. "You have the fever
still on you; you are raving!"

"Am I, my fine fellow--am I strange? Yes, but I am very interesting to
you, am I not?"

"Interesting?"

"Yes. You ask me what I am reading, what I am looking for; then I am
looking through a number of papers. Suspicious, isn't it? Well, I will
explain to you, or rather confess--no, not that exactly. I will give
testimony, and you shall take it down--that's it. So then, I swear
that I was reading, and came here on purpose"--Raskolnikoff blinked
his eyes and paused--"to read an account of the murder of the old
woman." He finished almost in a whisper, eagerly watching Zametoff's
face. The latter returned his glances without flinching. And it
appeared strange to Zametoff that a full minute seemed to pass as they
kept fixedly staring at each other in this manner.

"Oh, so that's what you have been reading?" Zametoff at last cried
impatiently. "What is there in that?" "She is the same woman,"
continued Raskolnikoff, still in a whisper, and taking no notice of
Zametoff's remark, "the very same woman you were talking about when I
swooned in your office. You recollect--you surely recollect?"

"Recollect what?" said Zametoff, almost alarmed.

The serious expression on Raskolnikoff's face altered in an instant,
and he again commenced his nervous laugh, and laughed as if he were
quite unable to contain himself. There had recurred to his mind, with
fearful clearness, the moment when he stood at the door with the
hatchet in his hand. There he was, holding the bolt, and they were
tugging and thumping away at the door. Oh, how he itched to shriek at
them, open the door, thrust out his tongue at them, and frighten them
away, and then laugh, "Ah, ah, ah, ah!"

"You are insane, or else--" said Zametoff, and then paused as if a new
thought had suddenly struck him.

"Or what, or what? Now what? Tell me!"

"Nonsense!" said Zametoff to himself, "it can't be." Both became
silent. After this unexpected and fitful outburst of laughter,
Raskolnikoff had become lost in thought and looked very sad. He leaned
on the table with his elbows, buried his head in his hands, and seemed
to have quite forgotten Zametoff. The silence continued a long time.
"You do not drink your tea; it is getting cold," said the latter, at
last.

"What? Tea? Yes!" Raskolnikoff snatched at his glass, put a piece of
bread in his mouth, and then, after looking at Zametoff, seemingly
recollected and roused himse