Raskolnikov's face was growing darker and darker. Porfiry seemed to guess his thoughts.

“I've come to explain myself, my good Rodion Romanych, to explain myself, sir! I'm obliged, and I owe you an explanation, sir,” he went on with a little smile, and even slapped Raskolnikov lightly on the knee with his palm, but at almost the same moment his face suddenly assumed a serious and preoccupied air; it even became as if veiled with sadness, to Raskolnikov's surprise. He had never yet seen or suspected him of having such a face. “A strange scene took place between us last time, Rodion Romanych. One might say that in our first meeting, too, a strange scene also took place between us; but then...Well, so one thing leads to another! You see, sir, I have perhaps come out very guilty before you; I feel it, sir. For you must remember how we parted: your nerves were humming and your knees trembling, and my nerves were humming and my knees trembling. And, you know, it came out somehow improperly between us then, not in gentlemanly fashion. And we are gentlemen, after all; that is, in any case, we are gentlemen first—that has to be understood, sir. You must remember what it was coming to...even altogether indecent, sir.”

“What's with him? Who does he think I am?” Raskolnikov asked himself in amazement, raising his head and staring at Porfiry.

“In my judgment, it would be better now if we were to proceed with frankness,” Porfiry Petrovich continued, throwing his head back slightly and lowering his eyes, as if wishing no longer to embarrass his former victim with his look, and as if scorning his former ways and tricks. “Yes, sir, such suspicions and such scenes cannot go on for long. Mikolka resolved it for us then, otherwise I don't know what it would have come to between us. That cursed little tradesman was sitting behind my partition then—can you imagine? Of course, you know that already, and I am informed that he went to see you afterwards; but what you supposed then was not true: I hadn't sent for anyone, and I hadn't made any arrangements yet. You ask why I hadn't made any arrangements? What can I say: I was as if bowled over by it all then. I'd barely even managed to send for the caretakers. (I'll bet you noticed the caretakers as you passed by.) A thought raced through me then, a certain thought, quick as lightning; I was firmly convinced then, you see, Rodion Romanych. After all, I thought, though I may let one slip for a time, I'll catch another by the tail—but what's mine, what's mine, at least, I won't let slip. You are all too irritable, Rodion Romanych, by nature, sir; even too much so, sir, what with all the other basic qualities of your character and heart, which I flatter myself with the hope of having partly comprehended, sir. Well, of course, even then I, too, could consider that it doesn't always happen for a man just to stand up and blurt out all his innermost secrets. Though it does happen, especially when the man has been driven out of all patience, but, in any case, rarely. That I, too, could consider for myself. No, I thought, if only I had at least some little trace! At least the tiniest little trace, just one, but one you could get your hands on, some real thing, not just this psychology. Because, I thought, if a man is guilty, then, of course, it's possible anyway to expect something substantial from him; it's even permissible to count on the most unexpected results. I was counting on your character, Rodion Romanych, on your character most of all! I had much hope in you then.”

“But you...but why do you go on talking this way now?” Raskolnikov muttered at last, without making much sense of his own question. “What's he talking about?” he felt utterly at a loss. “Can he really take me for innocent?”

“Why am I talking this way? But I've come to explain myself, sir; I regard it, so to speak, as my sacred duty. I want to tell you everything to the last drop, as it all was, the whole history of all that darkening, so to speak. I made you suffer through a great deal, Rodion Romanych. I am not a monster, sir. I, too, can well understand how it must be for a man to drag all this with him when he's aggrieved but at the same time proud, domineering, and impatient—above all, impatient! In any case, sir, I regard you as a most noble man, and even as having the rudiments of magnanimity, though I do not agree with you in all your convictions, which I consider it my duty to announce beforehand, directly, and with complete frankness, for above all I have no wish to deceive. Having come to know you, I feel an attachment to you. Perhaps you will burst out laughing at such words from me? You have the right, sir. I know that you disliked me even at first sight, because essentially there is nothing to like me for, sir. Regard it as you will, but I now wish, for my part, to use every means to straighten out the impression produced, and to prove that I am a man of heart and conscience. I say it sincerely, sir.”

Porfiry Petrovich paused with dignity. Raskolnikov felt the influx of some new fear. The thought that Porfiry regarded him as innocent suddenly began to frighten him.

