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"Come now... you are harsh," muttered Nikodim Fomitch, sitting

down at the table and also beginning to write. He looked a little

ashamed.

"Write!" said the head clerk to Raskolnikov.

"Write what?" the latter asked, gruffly.

"I will dictate to you."

Raskolnikov fancied that the head clerk treated him more casually

and contemptuously after his speech, but strange to say he

suddenly felt completely indifferent to anyone's opinion, and

this revulsion took place in a flash, in one instant. If he had

cared to think a little, he would have been amazed indeed that he

could have talked to them like that a minute before, forcing his

feelings upon them. And where had those feelings come from? Now

if the whole room had been filled, not with police officers, but

with those nearest and dearest to him, he would not have found

one human word for them, so empty was his heart. A gloomy

sensation of agonising, everlasting solitude and remoteness, took

conscious form in his soul. It was not the meanness of his

sentimental effusions before Ilya Petrovitch, nor the meanness of

the latter's triumph over him that had caused this sudden

revulsion in his heart.