Nikolay put a stop to it, or I don't know what we might not have come to.
That damned workman was sitting at the time in the next room--can you realise that?
You know that, of course; and I am aware that he came to you afterwards. But what you supposed then was not true: I had not sent for anyone, I had made no kind of arrangements.
You ask why I hadn't?
What shall I say to you? it had all come upon me so suddenly.
I had scarcely sent for the porters (you noticed them as you went out, I dare say). An idea flashed upon me; I was firmly convinced at the time, you see, Rodion Romanovitch.
Come, I thought--even if I let one thing slip for a time, I shall get hold of something else--I shan't lose what I want, anyway.
You are nervously irritable, Rodion Romanovitch, by temperament; it's out of proportion with other qualities of your heart and character, which I flatter myself I have to some extent divined.
Of course I did reflect even then that it does not always happen that a man gets up and blurts out his whole story.
It does happen sometimes, if you make a man lose all patience, though even then it's rare.
I was capable of realising that.
If I only had a fact, I thought, the least little fact to go upon, something I could lay hold of, something tangible, not merely psychological.
For if a man is guilty, you must be able to get something substantial out of him; one may reckon upon most surprising results indeed.
I was reckoning on your temperament, Rodion Romanovitch, on your temperament above all things!
I had great hopes of you at that time."
"But what are you driving at now?" Raskolnikov muttered at last, asking the question without thinking.
"What is he talking about?" he wondered distractedly, "does he really take me to be innocent?"
"What am I driving at?
I've come to explain myself, I consider it my duty, so to speak.
I want to make clear to you how the whole business, the whole misunderstanding arose.
I've caused you a great deal of suffering, Rodion Romanovitch.
I am not a monster.
I understand what it must mean for a man who has been unfortunate, but who is proud, imperious and above all, impatient, to have to bear such treatment!
I regard you in any case as a man of noble character and not without elements of magnanimity, though I don't agree with all your convictions. I wanted to tell you this first, frankly and quite sincerely, for above all I don't want to deceive you.
When I made your acquaintance, I felt attracted by you.
Perhaps you will laugh at my saying so.
You have a right to.
I know you disliked me from the first and indeed you've no reason to like me. You may think what you like, but I desire now to do all I can to efface that impression and to show that I am a man of heart and conscience.
I speak sincerely."
Porfiry Petrovitch made a dignified pause.
Raskolnikov felt a rush of renewed alarm.
The thought that Porfiry believed him to be innocent began to make him uneasy.
"It's scarcely necessary to go over everything in detail," Porfiry Petrovitch went on.
"Indeed, I could scarcely attempt it.
To begin with there were rumours.
Through whom, how, and when those rumours came to me... and how they affected you, I need not go into.
My suspicions were aroused by a complete accident, which might just as easily not have happened. What was it?
Hm! I believe there is no need to go into that either.
Those rumours and that accident led to one idea in my mind.
I admit it openly--for one may as well make a clean breast of it--I was the first to pitch on you.
The old woman's notes on the pledges and the rest of it--that all came to nothing.
Yours was one of a hundred.
I happened, too, to hear of the scene at the office, from a man who described it capitally, unconsciously reproducing the scene with great vividness.
It was just one thing after another, Rodion Romanovitch, my dear fellow!
How could I avoid being brought to certain ideas?
From a hundred rabbits you can't make a horse, a hundred suspicions don't make a proof, as the English proverb says, but that's only from the rational point of view--you can't help being partial, for after all a lawyer is only human.
I thought, too, of your article in that journal, do you remember, on your first visit we talked of it?
I jeered at you at the time, but that was only to lead you on.
I repeat, Rodion Romanovitch, you are ill and impatient.
That you were bold, headstrong, in earnest and... had felt a great deal I recognised long before.