ly acknowledge, to cruel torture. I do not wish, my dear
Rodion, that you should take me for an ogre. Hence, by way of
justification, I purpose explaining to you what led up to it. I think
it needless to account for the nature and origin of the reports which
circulated originally, as also why you were connected with them. There
was, however, one circumstance, a purely fortuitous one, and which
need not now be mentioned, which aroused my suspicions. From these
reports and accidental circumstances, the same conclusion became
evolved for me. I make this statement in all sincerity, for it was I
who first implicated you with the matter. I do not in any way notice
the particulars notified on the articles found at the old woman's.
That, and several others of a similar nature, are of no kind of
importance. At the same time, I was aware of the incident which had
happened at the police office. What occurred there has been told me
with the utmost accuracy by some one who had been closely connected
with it, and who, most unwittingly, had brought things to a head. Very
well, then, how, under such circumstances, could a man help becoming
biased? 'One swallow does not make a summer,' as the English proverb
says: a hundred suppositions do not constitute one single proof.
Reason speaks in that way, I admit, but let a man try to subject
prejudice to reason. An examining magistrate, after all, is only a
man--hence given to prejudice.

"I also remembered, on the occasion in question, the article you had
published in some review. That virgin effort of yours, I assure you, I
greatly enjoyed--as an amateur, however, be it understood. It was
redolent of sincere conviction, of genuine enthusiasm. The article was
evidently written some sleepless night under feverish conditions. That
author, I said to myself, while reading it, will do better things than
that. How now, I ask you, could I avoid connecting that with what
followed upon it? Such a tendency was but a natural one. Am I saying
anything I should not? Am I at this moment committing myself to any
definite statement? I do no more than give utterance to a thought
which struck me at the time. What may I be thinking about now?
Nothing--or, at all events, what is tantamount to it. For the time
being, I have to deal with Mikolka; there are facts which implicate
him--what are facts, after all? If I tell you all this now, as I am
doing, I do so, I assure you, most emphatically, so that your mind an