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V

Lebeziatnikov had an agitated look.

"I've come for you, Sofya Semyonovna. Excuse me... I thought I'd find you here," he suddenly addressed Raskolnikov, "that is, I didn't think anything... in that sense... but I precisely thought... Katerina Ivanovna has gone mad over there," he suddenly cut himself short, addressing Sonya and dropping Raskolnikov.

Sonya cried out.

"That is, at least it seems so. However... We don't know what to do there, that's the thing! She came back—she was driven out from somewhere, it seems, perhaps even beaten... at least it seems so... She ran to Semyon Zakharych's superior, didn't find him at home; he was dining at some other general's... Imagine, she rushed there, where they were dining... to this other general, and, imagine—she actually insisted, called out Semyon Zakharych's superior, apparently even from the table. You can imagine what happened. She was, of course, driven out; but she says that she herself abused him and threw something at him. One can readily suppose that... why she wasn't arrested—I don't understand! Now she's telling everyone, including Amalia Ivanovna, only it's hard to understand, she's shouting and thrashing about... Ah yes: she says and shouts that since everyone has now abandoned her, she'll take the children and go out into the street, carry a hurdy-gurdy, and the children will sing and dance, and she will too, and collect money, and will go every day under the general's window... 'Let them,' she says, 'see how the noble children of an official father go about the streets as beggars!' She's beating all the children, they're crying. She's teaching Lenia to sing 'The Little Farmstead,' the boy to dance, Polina Mikhailovna too, tearing up all their dresses; making them some sort of caps, like actors; she herself wants to carry a basin to bang on, instead of music... She won't listen to anything... Imagine, how can this be! It's simply impossible!"

Lebeziatnikov would have continued, but Sonya, who had been listening to him barely breathing, suddenly snatched up her mantilla and hat and ran out of the room, dressing as she ran. Raskolnikov went out after her, Lebeziatnikov after him.

"She's definitely gone mad!" he said to Raskolnikov as they went out into the street, "I just didn't want to frighten Sofya Semyonovna and said 'it seems,' but there's no doubt. They say such tubercles form, in consumption, jump up on the brain; pity I don't know medicine. I tried to convince her, though, but she won't listen to anything."

"You told her about the tubercles?"

"That is, not exactly about the tubercles. Besides, she wouldn't have understood anything. But what I'm saying is: if you convince a person logically that he has essentially nothing to cry about, he'll stop crying. That's clear. Or is it your conviction that he won't stop?"

"Life would be too easy then," answered Raskolnikov.

"Excuse me, excuse me; of course, it's rather difficult for Katerina Ivanovna to understand; but do you know that in Paris there have already been serious experiments regarding the possibility of curing the insane by acting with logical persuasion alone? One professor there, who died recently, a serious scientist, imagined that one could treat them that way. His basic idea was that there's no special disorder in the organism of the insane, but that insanity is, so to speak, a logical error, an error in judgment, an incorrect view of things. He gradually refuted the patient and, imagine, they say he achieved results! But since he also employed showers, the results of this treatment are, of course, subject to doubt... At least, so it seems..."

Raskolnikov had long since stopped listening. Drawing level with his house, he nodded to Lebeziatnikov and turned into the gateway. Lebeziatnikov started, looked around, and ran on.

Raskolnikov entered his closet and stood in the middle of it. "Why did he return here?" He looked at these yellowish, shabby wallpapers, this dust, his couch... From the courtyard came some sharp, continuous knocking; something somewhere was being hammered in, a nail perhaps... He went to the window, stood on tiptoe and looked out into the courtyard for a long time with an air of extreme attention. But the courtyard was empty, and the knockers weren't visible. To the left, in the wing, here and there open windows were visible; on the windowsills stood little pots with spindly geraniums. Washing was hung outside the windows... He knew all this by heart. He turned away and sat down on the divan.

Never, never before had he felt so terribly alone!

Yes, he felt once again that he might indeed come to hate Sonya, and precisely now, when he had made her more unhappy. "Why had he gone to her to beg for her tears? Why did he need so much to poison her life? Oh, the vileness!"

"I'll remain alone!" he said suddenly, resolutely, "and she won't come to the prison!"

Five minutes later he raised his head and smiled strangely. It was a strange thought: "Perhaps it really is better in hard labor," he suddenly thought.

