use I am contemptible,
that's what's the matter! And yet I won't look at it as you do. If I had
succeeded I should have been crowned with glory, but now I'm trapped."

"But that's not so, not so! Brother, what are you saying?"

"Ah, it's not picturesque, not aesthetically attractive! I fail to
understand why bombarding people by regular siege is more honourable.
The fear of appearances is the first symptom of impotence. I've never,
never recognised this more clearly than now, and I am further than ever
from seeing that what I did was a crime. I've never, never been stronger
and more convinced than now."

The colour had rushed into his pale exhausted face, but as he uttered
his last explanation, he happened to meet Dounia's eyes and he saw such
anguish in them that he could not help being checked. He felt that he
had, anyway, made these two poor women miserable, that he was, anyway,
the cause...

"Dounia darling, if I am guilty forgive me (though I cannot be forgiven
if I am guilty). Good-bye! We won't dispute. It's time, high time to go.
Don't follow me, I beseech you, I have somewhere else to go.... But you
go at once and sit with mother. I entreat you to! It's my last request
of you. Don't leave her at all; I left her in a state of anxiety, that
she is not fit to bear; she will die or go out of her mind. Be with
her! Razumihin will be with you. I've been talking to him.... Don't cry
about me: I'll try to be honest and manly all my life, even if I am a
murderer. Perhaps I shall some day make a name. I won't disgrace you,
you will see; I'll still show.... Now good-bye for the present," he
concluded hurriedly, noticing again a strange expression in Dounia's
eyes at his last words and promises. "Why are you crying? Don't cry,
don't cry: we are not parting for ever! Ah, yes! Wait a minute, I'd
forgotten!"

He went to the table, took up a thick dusty book, opened it and took
from between the pages a little water-colour portrait on ivory. It was
the portrait of his landlady's daughter, who had died of fever, that
strange girl who had wanted to be a nun. For a minute he gazed at the
delicate expressive face of his betrothed, kissed the portrait and gave
it to Dounia.

"I used to talk a great deal about it to her, only to her," he said
thoughtfully. "To her heart I confided much of what has since been so
hideously realised. Don't be uneasy," he returned to Dounia, "she was
as much opposed to it as you, and I am glad tha