well, give her fifteen, give her twenty, leave three roubles for yourself at least—but no, you just forked over the whole twenty-five!”

“Maybe I found a treasure somewhere, and you don't know it. So I gave her money with both hands yesterday...Mr. Zamyotov here knows I found a treasure! ... Excuse us, please,” he turned to Porfiry with twitching lips, “for bothering you for half an hour with such a trivial exchange. You must be sick of it, eh?”

“My goodness, sir, on the contrary, on the co-o-ontrary! You have no idea how you interest me! It's curious both to look and to listen...and, I admit, I'm very glad that you have finally been so good as to come . . .”

“Well, give us some tea at least! Our throats are dry!” Razumikhin cried.

“A wonderful idea! Maybe everyone will join us. But wouldn't you like...something more substantial...before tea?”

“Ah, go on!”

Porfiry Petrovich went to send for tea.

Thoughts were spinning like a whirlwind in Raskolnikov's head. He was terribly annoyed.

“What's more, they don't even conceal it; they don't even care to stand on ceremony! What occasion did you have for talking about me with Nikodim Fomich, since you don't know me at all? It means they don't even care to conceal the fact that they're watching me like a pack of dogs! They spit in my mug quite openly!” He was trembling with fury. “Strike directly, then; don't play cat and mouse with me. It's not polite, Porfiry Petrovich, and I may still, perhaps, not allow it, sir! ... I'll get up and blurt out the whole truth in your mugs; then you'll see how I despise you! . . .” He caught his breath with difficulty. “But what if it only seems so to me? What if it's a mirage, what if I'm completely mistaken, get angry on account of my inexperience, and fail to keep up my vile role? Maybe it's all unintentional? Their words are all ordinary, but there's something in them...All this can always be said, and yet there is something. Why did he come out with that 'she'? Why did Zamyotov add that I spoke cunningly? Why do they all speak in such a tone? Yes...that tone...Razumikhin has been sitting right here, why does he not imagine anything? The innocent dolt never imagines anything! I'm feverish again! ... Did Porfiry wink at me just now, or not? Must be nonsense; why would he wink? Do they want to irritate my nerves, or are they taunting me? Either it's all a mirage, or they know!. . . Even Zamyotov is impertinent...Is Zamyotov impertinent? Zamyotov's changed his mind overnight. I had a feeling he'd change his mind! He seems quite at home here, yet it's the first time he's come. Porfiry doesn't treat him like a guest, turns his back to him. They've already rubbed noses. They must have rubbed noses because of me! They must have been talking about me before we came! ... Do they know about the apartment? Just get it over with! ... When I said I ran away yesterday to rent an apartment, he let it go, he didn't pick it up...It was clever to put that in about the apartment—I'll need it later! ... In delirium, I said! ... Ha, ha, ha! He knows all about yesterday evening! But he didn't know about mother's arrival! ... And the witch wrote down the date with a pencil! ... Lies! I won't let you get me! These aren't facts yet, they're only a mirage! No, just try giving me facts! The apartment is not a fact either, it's delirium; I know what to tell them...But do they know about the apartment? I won't go until I find out! Why did I come? But that I'm angry now—that, perhaps, is a fact! Pah, how irritable I am! But maybe that's good; the role of the sick man...He's feeling me out. He'll try to throw me off. Why did I come?”

All this swept like lightning through his head.

Porfiry Petrovich was back in an instant. He suddenly became somehow merry.

“Since your party yesterday, brother, my head...in fact, the whole of me is somehow unscrewed,” he began in quite a different tone, laughing, to Razumikhin.

“Well, was it interesting? I left you yesterday at the most interesting point. Who won?”

“No one, naturally. We got on to the eternal questions, and it all stayed in the clouds.”

“Just imagine what they got on to yesterday, Rodya: is there such a thing as crime, or not? He said they all lied themselves into the blue devils.”

“What's so surprising? It's an ordinary social question,” Raskolnikov replied distractedly.

“The question was not formulated that way,” Porfiry observed.

“Not quite that way, it's true,” Razumikhin agreed at once, hurrying and getting excited as usual. “You see, Rodion—listen and give your opinion, I want it. I was turning inside out yesterday waiting for you; I told them about you, too, that you were going to come...It started with the views of the socialists. Their views are well known: crime is a protest against the abnormality of the social set-up— that alone and nothing more, no other causes are admitted—but nothing! . . .”

“Now, that is a lie!” cried Porfiry Petrovich. He was growing visibly animated and laughing all the while, looking at Razumikhin, which fired him up all the more.

“N-nothing is admitted!” Razumikhin interrupted hotly. “I'm not lying! ... I'll show you their books: with them one is always a 'victim of the environment'—and nothing else! Their favorite phrase! Hence directly that if society itself is normally set up, all crimes will at once disappear, because there will be no reason for protesting and everyone will instantly become righteous. Nature isn't taken into account, nature is driven out, nature is not supposed to be! With them it's not mankind developing all along in a historical, living way that will finally turn by itself into a normal society, but, on the contrary, a social system, coming out of some mathematical head, will at once organize the whole of mankind and instantly make it righteous and sinless, sooner than any living process, without any historical and living way! That's why they have such an instinctive dislike of history: 'there's nothing in it but outrage and stupidity'—and everything is explained by stupidity alone! That's why they so dislike the living process of life: there's no need for the living soul! The living soul will demand life, the living soul won't listen to mechanics, the living soul is suspicious, the living soul is retrograde! While here, though there may be a whiff of carrion, and it may all be made out of rubber—still it's not alive, still it has no will, still it's slavish, it won't rebel! And it turns out in the end that they've reduced everything to mere brickwork and the layout of corridors and rooms in a phalanstery!^[75] The phalanstery may be all ready, but your nature isn't ready for the phalanstery, it wants life, it hasn't completed the life process yet, it's too soon for the cemetery! You can't overleap nature with logic alone! Logic will presuppose three cases, when there are a million of them! Cut away the whole million, and reduce everything to the one question of comfort! The easiest solution to the problem! Enticingly clear, and there's no need to think! Above all, there's no need to think! The whole of life's mystery can fit on two printed pages!”

“He's broken loose again, drumming away! You've got to hold him by both arms,” Porfiry laughed. “Imagine,” he turned to Raskolnikov, “it was the same yesterday evening, with six voices, in one room, and with preliminary punch-drinking besides—can you picture that? No, brother, you're lying: 'environment' means a great deal in crime; I can confirm that.”

“I know it means a great deal, but tell me this: a forty-year-old man dishonors a girl of ten—was it the environment that made him do it?”

“Well, strictly speaking, perhaps it is the environment,” Porfiry observed with surprising solemnity. “The crime against the girl may very well be explained by the 'environment.’”