genius of hypocrisy and resourcefulness in disarming the suspicions of the lawyers—so there's nothing much to wonder at, I suppose! Of course people like that are always possible. And the fact that he couldn't keep up the character, but confessed, makes him easier to believe in. But what a fool I was! I was frantic on their side!"
"Tell me, please, from whom did you hear that, and why does it interest you so?" Raskolnikov asked with unmistakable agitation.
"What next? You ask me why it interests me! . . . Well, I heard it from Porfiry, among others . . . It was from him I heard almost all about it."
"From Porfiry?"
"From Porfiry."
"What . . . what did he say?" Raskolnikov asked in dismay.
"He gave me a capital explanation of it. Psychologically, after his fashion."
"He explained it? Explained it himself?"
"Yes, yes; good-bye. I'll tell you all about it another time, but now I'm busy. There was a time when I fancied . . . But no matter, another time! . . . What need is there for me to drink now? You have made me drunk without wine. I am drunk, Rodya! Good-bye, I'm going. I'll come again very soon."
He went out.
"He's a political conspirator, there's not a doubt about it," Razumihin decided, as he slowly descended the stairs. "And he's drawn his sister in; that's quite, quite in keeping with Avdotya Romanovna's character. There are interviews between them! . . . She hinted at it too . . . So many of her words. . . . and hints . . . bear that meaning! And how else can all this tangle be explained? Hm! And I was almost thinking . . . Good heavens, what I thought! Yes, I took leave of my senses and I wronged him! It was his doing, under the lamp in the corridor that day. Pfoo! What a crude, nasty, vile idea on my part! Nikolay is a brick, for confessing. . . . And how clear it all is now! His illness then, all his strange actions . . . before this, in the university, how morose he used to be, how gloomy. . . . But
