But Mr. Luzhin checked himself, and apparently decided to ignore all this strangeness for the time being.

“I am quite, quite sorry to find you in such a state,” he began again, breaking the silence with some effort. “If I had known you were unwell, I would have come sooner. But, you know, one gets caught up! ... Moreover, in my line as a lawyer, I have a rather important case in the Senate. Not to mention those cares which you yourself may surmise. I am expecting your relations—that is, your mama and sister—any time now...”

Raskolnikov stirred and wanted to say something; a certain agitation showed on his face. Pyotr Petrovich stopped and waited, but since nothing followed, he went on.

“. . . Any time now. I have found them an apartment for the immediate future . . .”

“Where?” Raskolnikov said weakly.

“Quite near here, in Bakaleev's house . . .”

“That's on Voznesensky,” Razumikhin interrupted, “there are two floors of furnished rooms; the merchant Yushin runs the place; I've been there.”

“Yes, furnished rooms, sir . . .”

“Utterly vile: filth, stench, and a suspicious place besides; things have happened there; and devil knows who the tenants are! ... I went there on a scandalous occasion myself. But it's cheap.”

“I, of course, was not able to gather so much information, being new here,” Pyotr Petrovich objected touchily, “but in any case they are two quite, quite clean little rooms, and since it is for quite a short period of time...I have already found a real, that is, our future apartment,” he turned to Raskolnikov, “and it is now being decorated; and I myself am squeezed into furnished rooms for the time being, two steps away, at Mrs. Lippewechsel's, in the apartment of a young friend of mine, Andrei Semyonych Lebezyatnikov; it was he who directed me to Bakaleev's house . . .”

“Lebezyatnikov?” Raskolnikov said slowly, as if recalling something.

“Yes, Andrei Semyonych Lebezyatnikov, a clerk in the ministry. Do you know him perchance?”

“Yes...no . . .” Raskolnikov replied.

“Excuse me, but your question made it seem that you did. I once used to be his guardian...a very nice young man...up-to-date...I am delighted to meet young people: one learns what is new from them.” Pyotr Petrovich looked hopefully around at those present.

“In what sense do you mean?” Razumikhin asked.

“In the most serious, so to speak, in the very essence of things,” Pyotr Petrovich picked up, as if delighted to be asked. “You see, it has been ten years since I last visited Petersburg. All these new things of ours, reforms, ideas—all this has touched us in the provinces as well; but to see better, and to see everything, one must be in Petersburg. Well, sir, it is precisely my notion that one sees and learns most of all by observing our younger generations. And I confess I am delighted...”

“With what, exactly?”

“A vast question. I may be mistaken, but it seems to me that I find a clearer vision, more criticism, so to speak, more practicality . . .”

“That's true,” Zossimov said through his teeth.

“Nonsense, there's no practicality,” Razumikhin seized upon him. “Practicality is acquired with effort, it doesn't fall from the sky for free. And we lost the habit of any activity about two hundred years ago...There may be some ideas wandering around,” he turned to Pyotr Petrovich, “and there is a desire for the good, albeit a childish one; even honesty can be found, though there are crooks all over the place; but still there's no practicality! Practicality is a scant item these days.”

“I cannot agree with you,” Pyotr Petrovich objected with visible pleasure. “Of course, there are passions, mistakes, but one must also make allowances: passions testify to enthusiasm for the cause, and to the wrong external situation in which the cause finds itself. And if little has in fact been done, there also has not been much time. Not to mention means. But it is my personal view, if you like, that something has been done: useful new ideas have been spread, and some useful new books, instead of the former dreamy and romantic ones; literature is acquiring a shade of greater maturity; many harmful prejudices have been eradicated and derided...In short, we have cut ourselves off irrevocably from the past, and that in itself, I think, is already something, sir . . .”

“All by rote! Recommending himself!” Raskolnikov said suddenly.

“What, sir?” asked Pyotr Petrovich, who had not caught the remark, but he received no reply.

“That is all quite correct,” Zossimov hastened to put in.

“Is it not, sir?” Pyotr Petrovich continued, glancing affably at Zossimov. “You yourself must agree,” he went on addressing Razumikhin, but now with the shade of a certain triumph and superiority, and he almost added “young man,” “that there is such a thing as prosperity or, as they now say, progress, if only in the name of science and economic truth...”

“A commonplace!”

“No, it is not a commonplace, sir! If up to now, for example, I have been told to 'love my neighbor,' and I did love him, what came of it?” Pyotr Petrovich continued, perhaps with unnecessary haste. “What came of it was that I tore my caftan in two, shared it with my neighbor, and we were both left half naked, in accordance with the Russian proverb which says: If you chase several hares at once, you won't overtake any one of them.^[57] But science says: Love yourself before all, because everything in the world is based on self-interest. If you love only yourself, you will set your affairs up properly, and your caftan will also remain in one piece. And economic truth adds that the more properly arranged personal affairs and, so to speak, whole caftans there are in society, the firmer its foundations are and the better arranged its common cause. It follows that by acquiring solely and exclusively for myself, I am thereby precisely acquiring for everyone, as it were, and working so that my neighbor will have something more than a torn caftan, not from private, isolated generosities now, but as a result of universal prosperity. A simple thought, which unfortunately has been too long in coming, overshadowed by rapturousness and dreaminess, though it seems it would not take much wit to realize . . .”^[58]

“Sorry, wit is what I happen to lack,” Razumikhin interrupted sharply, “so let's stop. I did have some purpose when I started talking, but all this self-gratifying chatter, this endless stream of commonplaces, and all the same, always the same, has become so sickening after three years that, by God, I blush not only to say such things, but to hear them said in my presence. Naturally, you've hastened to recommend yourself with regard to your knowledge; that is quite pardonable, and I do not condemn it. For the time being I simply wanted to find out who you were, because, you know, there are all sorts of traffickers hanging on to this common cause who in their own interest have so distorted everything they've touched that they have decidedly befouled the whole cause. And so, enough, sir!”

“My dear sir,” Mr. Luzhin began, wincing with extreme dignity, “do you mean to suggest so unceremoniously that I, too . . .”

“Oh, heavens, heavens...How could I! ... And so, enough, sir!” Razumikhin cut him off and turned abruptly to Zossimov, to continue their previous conversation.

Pyotr Petrovich proved intelligent enough to believe the explanation at once. But he resolved to leave in two minutes anyway.

“I hope that our acquaintance, which has presently begun,” he turned to Raskolnikov, “will, upon your recovery and in view of circumstances known to you, continue to grow...I wish especially that your health . . .”

Raskolnikov did not even turn his head. Pyotr Petrovich began to get up from his chair.