He didn't remember how long he sat in his room with vague thoughts crowding his head. Suddenly the door opened, and Avdotya Romanovna entered. She first stopped and looked at him from the threshold, as he had earlier at Sonya; then she came in and sat down opposite him on the chair, in yesterday's place. He looked at her silently and somehow without thought.

"Don't be angry, brother, I've only come for a minute," said Dunya. Her expression was thoughtful but not stern. Her gaze was clear and calm. He saw that this one too had come to him with love.

"Brother, I now know everything, everything. Dmitry Prokofych explained and told me everything. You're being persecuted and tormented on account of a stupid and vile suspicion... Dmitry Prokofych told me that there's no danger whatsoever and that you take it with such horror in vain. I don't think so and fully understand how all this has revolted you and that this indignation may leave traces forever. That's what I fear. As for your having abandoned us, I don't judge you and dare not judge, and forgive me for having reproached you before. I feel in myself that if I had such great grief, I too would go away from everyone. I'll tell mother nothing of this, but I'll talk of you continuously and will tell her in your name that you'll come very soon. Don't torment yourself about her; I'll calm her; but you mustn't torment her either—come at least once; remember that she's your mother! And now I've come only to say (Dunya began to rise from her seat) that if, by chance, you should need me in anything or need... all my life, or anything... then call me, I'll come. Farewell!"

She turned sharply and headed for the door.

"Dunya!" Raskolnikov stopped her, got up and approached her, "this Razumikhin, Dmitry Prokofych, is a very good man."

Dunya blushed slightly.

"Well?" she asked, waiting a minute.

"He's a practical man, hardworking, honest and capable of loving strongly... Farewell, Dunya."

Dunya flushed all over, then suddenly became alarmed:

"But what is this, brother, are we really parting forever, that you're making me... such bequests?"

"Never mind... farewell."

He turned away and went from her to the window. She stood, looked at him anxiously, and went out in alarm.

No, he wasn't cold to her. There was one moment (the very last) when he terribly wanted to embrace her tightly and say farewell to her, and even to tell, but he didn't even dare offer her his hand:

"Afterward she might shudder, perhaps, when she remembers that I embraced her now, will say that I stole her kiss!"

"And will this one endure or not?" he added to himself a few minutes later. "No, she won't endure; such as these don't endure! Such as these never endure..."

And he thought of Sonya.

Fresh air wafted from the window. The light outside no longer shone so brightly. He suddenly took his cap and went out.

He couldn't, of course, and didn't want to, concern himself with his morbid condition. But all this continuous anxiety and all this horror of soul couldn't pass without consequences. And if he didn't yet lie in actual fever, then perhaps precisely because this inner, continuous anxiety still kept him on his feet and conscious, but somehow artificially, for a time.

He wandered aimlessly. The sun was setting. Some particular anguish had begun to manifest itself in him lately. There was nothing especially acute or burning in it; but from it emanated something constant, eternal, one sensed the hopeless years of this cold, deadening anguish, sensed some eternity "on a square yard of space." In the evening hour this sensation usually began to torment him still more strongly.

"Well, with such utterly stupid, purely physical infirmities, depending on some sunset, how can you keep from doing something stupid! You'll go not only to Sonya, but to Dunya!" he muttered hatefully.

Someone called to him. He looked around; Lebeziatnikov rushed up to him.

"Imagine, I was at your place, looking for you. Imagine, she's carried out her intention and taken the children away! Sofya Semyonovna and I barely found them. She herself is banging on a frying pan, making the children sing and dance. The children are crying. They stop at crossroads and in front of shops. Stupid people are running after them. Come along."

"And Sonya?..." Raskolnikov asked anxiously, hurrying after Lebeziatnikov.

"Simply in a frenzy. That is, not Sofya Semyonovna is in a frenzy, but Katerina Ivanovna; though Sofya Semyonovna is in a frenzy too. But Katerina Ivanovna is completely in a frenzy. I tell you, she's definitively mad. They'll be taken to the police. You can imagine what effect this will have... They're now at the canal near —sky Bridge, very near Sofya Semyonovna's. Close by."

