ked Porphyrius, with the
toss of the head peculiar to Russian rustics.

"Absurd! Don't you believe a word of it! Besides, I need not urge you
to that effect--of course you are convinced," observed Raskolnikoff,
beside himself with passion. But Porphyrius Petrovitch did not seem to
hear these singular words.

"How could you have gone out if you had not been delirious?" asked
Razoumikhin, getting angry in his turn. "Why have gone out at all?
What was the object of it? And, above all, to go in that secret
manner? Come, now, make a clean breast of it--you know you were out of
your mind, were you not? Now that danger is gone by, I tell you so to
your face."

"I had been very much annoyed yesterday," said Raskolnikoff,
addressing the magistrate, with more or less of insolence in his
smile, "and, wishing to get rid of them, I went out to hire lodgings
where I could be sure of privacy, to effect which I had taken a
certain amount of money. Mr. Zametoff saw what I had by me, and
perhaps he can say whether I was in my right senses yesterday or
whether I was delirious? Perhaps he will judge as to our quarrel."
Nothing would have pleased him better than there and then to have
strangled that gentleman, whose taciturnity and equivocal facial
expression irritated him.

"In my opinion, you were talking very sensibly and even with
considerable shrewdness; only I thought you too irritable," observed
Zametoff off-handedly.

"Do let us have some tea! We are as dry as fishes!" exclaimed
Razoumikhin.

"Good idea! But perhaps you would like something more substantial
before tea, would you?"

"Look alive, then!"

Porphyrius Petrovitch went out to order tea. All kinds of thoughts
were at work in Raskolnikoff's brain. He was excited. "They don't even
take pains to dissemble; they certainly don't mince matters as far as
I am concerned: that is something, at all events! Since Porphyrius
knew next to nothing about me, why on earth should he have spoken with
Nicodemus Thomich Zametoff at all? They even scorn to deny that they
are on my track, almost like a pack of hounds! They certainly speak
out plainly enough!" he said, trembling with rage. "Well, do so, as
bluntly as you like, but don't play with me as the cat would with the
mouse! That's not quite civil, Porphyrius Petrovitch; I won't quite
allow that yet! I'll make a stand and tell you some plain truths to
your faces, and then you shall find out my real opinion about you!" He
had s