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For this reason Pyotr Petrovitch intended to go into the subject

as soon as he reached Petersburg and, if necessary, to anticipate

contingencies by seeking the favour of "our younger generation."

He relied on Andrey Semyonovitch for this and before his visit to

Raskolnikov he had succeeded in picking up some current phrases.

He soon discovered that Andrey Semyonovitch was a commonplace

simpleton, but that by no means reassured Pyotr Petrovitch. Even

if he had been certain that all the progressives were fools like

him, it would not have allayed his uneasiness. All the doctrines,

the ideas, the systems, with which Andrey Semyonovitch pestered

him had no interest for him. He had his own object--he simply

wanted to find out at once what was happening here. Had these

people any power or not? Had he anything to fear from them? Would

they expose any enterprise of his? And what precisely was now the

object of their attacks?