rably increased his mistrust; he
marked this in a moment, and concluded that such a mood was an
exceedingly dangerous one, inasmuch as his agitation, his nervous
irritation, would only increase. "That is bad! very bad! I shall be
saying something thoughtless!"

"Quite right. But do not put yourself out of the way, there is time,
plenty of time," murmured Petrovitch, who, without apparent design,
kept going to and fro, now approaching the window, now his bureau, to
return a moment afterwards to the table. At times he would avoid
Raskolnikoff's suspicious look, at times again he drew up sharp whilst
looking his visitor straight in the face. The sight of this short
chubby man, whose movements recalled those of a ball rebounding from
wall to wall, was an extremely odd one. "No hurry, no hurry, I assure
you! But you smoke, do you not! Have you any tobacco? Here is a
cigarette!" he went on, offering his visitor a paquitos. "You notice
that I am receiving you here, but my quarters are there behind the
wainscoting. The State provides me with that. I am here as it were on
the wing, because certain alterations are being made in my rooms.
Everything is almost straight now. Do you know that quarters provided
by the State are by no means to be despised?"

"I believe you," answered Raskolnikoff, looking at him almost
derisively.

"Not to be despised, by any means," repeated Porphyrius Petrovitch,
whose mind seemed to be preoccupied with something else--"not to be
despised!" he continued in a very loud tone of voice, and drawing
himself up close to Raskolnikoff, whom he stared out of countenance.
The incessant repetition of the statement that quarters provided by
the State were by no means to be despised contrasted singularly, by
its platitude, with the serious, profound, enigmatical look he now
cast on his visitor.

Raskolnikoff's anger grew in consequence; he could hardly help
returning the magistrate's look with an imprudently scornful glance,
"Is it true?" the latter commenced, with a complacently insolent air,
"is it true that it is a judicial maxim, a maxim resorted to by all
magistrates, to begin an interview about trifling things, or even,
occasionally, about more serious matter, foreign to the main question
however, with a view to embolden, to distract, or even to lull the
suspicion of a person under examination, and then all of a sudden to
crush him with the main question, just as you strike a man a blow
straight betwe