“Well, no, all the same there is evidence.”

“But I'm not talking about evidence now, I'm talking about the question, about how they understand their essence! Ah, devil take it! ... Well, so they pushed him and pushed him, pressed him and pressed him, and so he confessed: 'I didn't find them on the sidewalk, I found them in the apartment there where Mitrei and me was painting.' 'How was that?' 'It was just like this, that Mitrei and me was painting and painting all day till eight o'clock, and was just about to go, and Mitrei took the brush and slapped some paint on my mug; so he slapped some paint on my mug and ran away, and I ran after him. So I was running after him, shouting my head off; and when I turned from the stairs to the gateway, I ran smack into the caretaker and some gentlemen, and how many gentlemen it was I don't remember, and the caretaker swore at me for that, and the other caretaker also swore at me, and the caretaker's woman came out and swore at us, too, and there was a gentleman coming in the gate with a lady, and he also swore at us, because me and Mitka was lying there and blocking the way: I grabbed Mitka's hair and pulled him down and started punching him, and Mitka was under me and grabbed my hair and started punching me, and not because we was mad, it was all real friendly, for the fun of it. And then Mitka got free and ran out to the street, and I ran after him but I couldn't catch him, so I went back to the apartment by myself, because we had to tidy up. I started picking up and waiting for Mitrei, in case he came back. And by the door to the entryway, behind the wall, in the corner, I stepped on a box. I looked and it was lying there wrapped up in paper. I took the paper off, and saw these tiny little hooks, so I undid the hooks—and there was earrings inside the box...”

“Behind the door? It was behind the door? Behind the door?” Raskolnikov suddenly cried out, staring at Razumikhin with dull, frightened eyes, and slowly raising himself on the sofa with the support of his arm.

“Yes...but why? What's the matter? Why are you looking like that?” Razumikhin also rose from his seat.

“Nothing! ... ” Raskolnikov answered, barely audibly, sinking onto the pillow again and again turning to the wall. Everyone was silent for a short while.

“He must have been dozing and suddenly woke up,” Razumikhin said at last, looking questioningly at Zossimov; the latter made a slight negative movement with his head.

“Well, go on,” said Zossimov. “What then?”

“So, what then? As soon as he saw the earrings, he immediately forgot both the apartment and Mitka, grabbed his hat, and ran to Dushkin, and, as we know, got a rouble from him, lied to him that he had found them on the sidewalk, and at once went on a spree. And about the murder he keeps repeating the same thing: 'I never knew nothing about that, I first heard about it three days after.' 'And why did you not come before now?' 'From fear.' 'And why did you want to hang yourself?' 'From thinking.' 'Thinking what?' 'That I'd have the law on me.' Well, that's the whole story. Now, what do you suppose they drew from it?”

“What is there to suppose? There's a trace there, something at least. A fact. You don't think they should let your painter go free?”

“But they've put him right down as the murderer now! They don't even have any doubts . . .”

“Nonsense; you're too excited. And what about the earrings? You must agree that if on that same day and hour the earrings from the old woman's trunk got into Nikolai's hands—you must agree that they got there somehow? That's no trifle in such investigations.”

“Got there somehow! But how did they get there?” Razumikhin cried out. “And can it be that you, a doctor, you, whose first duty it is to study man, and who have the opportunity before anyone else of studying human nature—can it be that you do not see, from all these facts, what sort of character this Nikolai is? Can you not see from the very first that everything he testified to during the interrogation is the most sacred truth? They got into his hands exactly as he testified. He stepped on the box and picked it up.”

“The most sacred truth? Nevertheless, he himself admitted that he lied at first.”

“Listen to me, listen carefully: the caretaker, and Koch, and Pestryakov, and the other caretaker, and the first caretaker's wife, and the market woman who was sitting with her in the caretaker's room at the time, and the court councillor Kriukov, who got out of a carriage that same moment and was coming through the gateway arm in arm with a lady—all, meaning eight or ten witnesses, testify with one voice that Nikolai was holding Dmitri down, was lying on him and punching him, and that the other grabbed his hair and was also punching him. They were lying across the entrance, blocking the way; people swear at them from all sides, and they, 'like little children' (as the witnesses literally said), are lying on each other, squealing, fighting, and laughing, each one louder than the other, with the most ridiculous faces, and then they run out to the street, like children, chasing each other. Hear that? Now, pay strict attention: the bodies upstairs are still warm, you hear, still warm; they were found that way! If they killed them, or just Nikolai alone, and broke into the trunk besides and robbed it, or merely took part in the robbery somehow, then allow me to ask you just one question: does such a state of mind—that is, squeals, laughter, a childish fight under the gateway—does it fit with axes, with blood, with criminal cunning, stealth, and robbery? They had only just killed them, only five or ten minutes earlier—that's how it comes out, since the bodies are still warm—and suddenly, abandoning the bodies and the open apartment, and knowing that people have just gone up there, and abandoning the loot, they go rolling around in the street like little children, laughing, attracting everybody's attention, and there are ten unanimous witnesses to it!”

“Strange, certainly! Impossible, in fact, but . . .”

“No buts, brother, because if the earrings, which on that day and hour turned up in Nikolai's hands, do constitute important factual evidence against him—directly explained, however, by his own testimony, and therefore still disputable evidence—we must also take into consideration certain exonerating facts, all the more so in that these facts are irrefutable. But do you think, seeing the nature of our jurisprudence, that they will or can accept such a fact—based solely on psychological impossibility alone, and on state of mind alone—as an irrefutable fact, demolishing all incriminating and material facts whatsoever? No, they won't, not for anything, because they've found the box, and the man wanted to hang himself, 'which could only be because he felt guilty'! That's the capital question, that's why I get so excited! You must understand!”

“Oh, I do see that you're excited. Wait, I forgot to ask: what proof is there that the box with the earrings indeed came from the old woman's trunk?”

“It's been proved,” Razumikhin answered, frowning and as if with reluctance. “Koch recognized the article and led them to the owner, and he proved positively that the article indeed belongs to him.”

“That's bad. Now another thing: did anyone see Nikolai during the time that Koch and Pestryakov were upstairs, and can it be proved somehow?”

“That's just it, nobody saw him,” Razumikhin answered with vexation, “that's the worst of it: even Koch and Pestryakov didn't notice them as they were going upstairs, though their testimony wouldn't mean much now. 'We saw that the apartment was open,' they say, 'that someone must have been working in it, but we didn't pay attention as we passed by, and we don't remember exactly whether the workers were there at the moment or not.’”

“Hm. So the only defense they have is that they were punching each other and laughing. Granted it's strong evidence, but. . . Then how, may I ask, do you explain the whole fact yourself? How do you explain the finding of the earrings, if he indeed found them as he testifies?”