“To tell everything in order, as it suddenly began then, is hardly necessary,” Porfiry Petrovich continued. “I think it's even superfluous. And it's unlikely I'd be able to, sir. Because how could I explain it thoroughly? First there were rumors. To say what these rumors were, from whom they came, and when...and on what occasion, strictly speaking, the matter got as far as you—is, I think, also superfluous. And for me personally, it began by accident, a quite accidental accident, something which in the highest degree might or might not have happened—and what was it? Hm, I think there's no need to say. All these rumors and accidents converged in me then into a single thought. I confess frankly—for if one is going to confess, it should be everything—I was the first to hit on you then. Take, for instance, all those labels the old woman wrote on the things, and so on and so forth—it's all nonsense, sir. One can count off a hundred such things. I also accidentally learned in detail then about the scene in the police office—also by accident, sir—and not just in passing, but from a special narrator, a capital one, who, without realizing it, handled the scene remarkably. One thing leads to another, one thing leads to another, my dear Rodion Romanych! So, how could I not turn in a certain direction? A hundred rabbits will never make a horse, a hundred suspicions will never make a proof, as a certain English proverb says, and that's only reasonable; but the passions, sir, try overcoming the passions—for an investigator is also a man, sir. Then I also remembered your little article in that little magazine; you remember, we spoke of it in detail during your first visit. I scoffed then, but that was only to provoke you to further things. I repeat, you're impatient, and very ill, Rodion Romanych. That you are daring, presumptuous, serious, and...have felt, have already felt a great deal—all this I have known for a long time, sir. All these feelings are familiar to me, and I read your little article as a familiar one. It was worked out on sleepless nights and in a frenzy, with a heaving and pounding heart, with suppressed enthusiasm. And it's a dangerous thing in young people, this suppressed, proud enthusiasm! I scoffed a bit then, but now I shall tell you that in general—that is, as an amateur—I'm terribly fond of these first, youthful, ardent tests of the pen. Smoke, mist, a string twanging in the mist.^[133]Your article is absurd and fantastic, but there are flashes of such sincerity in it, there is pride in it, youthful and incorruptible, there is the courage of despair; it's a gloomy article, sir, but that's a good thing. I read your little article, and laid it aside, and...as I laid it aside, I thought: 'Well, for this man it won't end there!' Well, tell me now, with such a foregoing, how could I not be carried away by the subsequent! Ah, Lord! But am I really saying anything? Am I affirming anything now? I simply noted it at the time. 'What's in it?' I thought. There's nothing here—I mean, exactly nothing, and perhaps the final degree of nothing. And for me, an investigator, to be carried away like that is even altogether unfitting: here I've got Mikolka on my hands, and with facts now—whatever you say, they're facts! And he, too, comes with his psychology; I must give some attention to him, too; because it's a matter of life and death. Why am I explaining it all to you now? So that you may know and, what with your mind and heart, not accuse me of behaving maliciously that time. It wasn't malicious, sir, I say it sincerely, heh, heh! Are you wondering why I didn't come here for a search then? But I did, sir, I did, heh, heh, I came, sir, while you were lying here sick in your little bed. Not officially, and not in person, but I came, sir. Everything was examined here, in your apartment, down to the last hair, while the tracks were still fresh; but—umsonst!^[134] I thought: now the man will come, will come of himself, and very soon; if he's guilty, he'll certainly come. Another man wouldn't come, but this one will. And do you remember how Mr. Razumikhin began letting it slip to you? It was we who arranged that in order to get you stirred up; we spread the rumor on purpose, so that Mr. Razumikhin would let it slip to you, because he's the kind of man who cannot contain his indignation. What struck Mr. Zamyotov most of all was your wrath and your open daring, suddenly to blurt out in the tavern: 'I killed her!' Too daring, sir, too bold; and I thought, if he's guilty, then he's a fierce fighter! That's what I thought then, sir. So I waited! I waited as hard as I could, and as for Zamyotov, you simply crushed him then, and...that's the whole catch, that this cursed psychology is double-ended! And so I waited for you, and look, what a godsend—you came! My heart fairly skipped a beat! Eh! Now, what made you come just then? And that laughter, that laughter of yours as you walked in then, remember? I saw through it all at once, like a pane of glass, but if I hadn't been waiting for you in such a special way, I wouldn't have noticed anything in your laughter. That's what it means to be in the right frame of mind. And Mr. Razumikhin then— ah! and the stone, the stone, remember the stone, the one the things are hidden under? I can just see it there, somewhere in a kitchen garden—didn't you mention a kitchen garden to Zamyotov, and then again at my place? And when we began going through your article, when you were explaining it—one just takes your every word in a double sense, as if there were another sitting under it! And so, Rodion Romanych, in this way I reached the outermost pillars, and bumped my head, and then I came to my senses. No, I said, what's the matter with me! For if you like, I said, all this down to the last trace can be explained in the opposite sense, and it will come out even more naturally. What a torment, sir! 'No,' I thought, 'better some little trace! ...' And then, when I heard about those little bells, I even stopped dead, I even began shivering. 'Now,' I thought, 'here's that little trace! This is it!' And I wasn't reasoning then, I simply didn't want to. I'd have given a thousand roubles from my own pocket just to have seen you with my own eyes: how you walked a hundred steps beside the little tradesman that time, after he said 'murderer' to your face, and you didn't dare ask him anything for the whole hundred steps! ... Well, and that chill in the spine? Those little bells, in your illness, in half-delirium? And so, Rodion Romanych, why should you be surprised, after all that, if I was playing such tricks with you then? And why did you yourself come just at that moment? It's as if someone was prompting you, too, by God, and if Mikolka hadn't separated us...and do you remember Mikolka then? Do you remember him well? A bolt, that's what it was like, sir! Wasn't it like a bolt from the clouds? A thunderbolt! Well, and how did I meet it? I didn't believe the thunderbolt, not a whit, you could see that! And later, after you left, when he began answering some points quite, quite neatly, so that I was surprised myself, even then I didn't believe a pennyworth of it! That's what it means to be strong as adamant. No, I thought, not by a long shot! There's no Mikolka here!”