the way, mamma, I did an
unpardonable thing yesterday. I was literally out of my mind. I gave
away all the money you sent me... to his wife for the funeral. She's
a widow now, in consumption, a poor creature... three little children,
starving... nothing in the house... there's a daughter, too... perhaps
you'd have given it yourself if you'd seen them. But I had no right to
do it I admit, especially as I knew how you needed the money yourself.
To help others one must have the right to do it, or else _Crevez,
chiens, si vous n'etes pas contents_." He laughed, "That's right, isn't
it, Dounia?"

"No, it's not," answered Dounia firmly.

"Bah! you, too, have ideals," he muttered, looking at her almost with
hatred, and smiling sarcastically. "I ought to have considered that....
Well, that's praiseworthy, and it's better for you... and if you reach a
line you won't overstep, you will be unhappy... and if you overstep it,
maybe you will be still unhappier.... But all that's nonsense," he added
irritably, vexed at being carried away. "I only meant to say that I beg
your forgiveness, mother," he concluded, shortly and abruptly.

"That's enough, Rodya, I am sure that everything you do is very good,"
said his mother, delighted.

"Don't be too sure," he answered, twisting his mouth into a smile.

A silence followed. There was a certain constraint in all this
conversation, and in the silence, and in the reconciliation, and in the
forgiveness, and all were feeling it.

"It is as though they were afraid of me," Raskolnikov was thinking
to himself, looking askance at his mother and sister. Pulcheria
Alexandrovna was indeed growing more timid the longer she kept silent.

"Yet in their absence I seemed to love them so much," flashed through
his mind.

"Do you know, Rodya, Marfa Petrovna is dead," Pulcheria Alexandrovna
suddenly blurted out.

"What Marfa Petrovna?"

"Oh, mercy on us--Marfa Petrovna Svidrigailov. I wrote you so much about
her."

"A-a-h! Yes, I remember.... So she's dead! Oh, really?" he roused
himself suddenly, as if waking up. "What did she die of?"

"Only imagine, quite suddenly," Pulcheria Alexandrovna answered
hurriedly, encouraged by his curiosity. "On the very day I was sending
you that letter! Would you believe it, that awful man seems to have been
the cause of her death. They say he beat her dreadfully."

"Why, were they on such bad terms?" he asked, addressing his sister.

"Not at all. Quite the c