At the canal, not very far from the bridge and two houses short of the house where Sonya lived, a crowd of people had gathered. Boys and girls especially came running. Katerina Ivanovna's hoarse, broken voice could be heard from the bridge. And indeed, it was a strange spectacle, capable of interesting the street public. Katerina Ivanovna in her old dress, in her drape-de-dames shawl and her broken straw hat, crushed into an ugly lump to one side, was indeed in a real frenzy. She was tired and gasping for breath. Her worn consumptive face looked more suffering than ever (moreover, in the street, in the sun, a consumptive always appears sicker and more disfigured than at home); but her excited state didn't cease, and she became more irritated with every minute. She rushed at the children, shouted at them, coaxed them, taught them right there in front of the crowd how to dance and what to sing, began explaining to them why this was necessary, fell into despair at their incomprehension, beat them... Then, without finishing, rushed to the public; if she noticed even a slightly well-dressed person who stopped to look, she immediately began explaining to him that, you see, to what children have been brought "from a noble, one might even say, aristocratic home." If she heard laughter in the crowd or some teasing word, she immediately pounced on the impudent ones and began quarreling with them. Some indeed laughed, others shook their heads; everyone was generally curious to look at the madwoman with frightened children. The frying pan that Lebeziatnikov had spoken of wasn't there; at least Raskolnikov didn't see it; but instead of banging on the frying pan, Katerina Ivanovna began clapping her dry palms in time when she made Polechka sing and Lenia and Kolia dance; at which she even began to sing along herself, but each time broke off at the second note from tormenting coughing, which again brought her to despair, she cursed her cough, and even wept. What most enraged her was the crying and fear of Kolia and Lenia. Indeed, there had been an attempt to dress the children in costume, as street singers are dressed. The boy wore some sort of red and white turban so that he represented a Turk. There weren't enough costumes for Lenia; she only wore on her head a red knitted worsted cap (or rather nightcap) of the late Semyon Zakharych, and stuck in the cap was a fragment of a white ostrich feather that had belonged to Katerina Ivanovna's grandmother and been preserved to this day in the trunk as a family rarity. Polechka was in her usual little dress. She looked at her mother timidly and bewildered, didn't leave her side, hid her tears, guessed at her mother's madness and looked around anxiously. The street and the crowd terrified her. Sonya followed Katerina Ivanovna constantly, weeping and begging her every minute to return home. But Katerina Ivanovna was implacable.

"Stop, Sonya, stop!" she shouted rapidly, hurrying, gasping and coughing. "You don't know yourself what you're asking, just like a child! I've already told you that I won't return to that drunken German woman. Let everyone see, all Petersburg, how the children of a noble father beg for alms, a father who served faithfully and truly all his life and, one might say, died in service." (Katerina Ivanovna had already managed to create this fantasy for herself and believe it blindly). "Let that worthless little general see. And you're stupid, Sonya: what shall we eat now, tell me? We've tormented you enough, I don't want any more! Ah, Rodion Romanovich, it's you!" she cried out, seeing Raskolnikov and rushing toward him, "explain to this little fool, please, that nothing more sensible can be done! Even organ-grinders earn money, and everyone will immediately distinguish us, recognize that we're a poor noble family of orphans reduced to poverty, and that little general will lose his position, you'll see! We'll go every day under his window, and when the sovereign passes by, I'll fall on my knees, push all these forward and point to them: 'Protect them, father!' He's the father of orphans, he's merciful, he'll protect them, you'll see, and that little general... Lenia! tenez-vous droite! You, Kolia, will dance again now. What are you whimpering about? Whimpering again! What are you afraid of, you little fool! Good Lord! what am I to do with them, Rodion Romanovich! If you knew how stupid they are! What can one do with such children!.."

And she, herself almost crying (which didn't hinder her uninterrupted and incessant rapid talk), pointed out to him the whimpering children. Raskolnikov tried to persuade her to return and even said, thinking to act on her pride, that it was unseemly for her to walk about the streets like organ-grinders do, because she was preparing herself to be the directress of a noble pension for young ladies...

