Pagina 305 van 1294

"She isn't, is she?" cried Razumihin, delighted to get an answer

out of him. "But she is not very clever either, eh? She is

essentially, essentially an unaccountable character! I am

sometimes quite at a loss, I assure you.... She must be forty;

she says she is thirty-six, and of course she has every right to

say so. But I swear I judge her intellectually, simply from the

metaphysical point of view; there is a sort of symbolism sprung

up between us, a sort of algebra or what not! I don't understand

it! Well, that's all nonsense. Only, seeing that you are not a

student now and have lost your lessons and your clothes, and that

through the young lady's death she has no need to treat you as a

relation, she suddenly took fright; and as you hid in your den

and dropped all your old relations with her, she planned to get

rid of you. And she's been cherishing that design a long time,

but was sorry to lose the I O U, for you assured her yourself

that your mother would pay."