Fyodor Dostoevsky: Crime and Punishment

PART III 2. CHAPTER II (continued)

"They are coming, I think," said Razumihin, understanding the object of the question, "and they will discuss their family affairs, no doubt. I'll be off. You, as the doctor, have more right to be here than I."

"But I am not a father confessor; I shall come and go away; I've plenty to do besides looking after them."

"One thing worries me," interposed Razumihin, frowning. "On the way home I talked a lot of drunken nonsense to him . . . all sorts of things . . . and amongst them that you were afraid that he . . . might become insane."

"You told the ladies so, too."

"I know it was stupid! You may beat me if you like! Did you think so seriously?"

"That's nonsense, I tell you, how could I think it seriously? You, yourself, described him as a monomaniac when you fetched me to him . . . and we added fuel to the fire yesterday, you did, that is, with your story about the painter; it was a nice conversation, when he was, perhaps, mad on that very point! If only I'd known what happened then at the police station and that some wretch . . . had insulted him with this suspicion! Hm . . . I would not have allowed that conversation yesterday. These monomaniacs will make a mountain out of a mole-hill . . . and see their fancies as solid realities. . . . As far as I remember, it was Zametov's story that cleared up half the mystery, to my mind. Why, I know one case in which a hypochondriac, a man of forty, cut the throat of a little boy of eight, because he couldn't endure the jokes he made every day at table! And in this case his rags, the insolent police officer, the fever and this suspicion! All that working upon a man half frantic with hypochondria, and with his morbid exceptional vanity! That may well have been the starting-point of illness. Well, bother it all! . . . And, by the way, that Zametov certainly is a nice fellow, but hm . . . he shouldn't have told all that last night. He is an awful chatterbox!"

"But whom did he tell it to? You and me?"