“Very likely,” Raskolnikov answered coldly.

“What I'm driving at,” Zossimov went on, with increasing relish, “is that your complete recovery now depends chiefly on you yourself. Since it's become possible to talk with you, I should like to impress upon you that it is necessary to eliminate the original, so to speak, radical causes that influenced the onset of your ill condition; only then will you be cured; otherwise it will get even worse. I do not know these original causes, but they must be known to you. You are an intelligent man and, of course, have observed yourself. It seems to me that the beginning of your disorder to some extent coincides with your leaving the university. You cannot remain without occupation, and it seems to me, therefore, that hard work and a firmly set goal could be of great help to you.”

“Yes, yes, you're entirely right. . . I'll quickly get myself back into the university, and then everything will go...like clockwork.”

Zossimov, who had begun his sage advice partly for effect in front of the ladies, was naturally somewhat taken aback when, glancing at his listener as he finished his speech, he noticed a look of unmistakable derision on his face. However, this lasted only a moment. Pulcheria Alexandrovna began at once thanking Zossimov, especially for last night's visit to their hotel.

“What? He went to see you during the night, too?” Raskolnikov asked, as if alarmed. “So then you didn't get any sleep after your journey.”

“Ah, Rodya, it was all only until two o'clock. Dunya and I never go to bed before two, even at home.”

“I, too, don't know how to thank him,” Raskolnikov continued, frowning suddenly and looking down. “Setting aside the question of money—you will excuse me for mentioning it” (he turned to Zossimov), “I really don't know how I have deserved such special attention from you. I simply don't understand...and...and it's even burdensome to me, because I don't understand it—I'm speaking frankly with you.”

“Now, don't get yourself irritated,” Zossimov forced himself to laugh. “Suppose you're my first patient; well, and our kind, when we're just starting out in practice, love our first patients like our own children, and some almost fall in love with them. After all, I don't have such a wealth of patients.”

“Not to mention him,” Raskolnikov added, pointing to Razumikhin, “he, too, has had nothing but insults and trouble from me.”

“Listen to this nonsense! Are you in a sentimental mood today, or what?” Razumikhin exclaimed.

Had he been more perceptive, he would have seen that there was no question here of a sentimental mood, but something even quite the opposite. Avdotya Romanovna noticed it. She was watching her brother closely and anxiously.

“And of you, mama, I don't even dare to speak,” he went on, as if reciting a lesson learned by heart that morning. “Only today have I been able to realize something of the torment you must have suffered yesterday, waiting here for me to return.” Having said this, he suddenly held out his hand to his sister, silently and with a smile. But this time there was a flash of genuine, unfeigned emotion in his smile. Dunya at once seized the hand he held out to her and pressed it ardently, with joy and gratitude. It was the first time he had addressed her since yesterday's falling-out. Their mother's face lit up with rapture and happiness at the sight of this final and wordless reconciliation of brother and sister.

“That's what I love him for!” whispered Razumikhin, who exaggerated everything, turning energetically on his chair. “These sudden gestures of his! . . .”

“And how well he does it all,” his mother thought to herself. “He has such noble impulses, and how simply, how delicately he has ended yesterday's misunderstanding with his sister—just by offering her his hand at the right moment and giving her a nice look...And what beautiful eyes he has, what a beautiful face! ...  He's even better looking than Dunechka...But, my God, what clothes! How terribly he's dressed! The errand-boy Vasya, in Afanasy Ivanovich's shop, is dressed better! ... I think I could just rush to him and embrace him, and...weep—but I'm afraid, afraid...he's so...Lord! He speaks so tenderly now, yet I'm afraid! What am I afraid of? . . .”

“Ah, Rodya,” she suddenly picked up, hurrying to answer his remark, “you wouldn't believe how unhappy Dunechka and I were...yesterday! Now that everything's over and done with, and we're all happy again, I can tell you. Imagine, we came running here to embrace you, almost straight from the train, and that woman—ah, here she is! How do you do, Nastasya! ... She suddenly told us you had been in a fever and had just run away from the doctor, out of the house, delirious, and that people had gone running to look for you. You wouldn't believe how we felt! I could only picture to myself the tragic death of Lieutenant Potanchikov, our acquaintance, your father's friend—you won't remember him, Rodya—who ran out in just the same way, also in delirium, and fell into the well in the yard, and they only managed to get him out the next day. And, of course, we exaggerated it even more. We were about to rush and look for Pyotr Petrovich, so that with his help at least. . . because we were alone, completely alone,” she trailed off in a pitiful voice, and suddenly stopped altogether, remembering that it was still rather dangerous to start talking about Pyotr Petrovich, even though “everyone was now completely happy again.”

“Yes, yes...it's all a pity, of course . . .” Raskolnikov muttered in reply, but with so distracted and almost inattentive an air that Dunya looked at him in amazement.

“What else was I going to say . . .” he continued, making an effort to recall. “Ah, yes: mama, and you, too, Dunechka, please do not think that I did not want to come to you first this morning and was waiting for you to come to me.”

“But what is it, Rodya!” Pulcheria Alexandrovna cried out, also surprised.

“Is he just answering us out of duty, or what?” thought Dunechka. “He's making peace and asking forgiveness as if he were performing a service or had memorized a lesson.”

“I was about to come as soon as I woke up, but I was delayed by my clothes; last night I forgot to tell her...Nastasya...to wash off that blood...I've only just managed to get dressed.”

“Blood! What blood!” Pulcheria Alexandrovna became alarmed.

“Never mind...don't worry. It was blood from yesterday, when I was wandering around somewhat delirious and came upon a man who had been run over...some official . . .”

“Delirious? But you remember everything,” Razumikhin interrupted.

“That's true,” Raskolnikov replied, somehow especially carefully, “I remember everything, down to the smallest detail, but try asking me why I did this, or went there, or said that—I'd have a hard time explaining.”

“A phenomenon known only too well,” Zossimov mixed in. “The performance is sometimes masterful, extremely clever, but the control of the actions, their source, is deranged and depends on various morbid impressions. As in a dream.”

“Perhaps it's even good that he considers me almost crazy,” Raskolnikov thought.

“But healthy people are perhaps no different,” Dunechka observed, looking anxiously at Zossimov.

“Quite a true observation,” the latter replied. “Indeed, in that sense we're all rather often almost like mad people, only with the slight difference that the 'sick' are somewhat madder than we are, so that it's necessary to draw a line here. And the harmonious man, it's true, almost doesn't exist; out of tens, maybe hundreds of thousands, one will be found, and quite a weak specimen at that . . .”

The word “mad,” imprudently dropped by Zossimov, whose favorite subject was running away with him, made everyone wince.

Raskolnikov sat as though he were not paying attention, deep in thought, and with a strange smile on his pale lips. He went on puzzling over something.