“Avdotya Romanovna,” Luzhin pronounced, wincing, “your words are of all too great an import for me; I will say more, they are even offensive, in view of the position I have the honor of occupying in relation to you. To say nothing of the offensive and strange juxtaposition, on the same level, of myself and...a presumptuous youth, you allow, by your words, for the possibility of breaking the promise I was given. 'Either you or him,' you say, and thereby show me how little I mean to you...I cannot allow it, in view of the relations and...obligations existing between us.”

“What!” Dunya flared up. “I place your interests alongside all that has so far been precious in my life, all that has so far constituted the whole of my life, and you are suddenly offended because I attach so little value to you!”

Raskolnikov smiled silently and caustically. Razumikhin cringed all over. But Pyotr Petrovich did not accept the objection; on the contrary, he grew more importunate and irritable with every word, as though he were acquiring a taste for it.

“Love for one's future life-companion, a future husband, ought to exceed the love for one's brother,” he pronounced sententiously, “and in any case I am not to be placed on the same level...Although I insisted before that in your brother's presence I could not and did not wish to explain all that I came to say, I shall nevertheless ask your much respected mother here and now for the necessary explanation of one point I consider quite capital and offensive to myself. Yesterday,” he turned to Pulcheria Alexandrovna, “in the presence of Mr. Rassudkin (or...is that right? Excuse me, I've forgotten your last name)”—he bowed politely to Razumikhin^[94]—”your son offended me by distorting a thought I once expressed to you in private conversation, over coffee: namely, that marriage to a poor girl who has already experienced life's grief is, in my view, more profitable with regard to matrimony than marriage to one who has known prosperity, for it is better for morality. Your son deliberately exaggerated the meaning of my words to absurdity, accusing me of malicious intentions, and basing himself, as I think, on your own correspondence. I shall count myself happy, Pulcheria Alexandrovna, if you prove able to reassure me in the opposite sense and thereby set my mind considerably at rest. Tell me, then, in precisely what terms did you convey my words in your letter to Rodion Romanovich?”

“I don't remember,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna was thrown off, “but I told it as I myself understood it. I don't know how Rodya told it to you. Perhaps he did exaggerate something.”

“He could not have exaggerated without some suggestion from you.”

“Pyotr Petrovich,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna declared with dignity, “that we are here is proof that Dunya and I did not take your words in a very bad way.”

“Well done, mama!” Dunya said approvingly.

“Then I am to blame in this as well!” Luzhin became offended.

“Now, Pyotr Petrovich, you keep blaming Rodion, but you yourself also wrote us something untrue about him in today's letter,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna added, taking heart.

“I do not recall writing anything that was not true, madam.”

“You wrote,” Raskolnikov said sharply, without turning to Luzhin, “that I gave money yesterday not to the widow of the man who was run over, as it was in reality, but to his daughter (whom I had never seen until yesterday). You wrote it in order to make me quarrel with my family, and to that end added some vile expressions about the behavior of a girl whom you do not know. All that is gossip and meanness.”

“Excuse me, sir,” Luzhin replied, trembling with anger, “in my letter I enlarged upon your qualities and actions solely to fulfill thereby the request of your dear sister and your mama that I describe to them how I found you and what impression you made on me. With regard to what I mentioned in my letter, find even one line that is not right—that is, that you did not spend the money, and that in that family, unfortunate as they may be, there are no unworthy persons!”

“And I say that you, with all your virtues, are not worth the little finger of that unfortunate girl at whom you are casting a stone.”

“Meaning that you might even decide to introduce her into the company of your mother and sister?”

“I have already done so, if you want to know. I sat her down beside mama and Dunya today.”

“Rodya!” exclaimed Pulcheria Alexandrovna.

Dunechka blushed; Razumikhin knitted his brows. Luzhin smiled haughtily and sarcastically.

“You may see for yourself, Avdotya Romanovna,” he said, “whether any agreement is possible here. I hope that the matter is now ended and explained once and for all. And I shall withdraw so as not to interfere with the further pleasantness of this family reunion and the imparting of secrets” (he rose from the chair and took his hat). “But in leaving I will venture to remark that henceforth I hope to be spared such meetings and, so to speak, compromises. On this subject I address myself particularly to you, most respected Pulcheria Alexandrovna, the more so as my letter was intended for you and you alone.”

Pulcheria Alexandrovna became slightly offended.

“Why, you're really going about getting us into your power, Pyotr Petrovich. Dunya told you the reason why your wish was not fulfilled; her intentions were good. And, besides, you wrote to me as if it were an order. Should we really regard your every wish as an order? I will tell you, on the contrary, that you ought now to be especially delicate and forbearing towards us, because we have dropped everything and come here, entrusting ourselves to you, and therefore are almost in your power as it is.”

“That is not quite correct, Pulcheria Alexandrovna, especially at the present moment, when Marfa Petrovna's legacy of three thousand roubles has just been announced—which seems to be very opportune, judging by the new tone in which I am being addressed,” he added caustically.

“Judging by that remark, it may be supposed that you were indeed counting on our helplessness,” Dunya observed irritably.

“But now, in any case, I cannot do so, and I especially have no wish to hinder the conveying of Arkady Ivanovich Svidrigailov's secret offers, with which he has empowered your dear brother, and which, as I perceive, have a capital, and perhaps also rather pleasant, significance for you.”

“Ah, my God!” exclaimed Pulcheria Alexandrovna.

Razumikhin kept fidgeting in his chair.

“Well, sister, are you ashamed now?” asked Raskolnikov.

“Yes, I am ashamed, Rodya,” said Dunya. “Pyotr Petrovich, get out!” she turned to him, pale with wrath.

Pyotr Petrovich was apparently not at all expecting such an outcome. He had relied too much on himself, on his power, on the helplessness of his victims. Even now he did not believe it. He became pale, and his lips trembled.

“Avdotya Romanovna, if I walk out that door now, with such parting words, then—consider—I shall never come back. Think it over well! My word is firm.”

“What insolence!” cried Dunya, quickly rising from her place. “I don't want you to come back!”

“What? So tha-a-at's how it is!” cried Luzhin, who until the last moment absolutely did not believe in such a denouement, and therefore now lost the thread altogether. “It's that that it is, madam! And do you know, Avdotya Romanovna, that I could even protest?”

“What right have you to speak to her like that!” Pulcheria Alexandrovna broke in hotly. “How are you going to protest? And what are these rights of yours? Do you think I would give my Dunya to a man like you? Go, leave us altogether! It's our own fault for deciding to do a wrong thing, and mine most of all . . .”

“All the same, Pulcheria Alexandrovna,” Luzhin was becoming frenzied in his rage, “you bound me by the word you gave, which you are now renouncing...and finally...finally, I have been drawn, so to speak, into expenses because of it . . .”