Fyodor Dostoevsky: Crime and Punishment

PART VI 1. CHAPTER I (continued)

"How . . . how did you know?"

"Why, it's pretty plain."

Razumihin paused for a minute.

"You always have been a very rational person and you've never been mad, never," he observed suddenly with warmth. "You're right: I shall drink. Good-bye!"

And he moved to go out.

"I was talking with my sister--the day before yesterday, I think it was--about you, Razumihin."

"About me! But . . . where can you have seen her the day before yesterday?" Razumihin stopped short and even turned a little pale.

One could see that his heart was throbbing slowly and violently.

"She came here by herself, sat there and talked to me."

"She did!"

"Yes."

"What did you say to her . . . I mean, about me?"

"I told her you were a very good, honest, and industrious man. I didn't tell her you love her, because she knows that herself."

"She knows that herself?"

"Well, it's pretty plain. Wherever I might go, whatever happened to me, you would remain to look after them. I, so to speak, give them into your keeping, Razumihin. I say this because I know quite well how you love her, and am convinced of the purity of your heart. I know that she too may love you and perhaps does love you already. Now decide for yourself, as you know best, whether you need go in for a drinking bout or not."

"Rodya! You see . . . well. . . . Ach, damn it! But where do you mean to go? Of course, if it's all a secret, never mind. . . . But I . . . I shall find out the secret . . . and I am sure that it must be some ridiculous nonsense and that you've made it all up. Anyway you are a capital fellow, a capital fellow! . . ."