第305页 / 共1294页

"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."