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"That's nonsense, I tell you, how could I think it seriously?

You, yourself, described him as a monomaniac when you fetched me

to him... and we added fuel to the fire yesterday, you did, that

is, with your story about the painter; it was a nice

conversation, when he was, perhaps, mad on that very point! If

only I'd known what happened then at the police station and that

some wretch... had insulted him with this suspicion! Hm... I

would not have allowed that conversation yesterday. These

monomaniacs will make a mountain out of a mole-hill... and see

their fancies as solid realities.... As far as I remember, it was

Zametov's story that cleared up half the mystery, to my mind.

Why, I know one case in which a hypochondriac, a man of forty,

cut the throat of a little boy of eight, because he couldn't

endure the jokes he made every day at table! And in this case his

rags, the insolent police officer, the fever and this suspicion!