At least he felt that he would be capable of doing it later, if not now.
"We shall see, we shall see," he repeated to himself.
But no sooner had he opened the door than he stumbled upon Porfiry himself in the passage.
He was coming in to see him.
Raskolnikov was dumbfounded for a minute, but only for one minute.
Strange to say, he was not very much astonished at seeing Porfiry and scarcely afraid of him.
He was simply startled, but was quickly, instantly, on his guard.
"Perhaps this will mean the end?
But how could Porfiry have approached so quietly, like a cat, so that he had heard nothing?
Could he have been listening at the door?"
"You didn't expect a visitor, Rodion Romanovitch," Porfiry explained, laughing.
"I've been meaning to look in a long time; I was passing by and thought why not go in for five minutes.
Are you going out?
I won't keep you long.
Just let me have one cigarette."
"Sit down, Porfiry Petrovitch, sit down." Raskolnikov gave his visitor a seat with so pleased and friendly an expression that he would have marvelled at himself, if he could have seen it.
The last moment had come, the last drops had to be drained!
So a man will sometimes go through half an hour of mortal terror with a brigand, yet when the knife is at his throat at last, he feels no fear.
Raskolnikov seated himself directly facing Porfiry, and looked at him without flinching.
Porfiry screwed up his eyes and began lighting a cigarette.
"Speak, speak," seemed as though it would burst from Raskolnikov's heart.
"Come, why don't you speak?"
CHAPTER II
"Ah these cigarettes!" Porfiry Petrovitch ejaculated at last, having lighted one.
"They are pernicious, positively pernicious, and yet I can't give them up!
I cough, I begin to have tickling in my throat and a difficulty in breathing. You know I am a coward, I went lately to Dr. B----n; he always gives at least half an hour to each patient. He positively laughed looking at me; he sounded me: 'Tobacco's bad for you,' he said, 'your lungs are affected.'
But how am I to give it up?
What is there to take its place?
I don't drink, that's the mischief, he-he-he, that I don't.
Everything is relative, Rodion Romanovitch, everything is relative!"
"Why, he's playing his professional tricks again," Raskolnikov thought with disgust.
All the circumstances of their last interview suddenly came back to him, and he felt a rush of the feeling that had come upon him then.
"I came to see you the day before yesterday, in the evening; you didn't know?" Porfiry Petrovitch went on, looking round the room.
"I came into this very room. I was passing by, just as I did to-day, and I thought I'd return your call.
I walked in as your door was wide open, I looked round, waited and went out without leaving my name with your servant.
Don't you lock your door?"
Raskolnikov's face grew more and more gloomy.
Porfiry seemed to guess his state of mind.
"I've come to have it out with you, Rodion Romanovitch, my dear fellow!
I owe you an explanation and must give it to you," he continued with a slight smile, just patting Raskolnikov's knee. But almost at the same instant a serious and careworn look came into his face; to his surprise Raskolnikov saw a touch of sadness in it.
He had never seen and never suspected such an expression in his face.
"A strange scene passed between us last time we met, Rodion Romanovitch.
Our first interview, too, was a strange one; but then... and one thing after another!
This is the point: I have perhaps acted unfairly to you; I feel it.
Do you remember how we parted? Your nerves were unhinged and your knees were shaking and so were mine.
And, you know, our behaviour was unseemly, even ungentlemanly.
And yet we are gentlemen, above all, in any case, gentlemen; that must be understood.
Do you remember what we came to?... and it was quite indecorous."
"What is he up to, what does he take me for?" Raskolnikov asked himself in amazement, raising his head and looking with open eyes on Porfiry.
"I've decided openness is better between us," Porfiry Petrovitch went on, turning his head away and dropping his eyes, as though unwilling to disconcert his former victim and as though disdaining his former wiles. "Yes, such suspicions and such scenes cannot continue for long.