"Pension, ha-ha-ha! Fine drums beyond the mountains!" cried Katerina Ivanovna, immediately after her laughter breaking into coughing, "no, Rodion Romanovich, the dream is over! Everyone has abandoned us!.. And that little general... You know, Rodion Romanovich, I threw an inkwell at him—there in the footmen's room, by the way, it was standing on the table, beside a sheet where they signed in, and I signed, threw it, and ran away. Oh, the vile, vile creatures. But I don't care; now I'll feed these myself, I won't bow to anyone! We've tormented her enough!" (She pointed to Sonya). "Polechka, how much have we collected, show me? What? Only two kopecks? Oh, the disgusting creatures! They give nothing, they only run after us with their tongues hanging out! Well, what's that blockhead laughing at?" (she pointed to one in the crowd). "It's all because Kolia is so stupid, there's such trouble with him! What do you want, Polechka? Speak to me in French, parlez-moi français. After all, I taught you, you know several phrases!.. Otherwise how can they tell that you're of a noble family, well-bred children and not at all like all the organ-grinders; we're not presenting some 'Petrushka' in the streets, but will sing a noble romance... Ah yes! What shall we sing? You keep interrupting me, and we... you see, we stopped here, Rodion Romanovich, to choose what to sing—something that Kolia can dance to too... because all this, you can imagine, is without preparation; we must agree on it all, so that everything is completely rehearsed, and then we'll go to Nevsky, where there are many more people of high society and they'll notice us at once: Lenia knows 'The Little Farmstead'... Only it's always 'The Little Farmstead' and 'The Little Farmstead,' and everyone sings it! We must sing something much more noble... Well, what have you thought of, Polia, at least help your mother! I have no memory, no memory, or I'd remember! We're surely not going to sing 'The Hussar Leaning on His Saber,' really! Ah, let's sing 'Cinq sous' in French! I taught you, after all, I taught you. And the main thing is, since it's in French, they'll see at once that you're noble children, and it will be much more touching... We could even do 'Malborough s'en va-t-en guerre,' since it's a completely childish song and is used in all aristocratic houses when they lull children to sleep.

Malborough s'en va-t-en guerre,

Ne sait quand reviendra..."

she began to sing... "But no, better 'Cinq sous'! Well, Kolia, hands on hips, quickly, and you, Lenia, also turn in the opposite direction, and Polechka and I will sing along and clap!

Cinq sous, cinq sous,

Pour monter notre ménage..."

Khi-khi-khi! (And she broke into coughing). "Fix your dress, Polechka, the shoulders have slipped," she noticed through her coughing, catching her breath. "Now you especially need to hold yourselves properly and delicately, so that everyone sees that you're noble children. I said then that the bodice should be cut longer and in two breadths. It was you then, Sonya, with your advice: 'Shorter and shorter,' and look what happened, you've completely disfigured the child... Well, now you're all crying again! What's wrong with you, you silly things! Well, Kolia, begin quickly, quickly, quickly—oh, what an insufferable child!..

Cinq sous, cinq sous...

A soldier again! Well, what do you want?"

Indeed, a policeman was pushing through the crowd. But at the same time a gentleman in civil service uniform and overcoat, a solid official of about fifty, with an order on his neck (the latter was very pleasant to Katerina Ivanovna and influenced the policeman), approached and silently gave Katerina Ivanovna a three-ruble green note. His face expressed sincere compassion. Katerina Ivanovna accepted it and gave him a polite, even ceremonious bow.

"I thank you, dear sir," she began loftily, "the reasons that have compelled us... take the money, Polechka. You see, there are noble and magnanimous people, immediately ready to help a poor noblewoman in misfortune. You see, dear sir, noble orphans, one might even say, with the most aristocratic connections... And that little general sat and ate hazel grouse... stamped his feet because I disturbed him... 'Your Excellency,' I say, 'protect the orphans, well knowing,' I say, 'the late Semyon Zakharych, and since his own daughter was slandered by the vilest of villains on the very day of his death...' That soldier again! Protect me!" she cried to the official, "what does this soldier want from me? We've already run here from one on Meshchanskaya... well, what business is it of yours, you fool!"

"Because it's forbidden in the streets, ma'am. You mustn't create a disturbance."

"You're the disturbance yourself! I'm just like walking with a hurdy-gurdy, what business is it of yours?"

"For a hurdy-gurdy you must have permission, and you're on your own account, ma'am, and in this manner you're gathering a crowd. Where do you reside?"

"What, permission!" screamed Katerina Ivanovna. "I buried my husband today, what permission!"

"Madam, madam, calm yourself," the official began, "come along, I'll see you home... This isn't proper in a crowd... you're unwell..."

"Dear sir, dear sir, you know nothing!" shouted Katerina Ivanovna, "we'll go to Nevsky—Sonya, Sonya! Where is she? She's crying too! What's wrong with all of you!.. Kolia, Lenia, where are you?" she suddenly cried out in fright, "oh, the stupid children! Kolia, Lenia, where have they gone!.."

