صفحة 684 من 1294

"You mean to say that I am seeking my own ends. Don't be uneasy,

Rodion Romanovitch, if I were working for my own advantage, I

would not have spoken out so directly. I am not quite a fool. I

will confess something psychologically curious about that: just

now, defending my love for Avdotya Romanovna, I said I was myself

the victim. Well, let me tell you that I've no feeling of love

now, not the slightest, so that I wonder myself indeed, for I

really did feel something..."

"Through idleness and depravity," Raskolnikov put in.

"I certainly am idle and depraved, but your sister has such

qualities that even I could not help being impressed by them. But

that's all nonsense, as I see myself now."

"Have you seen that long?"

"I began to be aware of it before, but was only perfectly sure of

it the day before yesterday, almost at the moment I arrived in

Petersburg. I still fancied in Moscow, though, that I was coming

to try to get Avdotya Romanovna's hand and to cut out Mr.

Luzhin."