“So you...you...you understand me, because you're an angel!” Razumikhin cried out rapturously. “Let's go! Nastasya! Upstairs this minute, and sit there by him, with a light; I'll be back in a quarter of an hour . . .”

Pulcheria Alexandrovna, though not fully convinced, no longer resisted. Razumikhin took both women by the arm and dragged them down the stairs. Nevertheless, she worried about him: “He may be efficient and kind, but is he capable of carrying out his promise? He's in such a state! . . .”

“Ah, I see you're thinking what a state I'm in!” Razumikhin interrupted her thoughts, having guessed them, and went striding along the sidewalk with his enormously long steps, so that the two ladies could barely keep up with him—which fact, however, he did not notice. “Nonsense! That is...I'm drunk as a dolt, but that's not the point; I'm drunk, but not with wine. The moment I saw you, it went to my head...But spit on me! Don't pay any attention: I'm talking nonsense; I'm unworthy of you...I'm unworthy of you in the highest degree! ... But as soon as I've taken you home, I'll come straight here to the canal, and pour two tubs of water over my head, and be ready to go...If only you knew how I love you both! ... Don't laugh, and don't be angry! ... Be angry with everyone else, but don't be angry with me! I'm his friend, so I'm your friend, too. I want it that way...I had a presentiment. . . last year, there was a certain moment... Not a presentiment at all, however, because it's as if you fell from the sky. And maybe I won't even sleep all night. . . This Zossimov was afraid today that he might lose his mind...That's why he shouldn't be irritated.”

“What are you saying!” the mother cried out.

“Did the doctor really say so himself?” Avdotya Romanovna asked, frightened.

“He did, but it's not that, not that at all. And he gave him some sort of medication, a powder, I saw it, and then you arrived...Eh! ... If only you could have come a day later! It's a good thing we left. And in an hour Zossimov himself will give you a full report. He's certainly not drunk! And I won't be drunk either... Why did I get so cockeyed? Because they dragged me into an argument, curse them! I swore I wouldn't argue! ... They pour out such hogwash! I almost got into a fight! I left my uncle there as chairman...Well, so they insist on total impersonality, can you believe it? And that's just where they find the most relish! Not to be oneself, to be least of all like oneself! And that they consider the highest progress. If only they had their own way of lying, but no, they . . .”

“Listen,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna interrupted timidly, but she only added fuel to the fire.

“What do you think?” Razumikhin shouted, raising his voice even more. “You think it's because they're lying? Nonsense! I like it when people lie! Lying is man's only privilege over all other organisms. If you lie—you get to the truth! Lying is what makes me a man. Not one truth has ever been reached without first lying fourteen times or so, maybe a hundred and fourteen, and that's honorable in its way; well, but we can't even lie with our own minds! Lie to me, but in your own way, and I'll kiss you for it. Lying in one's own way is almost better than telling the truth in someone else's way; in the first case you're a man, and in the second—no better than a bird! The truth won't go away, but life can be nailed shut; there are examples. Well, so where are we all now? With regard to science, development, thought, invention, ideals, aspirations, liberalism, reason, experience, and everything, everything, everything, we're all, without exception, still sitting in the first grade! We like getting by on other people's reason—we've acquired a taste for it! Right? Am I right?” Razumikhin shouted, shaking and squeezing both ladies' hands. “Am I right?”

“Oh, my God, I don't know,” said poor Pulcheria Alexandrovna.

“Yes, you're right. . . though I don't agree with you in everything,” Avdotya Romanovna added seriously, and immediately cried out, so painfully did he squeeze her hand this time.

“Right? You say I'm right? Well, then you...you . . .” he cried rapturously, “you are a wellspring of kindness, purity, reason, and...perfection! Give me your hand, give it to me...you give me yours, too; I want to kiss your hands, here and now, on my knees!”

And he knelt in the middle of the sidewalk, which at that hour was fortunately deserted.

“Stop, I beg you! What are you doing?” Pulcheria Alexandrovna cried out, extremely alarmed.

“Get up, get up!” Dunya was alarmed, too, but laughing.

“Never! Not until you give me your hands! There, and enough now! I get up, and we go! I'm a miserable dolt, I'm unworthy of you, and drunk, and ashamed... I'm not worthy to love you, but to worship you is every man's duty, unless he's a perfect brute! So, I have worshipped...Here's your rooming house—and for this alone Rodion was right to throw your Pyotr Petrovich out today! How dared he place you in such rooms? It's a scandal! Do you know who they let in here? And you're his fiancée! You are his fiancée, aren't you? Well, let me tell you in that case that your fiancé is a scoundrel!”

“Listen, Mr. Razumikhin, you are forgetting yourself...” Pulcheria Alexandrovna tried to begin.

“Yes, yes, you're right, I'm forgetting myself, shame on me!” Razumikhin suddenly checked himself. “But... but... you cannot be angry with me for speaking this way! For I'm speaking sincerely, and not because...hm! that would be base; in short, not because I'm...hm...with you...well, never mind, let's drop it, I won't tell you why, I don't dare! ... And we all realized as soon as he came in today that he was not a man of our kind. Not because he came with his hair curled by a hairdresser, not because he was in a hurry to show off his intelligence, but because he's a stool pigeon and a speculator; because he's a Jew and a mountebank, and it shows. You think he's intelligent? No, he's a fool, a fool! So, is he a match for you? Oh, my God! You see, ladies,” he suddenly stopped, already on the way up to their rooms, “they may all be drunk at my place, but they're all honest, and though we do lie—because I lie, too—in the end we'll lie our way to the truth, because we're on a noble path, while Pyotr Petrovich...is not on a noble path. And though I just roundly denounced them, I do respect them all—even Zamyotov; maybe I don't respect him, but I still love him, because he's a puppy! Even that brute Zossimov, because he's honest and knows his business...but enough, all's said and forgiven. Forgiven? Is it? So, let's go. I know this corridor, I was here once; here, in number three, there was a scandal. . . Well, which is yours? What number? Eight? So, lock your door for the night and don't let anyone in. I'll be back in a quarter of an hour with news, and in another half an hour with Zossimov—you'll see! Good-bye, I'm running!”

“My God, Dunechka, what will come of this?” said Pulcheria Alexandrovna, turning anxiously and fearfully to her daughter.

“Calm yourself, mama,” Dunya answered, taking off her hat and cape, “God Himself has sent us this gentleman, though he may have come straight from some binge. We can rely on him, I assure you. And with all he's already done for my brother . . .”

“Ah, Dunechka, God knows if he'll come back! How could I bring myself to leave Rodya! And this is not at all, not at all how I imagined finding him! He was so stern, as if he weren't glad to see us . . .”

Tears came to her eyes.

“No, mama, it's not so. You didn't look closely, you kept crying. He's very upset from this great illness—that's the reason for it all.”

“Ah, this illness! What will come of it, what will come of it! And how he spoke with you, Dunya!” her mother said, peeking timidly into her daughter's eyes in order to read the whole of her thought, and already half comforted by the fact that Dunya herself was defending Rodya and had therefore forgiven him. “I'm sure he'll think better of it tomorrow,” she added, trying to worm it all out of her.