It happened that Kolia and Lenia, frightened to the utmost degree by the street crowd and the mad antics of their mother, seeing finally the policeman who wanted to take them somewhere, suddenly, as if by agreement, grabbed each other's hands and ran. With a wail and tears, poor Katerina Ivanovna rushed to catch them. It was hideous and pitiful to watch her running, weeping, gasping for breath. Sonya and Polechka rushed after her.

"Bring them back, bring them back, Sonya! Oh, the stupid, ungrateful children!.. Polia! catch them... It's for you that I..."

She stumbled at full run and fell.

"She's hurt herself! Oh, Lord!" cried Sonya, bending over her.

Everyone ran up, everyone crowded around. Raskolnikov and Lebeziatnikov ran up among the first; the official also hurried, and after him the policeman, grumbling: "Ekh-ma!" and waving his hand, foreseeing that the affair would turn troublesome.

"Move along! Move along!" he drove off the people crowding around.

"She's dying!" someone shouted.

"She's gone mad!" said another.

"Lord, preserve us!" said one woman, crossing herself. "Have they caught the little girl and the boy? There they are, being brought, the older one caught them... Look at the little scamps!"

But when they examined Katerina Ivanovna more carefully, they saw that she hadn't hurt herself on the stone, as Sonya thought, but that the blood that stained the pavement had gushed from her chest through her throat.

"I know this, I've seen it," muttered the official to Raskolnikov and Lebeziatnikov, "it's consumption; the blood gushes out like that and chokes them. I witnessed it recently with one of my relatives, about a glass and a half... suddenly. But what are we to do, she'll die right now?"

"This way, this way, to my place!" begged Sonya, "I live here!.. That house, the second from here... To my place, quickly, quickly!.." she rushed about to everyone. "Send for a doctor... Oh, Lord!"

Thanks to the official's efforts, this matter was arranged, even the policeman helped carry Katerina Ivanovna. They carried her to Sonya's almost dead and laid her on the bed. The bleeding still continued, but she seemed to be beginning to come to herself. Into the room came at once, besides Sonya, Raskolnikov and Lebeziatnikov, the official and the policeman, who had first dispersed the crowd, some of whom accompanied them to the very door. Polechka led in Kolia and Lenia, who were trembling and crying. The Kapernaumovs also gathered: he himself, lame and crooked, a strange-looking man with bristling, upright hair and whiskers; his wife, who had a somehow permanently frightened look, and several of their children, with faces wooden from constant astonishment and with open mouths. Svidrigailov suddenly appeared among all this public. Raskolnikov looked at him with surprise, not understanding where he had come from and not remembering him in the crowd.

They spoke of a doctor and a priest. The official, though he whispered to Raskolnikov that it seemed the doctor was now superfluous, ordered one sent. Kapernaumov himself ran.

Meanwhile Katerina Ivanovna had caught her breath; the blood had subsided for a time. She looked with a sickly but intent and penetrating gaze at pale, trembling Sonya, who was wiping the drops of sweat from her forehead with a handkerchief; at last she asked to be raised. They sat her up on the bed, supporting her on both sides.

"Where are the children?" she asked in a weak voice. "You brought them, Polia? Oh, the silly things!.. Well, why did you run... Ohh!"

The blood still covered her dried lips. She moved her eyes around, examining the room:

"So this is how you live, Sonya! Not once have I been to your place... and now it's come to this..."

She looked at her with suffering:

"We've sucked you dry, Sonya... Polia, Lenia, Kolia, come here... Well, here they are, Sonya, all of them, take them... from hand to hand... and I've had enough!.. The ball is over! Cough!.. Put me down, let me at least die in peace..."

They laid her back on the pillow.

"What? The priest?.. Don't need him... Where do you have a spare ruble?.. I have no sins!.. God must forgive anyway... He knows Himself how I've suffered!.. And if He doesn't forgive, so be it!.."

Restless delirium gripped her more and more. At times she shuddered, moved her eyes around, recognized everyone for a minute; but immediately consciousness was again replaced by delirium. She breathed hoarsely and with difficulty, something seemed to gurgle in her throat.

"I tell him: 'Your Excellency!..'" she cried out, resting after each word, "that Amalia Ludwigovna... ah! Lenia, Kolia! hands on hips, quickly, quickly, glissez-glissez, pas-de-basque! Stamp your feet... Be a graceful child.

