“And when do you plan to arrest me?”

“Oh, I can give you a day and a half, or two, to walk around. Think, my dear, pray to God. It's to your advantage, by God, it's to your advantage.”

“And what if I run away?” Raskolnikov asked, grinning somehow strangely.

“You won't. A peasant would run away, a fashionable sectarian would run away—the lackey of another man's thought—because it's enough to show him the tip of a finger and, like Midshipman Dyrka, he'll believe anything for the rest of his life.^[137] But you no longer believe your own theory—what would you run away on? And what would you do as a fugitive? It's nasty and hard to be a fugitive, and first of all you need a life and a definite position, the proper air; and would that be any air for you? You'd run away, and come back on your own. It's impossible for you to do without us. And if I lock you up in jail, you'll sit there for a month, or maybe two, or maybe three, and then suddenly and—mark my words—on your own, you'll come, perhaps even quite unexpectedly for yourself. You won't know an hour beforehand that you're going to come and confess your guilt. And I'm even sure you'll 'decide to embrace suffering'; you won't take my word for it now, but you'll come round to it yourself. Because suffering, Rodion Romanych, is a great thing; don't look at me, fat as I am, that's no matter, but I do know—don't laugh at this—that there is an idea in suffering. Mikolka is right. No, you won't run away, Rodion Romanych.”

Raskolnikov got up from his place and took his cap. Porfiry Petrovich also got up.

“Going for a stroll? It should be a fine evening, if only we don't have a thunderstorm. Though that might be good; it would freshen the air . . .”

He also reached for his cap.

“Porfiry Petrovich,” Raskolnikov said with stern insistence, “please don't take it into your head that I've confessed to you today. You're a strange person, and I've been listening to you only out of curiosity. But I did not confess anything...Remember that.”

“I know, yes, I'll remember—well, really, he's even trembling! Don't worry, my dear; be it as you will. Walk around a little; only you can't walk around for too long. And, just in case, I have a little request to make of you,” he added, lowering his voice. “It's a bit ticklish, but important: if—I mean, just in case (which, by the way, I don't believe; I consider you quite incapable of it), if, I say—just so, in any such case—you should have the wish, during these forty or fifty hours, to end this matter somehow differently, in some fantastic way—such as by raising your hand against yourself (an absurd suggestion, but perhaps you'll forgive me for it)—then leave a brief but explicit note. A couple of lines, just two little lines, and mention the stone; it will be more noble, sir. Well, sir, good-bye...I wish you kind thoughts and good undertakings!”

Porfiry went out, somehow stooping, and as if avoiding Raskolnikov's eyes. Raskolnikov went to the window and waited with irritable impatience until he calculated Porfiry had had enough time to reach the street and move some distance away. Then he, too, hurriedly left the room.

III

He was hurrying to Svidrigailov. What he could hope for from him, he himself did not know. But the man had some hidden power over him. Once he realized it, he could no longer rest, and, besides, the time had now come.

One question especially tormented him on the way: had Svidrigailov gone to Porfiry?

No, as far as he was able to judge, he had not—he would have sworn to it! He thought it over again and again, recalled Porfiry's entire visit, and realized: no, he had not; of course he had not!

But if he had not gone yet, would he or would he not go to Porfiry? For the time being it seemed to him that he would not go. Why? He could not have explained that either, but even if he could have explained it, he would not have racked his brains much over it just now.

All this tormented him, yet at the same time he somehow could not be bothered with it. Strangely, though no one might have believed it, his present, immediate fate somehow concerned him only faintly, absentmindedly. Something else, much more important and urgent—to do with himself and himself alone, but something else, some main thing—was tormenting him now. Besides, he felt a boundless moral fatigue, though his mind had worked better that morning than in all those recent days.

And was it worthwhile now, after everything that had happened, to try to overcome all these measly new difficulties? Was it worthwhile, for example, trying to intrigue so that Svidrigailov would not go to Porfiry; to investigate, to make inquiries, to lose time on some Svidrigailov!

