“And I thought it was Luzhin's present,” Raskolnikov remarked.

“No, he hasn't given Dunya anything yet.”

“Ahh! And do you remember how I was in love, mama, and wanted to get married?” he said suddenly, looking at his mother, who was struck by this unexpected turn and the tone in which he began talking about it.

“Ah, my friend, of course!” Pulcheria Alexandrovna exchanged glances with Dunechka and Razumikhin.

“Hm! Yes! Well, what can I tell you. I don't even remember much. She was such a sickly girl,” he went on, as if suddenly lapsing into thought again, and looking down, “quite ill; she liked giving alms and kept dreaming of a convent, and once she broke down in tears when she began talking about it; yes, yes...I remember...I remember very well. She was so...homely. Really, I don't know why I got so attached to her then; I think it was because she was always sick...If she'd been lame or hunchbacked, I think I would have loved her even more . . .” (He smiled pensively.) “It was just...some spring delirium . . .”

“No, it was not just a spring delirium,” Dunechka said animatedly.

He looked with strained attention at his sister, but either did not hear or did not understand her words. Then he rose, deep in thought, went over to his mother, kissed her, returned to his place, and sat down.

“You love her even now!” Pulcheria Alexandrovna said, touched.

“Her? Now? Ah...you mean her! No. It's all as if in another world now...and so long ago. And everything around seems not to be happening here . . .”

He looked at them attentively.

“And you, too...it's as if I were looking at you from a thousand miles away...Besides, devil knows why we're talking about it! What's the point of asking questions?” he added in vexation, and fell silent, biting his nails and lapsing into thought again.

“What an awful apartment you have, Rodya; like a coffin,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna said suddenly, breaking the heavy silence. “I'm sure it's half on account of this apartment that you've become so melancholic.”

“Apartment? . . .” he replied distractedly. “Yes, the apartment contributed a lot. . . I've thought about that myself...But if you knew what a strange thought you just said, mama,” he added suddenly, with a strange smirk.

A little longer and this company, this family, after their three-year separation, this familial tone of conversation, together with the complete impossibility of talking about anything at all, would finally become decidedly unbearable to him. There was, however, one pressing matter that absolutely had to be resolved that day, one way or the other—so he had resolved when he woke up in the morning. He was glad, now, to have this matter as a way out.

“Listen, Dunya,” he began seriously and dryly, “I must, of course, ask your forgiveness for yesterday, but I consider it my duty to remind you again that I will not renounce my main point. It's either me or Luzhin. I may be vile, but you must not be. One of us is enough. And if you marry Luzhin, I will immediately cease to regard you as my sister.”

“Rodya, Rodya! But this is all the same as yesterday,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna exclaimed ruefully. “And why do you keep calling yourself vile—I can't bear it! It was the same yesterday . . .”

“Brother,” Dunya replied firmly and also dryly, “there is a mistake on your part in all this. I thought it over during the night and found the mistake. The point is that you seem to think I'm sacrificing myself to someone and for someone. That is not so at all. I am marrying simply for myself, because things are hard for me; of course, I shall be glad if I also manage to be of use to my family, but that is not the main motive for my determination . . .”

“She's lying!” he thought to himself, biting his nails in anger. “The proud thing! She doesn't want to admit that she'd like playing the benefactress! Oh, base characters! They love, and it comes out like hate...Oh, how I...hate them all!”

“In short, I am marrying Pyotr Petrovich,” Dunechka went on, “because I prefer the lesser of two evils. I intend honestly to fulfill all that he expects of me, and therefore I am not deceiving him...Why did you just smile like that?”

She, too, became flushed, and wrath shone in her eyes.

“You'll fulfill everything?” he asked, grinning venomously.

“Up to a point. Both the manner and the form of Pyotr Petrovich's proposal showed me at once what he requires. He may, of course, value himself too highly, but I hope that he also values me...Why are you laughing again?”

“And why are you blushing again? You're lying, sister, you're lying on purpose, solely out of your woman's stubbornness, just to insist on your point before me...You cannot respect Luzhin—I've seen him and talked with him. Which means you're selling yourself for money, and that means that in any case you're acting basely, and I'm glad you're at least able to blush!”

“It's not true, I'm not lying! . . .” Dunechka cried out, losing all her composure. “I won't marry him unless I'm convinced that he values and appreciates me; I won't marry him unless I'm convinced that I can respect him. Fortunately, I can be convinced of that quite certainly, and even today. And such a marriage is not vile, as you say! And if you were right, and I had really made up my mind to do something vile, isn't it merciless on your part to talk to me that way? Why do you demand a heroism of me that you may not even have in yourself? That is despotism; that is coercion! If I ruin anyone, it will only be myself...I haven't gone and put a knife into anyone yet! ... Why are you looking at me like that? Why did you get so pale? Rodya, what's wrong? Rodya, dear!”

“Lord! She's made him faint!” Pulcheria Alexandrovna cried out.

“No, no...nonsense...it's nothing! ... I just felt a little dizzy. Not faint at all...You and your faints! ... Hm! yes...what was I going to say? Ah, yes: how could you be convinced today that you can respect him, and that he...values you, or however you put it? I think you said something about today? Or did I not hear right?”

“Mama, show my brother Pyotr Petrovich's letter,” said Dunechka.

Pulcheria Alexandrovna handed over the letter with trembling hands. He took it with great curiosity. But before unfolding it, he suddenly looked at Dunya somehow with surprise.

“Strange,” he said slowly, as if suddenly struck by a new thought, “why am I making such a fuss? Why all this outcry? Go and marry whomever you like!”

He spoke as if to himself, though he said it aloud, and looked at his sister for some time as if in bewilderment.

Finally he unfolded the letter, still with an expression of some strange surprise; then he began reading slowly and attentively, and read it twice. Pulcheria Alexandrovna was especially uneasy, and everyone also expected something special.

“It surprises me,” he began, after some reflection, handing the letter back to his mother, but without addressing anyone in particular, “he handles cases, he's a lawyer, and his conversation is so...pretentious— yet his writing is quite illiterate.”

Everyone stirred; this was not what they were expecting.

“But they all write like that,” Razumikhin observed abruptly.

“So you've read it?”

“Yes.”

“We showed him, Rodya, we...asked his advice,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna began, embarrassed.

“It's legal style, as a matter of fact,” Razumikhin interrupted, “legal documents are still written that way.”

“Legal? Yes, precisely legal, businesslike...Not so very illiterate, and not too literary either—a business style!”

“Pyotr Petrovich makes it no secret that he had to scrape up pennies for his education, and even boasts of having made his own way in life,” Avdotya Romanovna remarked, somewhat offended by her brother's new tone.

“Let him boast, he has some reason—I don't deny that. You seem to be offended, sister, that out of the entire letter I drew such a frivolous observation, and you think I began speaking of such trifles on purpose, in my vexation, just to put on an act in front of you. On the contrary, a certain observation to do with style occurred to me, which is not at all irrelevant in the present case. There is this one phrase: 'you will have only yourself to blame'—very significantly and clearly put; and then there is the threat that he will leave at once if I come. This threat to leave is the same as a threat to abandon you both if you disobey, and to abandon you now, when he has already brought you to Petersburg. Now, tell me: can such a phrase from Luzhin be as offensive as it would be if he had written it” (he pointed to Razumikhin), “or Zossimov, or any one of us?”