Du hast Diamanten und Perlen...

How does it go next? We ought to sing...

Du hast die schönsten Augen,

Mädchen, was willst du mehr?

Well yes, really! was willst du mehr—what will that fool think of next!.. Ah yes, here's another:

At midday's heat, in Dagestan's valley...

Ah, how I loved it... I loved this romance to adoration, Polechka!.. you know, your father... still as a suitor sang it... Oh, those days!.. We ought to, we ought to sing it! Well, how, how... I've forgotten... well, remind me, how does it go?" She was in extreme agitation and tried to raise herself. Finally, in a terrible, hoarse, breaking voice she began, crying out and choking on each word, with a look of some growing fear:

At midday's heat!.. in the valley!.. of Dagestan!..

With lead in my breast!..

Your Excellency!" she suddenly howled with a heartrending wail and burst into tears, "protect the orphans! Knowing the hospitality of the late Semyon Zakharych!.. One might even say aristocratic!.." "Cough!" she suddenly shuddered, coming to herself and looking at everyone with some horror, but immediately recognized Sonya. "Sonya, Sonya!" she said gently and tenderly, as if surprised to see her before her, "Sonya, dear, are you here too?"

They raised her again.

"Enough!.. It's time!.. Farewell, poor wretch!.. They've driven the nag to death!.. I've torn myself apa-a-art!" she cried desperately and hatefully and crashed her head on the pillow.

She lost consciousness again, but this last oblivion didn't last long. Her pale-yellow, dried-up face fell back, her mouth opened, her legs convulsively stretched out. She took a deep, deep breath and died.

Sonya fell on her body, embraced her with her arms and froze thus, pressing her head to the deceased's dried-up breast. Polechka fell at her mother's feet and kissed them, sobbing. Kolia and Lenia, not yet understanding what had happened, but sensing something very terrible, grabbed each other by the shoulders with both hands and, staring into each other's eyes, suddenly together, at once, opened their mouths and began to scream. They were both still in costume: one in the turban, the other in the cap with the ostrich feather.

And how had this "certificate of merit" suddenly appeared on the bed, beside Katerina Ivanovna? It lay there, by the pillow; Raskolnikov saw it.

He moved away to the window. Lebeziatnikov rushed up to him.

"She's dead!" said Lebeziatnikov.

"Rodion Romanovich, I have a couple of necessary words to convey to you," Svidrigailov approached. Lebeziatnikov immediately yielded his place and tactfully effaced himself. Svidrigailov drew the surprised Raskolnikov still farther into the corner.

"I'll take all this fuss on myself, that is, the funeral and so forth. You know, there'd be money, and I told you I have extra. I'll place these two little birds and this Polechka in some decent orphan institutions and will deposit fifteen hundred rubles capital for each, to majority, so that Sofya Semyonovna will be completely at ease. And I'll pull her out of the mire too, because she's a good girl, isn't she? Well then, so tell Avdotya Romanovna that this is how I've used her ten thousand."

"With what aims have you shown such benevolence?" asked Raskolnikov.

"E-ekh! A distrustful man!" laughed Svidrigailov. "After all, I said that this money is extra for me. Well, but simply, from humanity, don't you allow that? After all, she wasn't a 'louse'" (he poked his finger toward the corner where the deceased lay), "like some old moneylender woman. Well, agree, well, 'should Luzhin really live and do abominations, or should she die?' And if I don't help, then 'Polechka, for example, will go the same way, down the same road...'"

He said this with a look of some winking, merry roguishness, not taking his eyes off Raskolnikov. Raskolnikov turned pale and cold, hearing his own expressions, spoken to Sonya. He quickly recoiled and looked wildly at Svidrigailov.

"H-how... do you know?" he whispered, barely breathing.

"Why, I'm staying here, through the wall, at Madame Resslich's. Here is Kapernaumov, and there Madame Resslich, an old and most devoted friend. A neighbor, sir."

"You?"

"I," continued Svidrigailov, swaying with laughter, "and I can assure you on my honor, dearest Rodion Romanovich, that you've interested me remarkably. After all, I said we'd come together, predicted it to you—well, here we've come together. And you'll see what a sociable man I am. You'll see that I'm still possible to live with..."

PART SIX