ed doing
nothing. He doesn't jeer at things, not because he hasn't the wit, but
as though he hadn't time to waste on such trifles. He never listens
to what is said to him. He is never interested in what interests other
people at any given moment. He thinks very highly of himself and perhaps
he is right. Well, what more? I think your arrival will have a most
beneficial influence upon him."

"God grant it may," cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna, distressed by
Razumihin's account of her Rodya.

And Razumihin ventured to look more boldly at Avdotya Romanovna at last.
He glanced at her often while he was talking, but only for a moment and
looked away again at once. Avdotya Romanovna sat at the table, listening
attentively, then got up again and began walking to and fro with her
arms folded and her lips compressed, occasionally putting in a question,
without stopping her walk. She had the same habit of not listening to
what was said. She was wearing a dress of thin dark stuff and she had a
white transparent scarf round her neck. Razumihin soon detected signs of
extreme poverty in their belongings. Had Avdotya Romanovna been dressed
like a queen, he felt that he would not be afraid of her, but perhaps
just because she was poorly dressed and that he noticed all the misery
of her surroundings, his heart was filled with dread and he began to be
afraid of every word he uttered, every gesture he made, which was very
trying for a man who already felt diffident.

"You've told us a great deal that is interesting about my brother's
character... and have told it impartially. I am glad. I thought that you
were too uncritically devoted to him," observed Avdotya Romanovna with
a smile. "I think you are right that he needs a woman's care," she added
thoughtfully.

"I didn't say so; but I daresay you are right, only..."

"What?"

"He loves no one and perhaps he never will," Razumihin declared
decisively.

"You mean he is not capable of love?"

"Do you know, Avdotya Romanovna, you are awfully like your brother, in
everything, indeed!" he blurted out suddenly to his own surprise, but
remembering at once what he had just before said of her brother,
he turned as red as a crab and was overcome with confusion. Avdotya
Romanovna couldn't help laughing when she looked at him.

"You may both be mistaken about Rodya," Pulcheria Alexandrovna remarked,
slightly piqued. "I am not talking of our present difficulty, Dounia.
What Pyotr Petrovitch wri