We must guard Dounia from him... that's what I wanted to tell you, do you hear?"
"Guard her!
What can he do to harm Avdotya Romanovna?
Thank you, Rodya, for speaking to me like that....
We will, we will guard her.
Where does he live?"
"I don't know."
"Why didn't you ask?
What a pity!
I'll find out, though."
"Did you see him?" asked Raskolnikov after a pause.
"Yes, I noticed him, I noticed him well."
"You did really see him?
You saw him clearly?" Raskolnikov insisted.
"Yes, I remember him perfectly, I should know him in a thousand; I have a good memory for faces."
They were silent again.
"Hm!... that's all right," muttered Raskolnikov.
"Do you know, I fancied... I keep thinking that it may have been an hallucination."
"What do you mean?
I don't understand you."
"Well, you all say," Raskolnikov went on, twisting his mouth into a smile, "that I am mad. I thought just now that perhaps I really am mad, and have only seen a phantom."
"What do you mean?"
"Why, who can tell?
Perhaps I am really mad, and perhaps everything that happened all these days may be only imagination."
"Ach, Rodya, you have been upset again!...
But what did he say, what did he come for?"
Raskolnikov did not answer. Razumihin thought a minute.
"Now let me tell you my story," he began,
"I came to you, you were asleep.
Then we had dinner and then I went to Porfiry's, Zametov was still with him.
I tried to begin, but it was no use.
I couldn't speak in the right way.
They don't seem to understand and can't understand, but are not a bit ashamed.
I drew Porfiry to the window, and began talking to him, but it was still no use. He looked away and I looked away.
At last I shook my fist in his ugly face, and told him as a cousin I'd brain him.
He merely looked at me, I cursed and came away.
That was all.
It was very stupid.
To Zametov I didn't say a word.
But, you see, I thought I'd made a mess of it, but as I went downstairs a brilliant idea struck me: why should we trouble?
Of course if you were in any danger or anything, but why need you care?
You needn't care a hang for them.
We shall have a laugh at them afterwards, and if I were in your place I'd mystify them more than ever.
How ashamed they'll be afterwards!
Hang them! We can thrash them afterwards, but let's laugh at them now!"
"To be sure," answered Raskolnikov.
"But what will you say to-morrow?" he thought to himself.
Strange to say, till that moment it had never occurred to him to wonder what Razumihin would think when he knew.
As he thought it, Raskolnikov looked at him.
Razumihin's account of his visit to Porfiry had very little interest for him, so much had come and gone since then.