gh it certainly would be hard to distinguish a note from
the window--that's true--I knew for certain that it was a hundred-rouble
note, because, when you were going to give Sofya Semyonovna ten roubles,
you took up from the table a hundred-rouble note (I saw it because I
was standing near then, and an idea struck me at once, so that I did not
forget you had it in your hand). You folded it and kept it in your hand
all the time. I didn't think of it again until, when you were getting
up, you changed it from your right hand to your left and nearly dropped
it! I noticed it because the same idea struck me again, that you meant
to do her a kindness without my seeing. You can fancy how I watched you
and I saw how you succeeded in slipping it into her pocket. I saw it, I
saw it, I'll take my oath."

Lebeziatnikov was almost breathless. Exclamations arose on all hands
chiefly expressive of wonder, but some were menacing in tone. They all
crowded round Pyotr Petrovitch. Katerina Ivanovna flew to Lebeziatnikov.

"I was mistaken in you! Protect her! You are the only one to take her
part! She is an orphan. God has sent you!"

Katerina Ivanovna, hardly knowing what she was doing, sank on her knees
before him.

"A pack of nonsense!" yelled Luzhin, roused to fury, "it's all nonsense
you've been talking! 'An idea struck you, you didn't think, you
noticed'--what does it amount to? So I gave it to her on the sly on
purpose? What for? With what object? What have I to do with this...?"

"What for? That's what I can't understand, but that what I am telling
you is the fact, that's certain! So far from my being mistaken, you
infamous criminal man, I remember how, on account of it, a question
occurred to me at once, just when I was thanking you and pressing
your hand. What made you put it secretly in her pocket? Why you did it
secretly, I mean? Could it be simply to conceal it from me, knowing that
my convictions are opposed to yours and that I do not approve of private
benevolence, which effects no radical cure? Well, I decided that you
really were ashamed of giving such a large sum before me. Perhaps,
too, I thought, he wants to give her a surprise, when she finds a whole
hundred-rouble note in her pocket. (For I know, some benevolent people
are very fond of decking out their charitable actions in that way.) Then
the idea struck me, too, that you wanted to test her, to see whether,
when she found it, she would come to thank you. Then, too