"There's a phenomenon for you," cried the student and he laughed.
They began talking about Lizaveta.
The student spoke about her with a peculiar relish and was continually laughing and the officer listened with great interest and asked him to send Lizaveta to do some mending for him.
Raskolnikov did not miss a word and learned everything about her. Lizaveta was younger than the old woman and was her half-sister, being the child of a different mother. She was thirty-five.
She worked day and night for her sister, and besides doing the cooking and the washing, she did sewing and worked as a charwoman and gave her sister all she earned.
She did not dare to accept an order or job of any kind without her sister's permission.
The old woman had already made her will, and Lizaveta knew of it, and by this will she would not get a farthing; nothing but the movables, chairs and so on; all the money was left to a monastery in the province of N----, that prayers might be said for her in perpetuity.
Lizaveta was of lower rank than her sister, unmarried and awfully uncouth in appearance, remarkably tall with long feet that looked as if they were bent outwards.
She always wore battered goatskin shoes, and was clean in her person. What the student expressed most surprise and amusement about was the fact that Lizaveta was continually with child.
"But you say she is hideous?" observed the officer.
"Yes, she is so dark-skinned and looks like a soldier dressed up, but you know she is not at all hideous.
She has such a good-natured face and eyes.
Strikingly so.
And the proof of it is that lots of people are attracted by her.
She is such a soft, gentle creature, ready to put up with anything, always willing, willing to do anything.
And her smile is really very sweet."
"You seem to find her attractive yourself," laughed the officer.
"From her queerness.
No, I'll tell you what.
I could kill that damned old woman and make off with her money, I assure you, without the faintest conscience-prick," the student added with warmth.
The officer laughed again while Raskolnikov shuddered.
How strange it was!
"Listen, I want to ask you a serious question," the student said hotly.
"I was joking of course, but look here; on one side we have a stupid, senseless, worthless, spiteful, ailing, horrid old woman, not simply useless but doing actual mischief, who has not an idea what she is living for herself, and who will die in a day or two in any case.
You understand?
You understand?"
"Yes, yes, I understand," answered the officer, watching his excited companion attentively.
"Well, listen then.
On the other side, fresh young lives thrown away for want of help and by thousands, on every side!
A hundred thousand good deeds could be done and helped, on that old woman's money which will be buried in a monastery!
Hundreds, thousands perhaps, might be set on the right path; dozens of families saved from destitution, from ruin, from vice, from the Lock hospitals--and all with her money.
Kill her, take her money and with the help of it devote oneself to the service of humanity and the good of all. What do you think, would not one tiny crime be wiped out by thousands of good deeds?
For one life thousands would be saved from corruption and decay.
One death, and a hundred lives in exchange--it's simple arithmetic!
Besides, what value has the life of that sickly, stupid, ill-natured old woman in the balance of existence!
No more than the life of a louse, of a black-beetle, less in fact because the old woman is doing harm.
She is wearing out the lives of others; the other day she bit Lizaveta's finger out of spite; it almost had to be amputated."
"Of course she does not deserve to live," remarked the officer, "but there it is, it's nature."
"Oh, well, brother, but we have to correct and direct nature, and, but for that, we should drown in an ocean of prejudice.
But for that, there would never have been a single great man.
They talk of duty, conscience--I don't want to say anything against duty and conscience;--but the point is, what do we mean by them.
Stay, I have another question to ask you.
Listen!"
"No, you stay, I'll ask you a question.
Listen!"
"Well?"
"You are talking and speechifying away, but tell me, would you kill the old woman _yourself_?"
"Of course not!
I was only arguing the justice of it....
It's nothing to do with me...."