eat, and went on lying there. If Nastasya brought something, I'd eat; if not, the day would go by; I purposely didn't ask, out of spite. At night there was no light; I used to lie in the dark, rather than earn money for candles. I was supposed to be studying, but I sold my books; and on my table, on my papers and notebooks, there's a finger-thick layer of dust even now. I liked to lie and think. And I kept on thinking...And I kept on having such dreams, all sorts of strange dreams, there's no point in telling what they were about! Only at the same time I also began imagining...No, that's not right! Again I'm not telling it right! You see, I kept asking myself then: am I so stupid that, if others are stupid and I know for certain they're stupid, I myself don't want to be smarter? Then I learned, Sonya, that if one waits for everyone to become smarter, it will take too long...And then I also learned that it will never happen, that people will never change, and no one can remake them, and it's not worth the effort! Yes, it's true! It's their law...A law, Sonya! It's true! ... And I know now, Sonya, that he who is firm and strong in mind and spirit will rule over them! He who dares much will be right in their eyes. He who can spit on what is greatest will be their lawgiver, and he who dares the most will be the rightest of all! Thus it has been until now, and thus it will always be. Only a blind man can fail to see it!”