Oh, how sick he was of it all!

And yet here he was hurrying to Svidrigailov; could it be that he expected something new from him—directions, a way out? People do grasp at straws! Could it be fate, or some instinct, bringing them together? Perhaps it was only weariness, despair; perhaps it was not Svidrigailov but someone else he needed, and Svidrigailov just happened to be there. Sonya? But why should he go to Sonya now? To ask for her tears again? Besides, Sonya was terrible for him now. Sonya represented an implacable sentence, a decision not to be changed. It was either her way or his. Especially at that moment he was in no condition to see her. No, would it not be better to try Svidrigailov, to see what was there? And he could not help admitting to himself that for a long time he had really seemed to need the man for something.

Well, but what could there be in common between them? Even their evildoing could not be the same. Moreover, the man was very unpleasant, obviously extremely depraved, undoubtedly cunning and deceitful, perhaps quite wicked. There were such stories going around about him. True, he had taken some trouble over Katerina Ivanovna's children; but who knew what for or what it meant? The man eternally had his projects and intentions.

Still another thought had kept flashing in Raskolnikov all those days, and troubled him terribly, though he had even tried to drive it away from him, so difficult did he find it! He sometimes thought: Svidrigailov kept hovering around him, and was doing so even now;

Svidrigailov had found out his secret; Svidrigailov had once had designs on Dunya. And did he have them still? One could almost certainly say yes. And what if now, having found out his secret and thus gained power over him, he should want to use it as a weapon against Dunya?

This thought had tormented him at times, even in his sleep, but the first time it had appeared to him with such conscious clarity was now, as he was going to Svidrigailov. The thought alone drove him into a black rage. First of all, everything would be changed then, even in his own position: he would immediately have to reveal his secret to Dunechka. He would perhaps have to betray himself in order to divert Dunechka from some rash step. The letter? Dunya had received some letter that morning! Who in Petersburg could be sending her letters? (Luzhin, perhaps?) True, Razumikhin was on guard there; but Razumikhin did not know anything. Perhaps he would have to confide in Razumikhin as well? Raskolnikov loathed the thought of it.

“In any case, I must see Svidrigailov as soon as possible,” he decided finally to himself. “Thank God, it's not details that are needed here so much as the essence of the matter; but if, if he's really capable, if Svidrigailov is plotting something against Dunya—then...”

Raskolnikov had become so tired in all that time, over that whole month, that he could no longer resolve such questions otherwise than with one resolution: “Then I will kill him,” he thought, in cold despair. A heavy feeling weighed on his heart; he stopped in the middle of the street and began looking around: what way had he taken, and where had he come to? He was on ------sky Prospect, thirty or forty steps from the Haymarket, which he had passed through. The entire second floor of the building to his left was occupied by a tavern. The windows were all wide open; the tavern, judging by the figures moving in the windows, was packed full. In the main room, singers were pouring themselves out, a clarinet and fiddle were playing, a Turkish drum was beating. Women's squeals could be heard. He was about to go back, wondering why he had turned onto ------sky Prospect, when suddenly, in one of the last open windows of the tavern, he saw Svidrigailov, sitting at a tea table just by the window, a pipe in his teeth. This struck him terribly, to the point of horror. Svidrigailov was observing him, gazing at him silently, and, what also struck Raskolnikov at once, seemed about to get up in order to slip away quietly before he was noticed. Raskolnikov immediately pretended he had not noticed him and looked away pensively, while continuing to observe him out of the corner of his eye. His heart was beating anxiously. He was right: Svidrigailov obviously did not want to be seen. He took the pipe from his mouth and was already trying to hide; but, having stood up and pushed his chair back, he must suddenly have noticed that Raskolnikov had seen and was watching him. Between them there occurred something resembling the scene of their first meeting at Raskolnikov's, when he had been asleep. A mischievous smile appeared on Svidrigailov's face and widened more and more. They both knew that each of them had seen and was watching the other. Finally, Svidrigailov burst into loud laughter.