The policeman understood and figured it all out at once. The fat gentleman was no mystery, of course; what remained was the girl. The good soldier bent down to look at her more closely, and genuine commiseration showed in his features.

“Ah, what a pity!” he said, shaking his head. “Seems quite a child still. Deceived, that's what it is. Listen, miss,” he began calling her, “tell me, where do you live?” The girl opened her tired and bleary eyes, looked dully at her questioners, and waved her hand.

“Listen,” said Raskolnikov, “here” (he felt in his pocket and took out twenty kopecks that happened to be there), “here, hire a coachman and tell him to take her to her address. If only we could find out her address!”

“Miss, eh, miss?” the policeman began again, taking the money. “I'll call a coachman now and take you home myself. Where shall I take you, eh? Where is your home?”

“Shoo! ... pests! . . .” the girl muttered, and again waved her hand.

“Oh, oh, that's not nice! Oh, what a shame, miss, what a shame!” And again he began shaking his head, chiding, pitying, indignant. “This is a real problem!” he turned to Raskolnikov, and at the same time gave him another quick glance up and down. He, too, must surely have seemed strange to him: in such rags, and handing out money!

“Did you find her far from here?” he asked him.

“I tell you she was walking ahead of me, staggering, right here on the boulevard. As soon as she came to the bench, she just collapsed.”

“Ah, what shame we've got in the world now! Lord! Such an ordinary young girl, and she got drunk! She's been deceived, that's just what it is! Look, her little dress is torn...Ah, what depravity we've got nowadays! And she might well be from gentlefolk, the poor sort...We've got many like that nowadays. She looks like one of the pampered ones, like a young lady,” and he bent over her again.

Perhaps his own daughters were growing up in the same way—”like young ladies and pampered ones,” with well-bred airs and all sorts of modish affectations . . .

“The main thing,” Raskolnikov went on fussing, “is to prevent that scoundrel somehow! What if he, too, abuses her! You can see by heart what he wants: look at the scoundrel, he just won't go away!”

Raskolnikov spoke loudly and pointed straight at him. The man heard him and was about to get angry again, but thought better of it and limited himself to a scornful glance. Then he slowly moved off another ten steps or so and stopped again.

“Prevent him we can, sir,” the policeman replied pensively. “If only she'd say where to deliver her; otherwise...Miss, hey, miss!” he bent down again.

She suddenly opened her eyes wide, gave an attentive look, as if she understood something or other, rose from the bench, and walked back in the direction she had come from.

“Pah! Shameless...pests!” she said, waving her hand once again. She walked off quickly, but staggering as badly as before. The dandy walked after her, but along the other side of the boulevard, not taking his eyes off her.

“Don't worry, I won't let him, sir!” the moustached policeman said resolutely, and started after them.

“Ah, what depravity we've got nowadays!” he repeated aloud, with a sigh.

At that moment it was as if something stung Raskolnikov, as if he had been turned about in an instant.

“Hey, wait!” he shouted after the moustached policeman.

The man looked back.

“Forget it! What do you care? Leave her alone! Let him have fun” (he pointed to the dandy). “What is it to you?”

The policeman stared uncomprehendingly. Raskolnikov laughed.

“A-ach!” the good soldier said, waving his hand, and he went after the dandy and the girl, probably taking Raskolnikov for a madman or something even worse.

“He kept my twenty kopecks,” Raskolnikov said spitefully when he found himself alone. “Well, let him; he'll take something from that one, too, and let the girl go with him, and that will be the end of it...Why did I go meddling in all that! Who am I to help anyone? Do I have any right to help? Let them all gobble each other alive— what is it to me? And how did I dare give those twenty kopecks away? Were they mine?”

In spite of these strange words, it was very painful for him. He sat down on the abandoned bench. His thoughts were distracted...And generally it was painful for him at that moment to think about anything at all. He would have liked to become totally oblivious, oblivious of everything, and then wake up and start totally anew . . .

“Poor girl! . . .” he said, having looked at the now empty end of the bench. “She'll come to her senses, cry a little, and then her mother will find out...First she'll hit her, then she'll give her a whipping, badly and shamefully, and maybe even throw her out... And if she doesn't, the Darya Frantsevnas will get wind of it anyway, and my girl will start running around here and there...Then right away the hospital (it's always like that when they live with their honest mothers and carry on in secret), well, and then...then the hospital again...wine...pot-houses...back to the hospital...in two or three years she'll be a wreck, so altogether she'll have lived to be nineteen, or only eighteen years old...Haven't I seen the likes of her? And how did they come to it? Just the same way...that's how...Pah! And so what! They say that's just how it ought to be. Every year, they say, a certain percentage has to go...somewhere...to the devil, it must be, so as to freshen up the rest and not interfere with them.^[33] A percentage! Nice little words they have, really: so reassuring, so scientific. A certain percentage, they say, meaning there's nothing to worry about. Now, if it was some other word...well, then maybe it would be more worrisome...And what if Dunechka somehow gets into the percentage! ... If not that one, then some other? . . .

“And where am I going to?” he thought suddenly. “Strange. I was going for some reason. As soon as I read the letter, off I went...To Vasilievsky Island, to Razumikhin's, that's where I was going . . .

now I remember. What for, however? And how is it that the thought of going to see Razumikhin flew into my head precisely now? Remarkable!”

He marveled at himself. Razumikhin was one of his former university friends. It was remarkable that Raskolnikov had almost no friends while he was at the university, kept aloof from everyone, visited no one, and had difficulty receiving visitors. Soon, however, everyone also turned away from him. General gatherings, conversations, merrymaking—he somehow did not participate in any of it. He was a zealous student, unsparing of himself, and was respected for it, but no one loved him. He was very poor and somehow haughtily proud and unsociable, as though he were keeping something to himself. It seemed to some of his friends that he looked upon them all as children, from above, as though he were ahead of them all in development, in knowledge, and in convictions, and that he regarded their convictions and interests as something inferior.

Yet for some reason he became close with Razumikhin—that is, not really close, but he was more sociable, more frank with him. However, it was impossible to be on any other terms with Razumikhin. He was an exceptionally cheerful and sociable fellow, kind to the point of simplicity. However, this simplicity concealed both depth and dignity. The best of his friends understood that; everyone loved him. He was far from stupid, though indeed a bit simple at times. His appearance was expressive—tall, thin, black-haired, always badly shaved. He could be violent on occasion, and was reputed to be a very strong man. Once, at night, in company, he knocked down a six-and-a-half-foot keeper of the peace with one blow. He could drink ad infinitum, or he could not drink at all; he could be impossibly mischievous, or he could not be mischievous at all. Razumikhin was also remarkable in that no setbacks ever confounded him, and no bad circumstances seemed able to crush him. He could make his lodgings even on a rooftop, suffer hellish hunger and extreme cold. He was very poor, and supported himself decidedly on his own, alone, getting money by work of one sort or another. He knew an endless number of sources to draw from—by means of working, of course. Once he went a whole winter without heating his room, asserting that he even found it more pleasant, because one sleeps better in the cold. At present he, too, had been forced to leave the university, but not for long, and he was trying in all haste to straighten out his circumstances so that he could continue. Raskolnikov had not visited him for about four months now, and Razumikhin did not even know his address. Once, some two months ago, they had chanced to meet in the street, but Raskolnikov had turned away and even crossed to the other side so as not to be noticed. And Razumikhin, though he did notice, passed by, not wishing to trouble a friend.