Crime and Punishment: Part 5

It must be noted, by the way, that Pyotr Petrovitch had during those ten days eagerly accepted the strangest praise from Andrey Semyonovitch; he had not protested, for instance, when Andrey Semyonovitch belauded him for being ready to contribute to the establishment of the new "commune," or to abstain from christening his future children, or to acquiesce if Dounia were to take a lover a month after marriage, and so on.

But the "humane" Andrey Semyonovitch ascribed Pyotr Petrovitch's ill-humour to his recent breach with Dounia and he was burning with impatience to discourse on that theme.

"You are always thinking of something unpleasant," he cried with aversion.

She felt it horribly indecorous, especially for her, to look at another person's money.

In fact, if there could be any hope, it would be very ephemeral, because there would be no claim for assistance in that case, far from it...

She was heartily sick of him before the end, though she had declared at first that she could not have got on without this "serviceable and magnanimous man."

Not only was this "serious business man" strikingly incongruous with the rest of the party, but it was evident, too, that he had come upon some matter of consequence, that some exceptional cause must have brought him and that therefore something was going to happen.

When Lebeziatnikov finished his long-winded harangue with the logical deduction at the end, he was quite tired, and the perspiration streamed from his face.

He had spoken with such vehemence, with such conviction that everyone obviously believed him.

Sonia, timid by nature, had felt before that day that she could be ill-treated more easily than anyone, and that she could be wronged with impunity.

But having gone through so much in the morning, he found a sort of relief in a change of sensations, apart from the strong personal feeling which impelled him to defend Sonia.

"Oh, if the Divine Providence is to be mixed up in it, there is no doing anything," Raskolnikov grumbled morosely.

Better...imagine—yes, it's certainly better—imagine that I am vain, envious, malicious, base, vindictive and...well, perhaps with a tendency to insanity.

"It will be too much for you to bear, too much!" she repeated, holding out her hands in despairing supplication.

Let everyone, let all Petersburg see the children begging in the streets, though their father was an honourable man who served all his life in truth and fidelity, and one may say died in the service.