“He explained it well, however,” Raskolnikov thought.

“Spit on them? And tomorrow another interrogation!” he said bitterly. “Should I really get into explanations with them? I'm already annoyed that I stooped to Zamyotov yesterday in the tavern...”

“Devil take it! I'll go to Porfiry myself! And I'll pin him down as a relative; let him lay it all out to the roots! As for Zamyotov . . .”

“He's finally figured it out!” thought Raskolnikov.

“Wait!” cried Razumikhin, suddenly seizing him by the shoulder. “Wait! You're all wrong! I've just thought it over: you're all wrong! Look, what sort of ruse was it? You say the question about the workmen was a ruse? Get what I'm saying: if you had done that, would you let on that you'd seen the apartment being painted...and the workmen? On the contrary: you didn't see anything, even if you did! Who's going to come out against himself?”

“If I had done that thing, I would certainly say I had seen both the apartment and the workmen,” Raskolnikov went on answering reluctantly and with obvious loathing.

“But why speak against oneself?”

“Because only peasants or the most inexperienced novices deny everything outright and all down the line. A man with even a bit of development and experience will certainly try to admit as far as possible all the external and unavoidable facts; only he'll seek other reasons for them, he'll work in some feature of his own, a special and unexpected one, that will give them an entirely different meaning and present them in a different light. Porfiry could precisely count on my being certain to answer that way, on my being certain to say I'd seen them, for the sake of plausibility, and working in something to explain it . . .”

“But he'd tell you immediately that there were no workmen there two days before, and that you had therefore been there precisely on the day of the murder, between seven and eight. He'd throw you off with nothing!”

“But that's what he was counting on, that I wouldn't have time to figure it out and would precisely hasten to answer more plausibly, forgetting that the workmen couldn't have been there two days before.”

“But how could one forget that?”

“What could be easier! It's with such nothings that clever people are thrown off most easily. The cleverer the man, the less he suspects that he can be thrown off with the simplest thing. It's precisely the simplest thing that will throw off the cleverest man. Porfiry isn't as stupid as you think...”

“In that case he's a scoundrel!”

Raskolnikov could not help laughing. But at the same moment it struck him as strange that he had become so animated and had so willingly uttered this last explanation, when he had kept up the whole previous conversation with sullen loathing, obviously for some purpose, out of necessity.

“I'm beginning to relish certain points!” he thought to himself.

But at almost the same moment he began suddenly to be somehow uneasy, as if struck by an unexpected and alarming thought. His unease kept growing. They had already reached the entrance to Bakaleev's rooming house.

“Go alone,” Raskolnikov said suddenly, “I'll be back right away.”

“Where are you going? We're already here!”

“I must, I must...something to do...I'll be back in half an hour...Tell them.”

“As you wish; I'll follow you!”

“So you want to torment me, too!” he cried out, with such bitter irritation, with such despair in his eyes, that Razumikhin dropped his hands. He stood for a while on the steps and watched glumly as Raskolnikov strode off quickly in the direction of his own lane. Finally, gritting his teeth and clenching his fists, and swearing on the spot that he would squeeze Porfiry out like a lemon that very day, he went upstairs to reassure Pulcheria Alexandrovna, alarmed by then at their long absence.

By the time Raskolnikov reached his house, his temples were damp with sweat and he was breathing heavily. He hastily climbed the stairs, walked into his unlocked apartment, and immediately put the door on the hook. Then he rushed fearfully and madly to the corner, to the same hole in the wallpaper where the things had lain, thrust his hand into it, and for several minutes felt around in it carefully, going over every cranny and every crease in the wallpaper. Finding nothing, he stood up and drew a deep breath. Just as he was coming to Bakaleev's steps, he had suddenly imagined that something, some chain, a cufflink, or even a scrap of the paper they had been wrapped in, with a mark on it in the old woman's hand, might somehow have slipped down and lost itself in a crack, afterwards to confront him suddenly as unexpected and irrefutable evidence.

He stood as if pensively, and a strange, humiliated, half-senseless smile wandered over his lips. Finally he took his cap and walked quietly out of the room. His thoughts were confused. Pensively, he went down to the gateway.

“Why, here's the man himself!” a loud voice exclaimed. He raised his head.

The caretaker was standing by the door of his closet, pointing him out to some short man, a tradesman by the look of it, who was wearing something like a smock over his waistcoat, and from a distance very much resembled a woman. His head hung down in its greasy cap, and he was as if all hunched over. His flabby, wrinkled face told more than fifty years; his small, swollen eyes had a sullen, stern, and displeased look.

“What is it?” Raskolnikov asked, coming up to the caretaker.

The tradesman gave him a sidelong look, examining him closely, attentively, unhurriedly; then he turned slowly and, without saying a word, walked out the gate to the street.

“But what is it!” Raskolnikov cried.

“Just somebody asking if a student lived here—he gave your name— and who you rent from. You came down right then, I pointed you out, and he left. How about that!”

The caretaker, too, was somewhat perplexed, but not very, and after thinking a moment longer, he turned and slouched back to his closet.

Raskolnikov rushed after the tradesman and caught sight of him at once, going along the other side of the street at the same steady and unhurried pace, his eyes fixed on the ground, as if pondering something. He soon overtook him, but walked behind him for a while; finally he drew abreast of him and stole a glance at his face from the side. The man noticed him at once, quickly looked him over, then dropped his eyes again, and thus they walked on for about a minute, side by side, neither one saying a word.

“You were asking for me...at the caretaker's?” Raskolnikov said at last, but somehow very softly.

The tradesman made no reply and did not even look. Again there was silence.

“But why do you...come asking...and say nothing...what does it mean?” Raskolnikov's voice was faltering, and the words somehow did not want to come out clearly.

This time the tradesman raised his eyes and gave Raskolnikov an ominous, gloomy look.

“Murderer!” he said suddenly, in a soft but clear and distinct voice.

Raskolnikov was walking beside him. His legs suddenly became terribly weak, a chill ran down his spine, and it was as if his heart stood still for a moment; then all at once it began pounding as if it had jumped off the hook. They walked on thus for about a hundred steps, side by side, and again in complete silence.

The tradesman did not look at him.

“What do you...what...who is a murderer?” Raskolnikov muttered, barely audibly.

“You are a murderer,” the man replied even more distinctly and imposingly, smiling as if with some hateful triumph, and again he looked straight into Raskolnikov's pale face and deadened eyes. Just then they came to an intersection. The tradesman turned down the street to the left and walked on without looking back. Raskolnikov remained on the spot and gazed after him for a long time. He saw him turn around, after he had gone fifty steps or so, and look at him standing there motionlessly on the same spot. It was impossible to see, but Raskolnikov fancied that the man once again smiled his coldly hateful and triumphant smile.