take me. I will, therefore, endeavor to explain
myself more clearly! If, for instance, I should be too quick in
issuing a writ, I provide him in doing so with a species of moral
support or mainstay--I see you are laughing?" (Raskolnikoff, on the
contrary, had no such desire; his lips were set, and his glaring look
was not removed from Porphyrius's eyes.) "I assure you that in actual
practice such is really the case; men vary much, although,
unfortunately, our methods are the same for all. But you will ask me:
Supposing you are certain of your proofs? Goodness me, _batuchka_! you
know, perhaps as well as I do, what proofs are--half one's time,
proofs may be taken either way; and I, a magistrate, am, after all,
only a man liable to error.

"Now, what I want is to give to my investigation the precision of a
mathematical demonstration--I want my conclusions to be as plain, as
indisputable, as that twice two are four. Now, supposing I have this
gentleman arrested prematurely, though I may be positively certain
that he is _the man,_ yet I deprive myself of all future means of
proving his guilt. How is that? Because, so to say, I give him, to a
certain extent, a definite status; for, by putting him in prison, I
pacify him. I give him the chance of investigating his actual state of
mind--he will escape me, for he will reflect. In a word, he knows that
he is a prisoner, and nothing more. If, on the contrary, I take no
kind of notice of the man I fancy guilty, if I do not have him
arrested, if I in no way set him on his guard--but if the unfortunate
creature is hourly, momentarily, possessed by the suspicion that I
know all, that I do not lose sight of him either by night or by day,
that he is the object of my indefatigable vigilance--what do you ask
will take place under these circumstances? He will lose his
self-possession, he will come of his own accord to me, he will provide
me with ample evidence against himself, and will enable me to give to
the conclusion of my inquiry the accuracy of mathematical proofs,
which is not without its charm.

"If such a course succeeds with an uncultured moujik, it is equally
efficacious when it concerns an enlightened, intelligent, or even
distinguished man. For the main thing, my dear friend, is to determine
in what sense a man is developed. The man, I mean, is intelligent, but
he has nerves which are _over_-strung. And as for bile--the bile you
are forgetting, that plays no small part wit