Then I'd roll the stone back so that it would look as before, would press it down with my foot and walk away.
And for a year or two, three maybe, I would not touch it.
And, well, they could search!
There'd be no trace." "You are a madman," said Zametov, and for some reason he too spoke in a whisper, and moved away from Raskolnikov, whose eyes were glittering.
He had turned fearfully pale and his upper lip was twitching and quivering.
He bent down as close as possible to Zametov, and his lips began to move without uttering a word. This lasted for half a minute; he knew what he was doing, but could not restrain himself.
The terrible word trembled on his lips, like the latch on that door; in another moment it will break out, in another moment he will let it go, he will speak out.
"And what if it was I who murdered the old woman and Lizaveta?" he said suddenly and--realised what he had done.
Zametov looked wildly at him and turned white as the tablecloth.
His face wore a contorted smile.
"But is it possible?" he brought out faintly.
Raskolnikov looked wrathfully at him.
"Own up that you believed it, yes, you did?"
"Not a bit of it, I believe it less than ever now," Zametov cried hastily.
"I've caught my cock-sparrow!
So you did believe it before, if now you believe less than ever?"
"Not at all," cried Zametov, obviously embarrassed.
"Have you been frightening me so as to lead up to this?"
"You don't believe it then?
What were you talking about behind my back when I went out of the police-office?
And why did the explosive lieutenant question me after I fainted?
Hey, there," he shouted to the waiter, getting up and taking his cap, "how much?"
"Thirty copecks," the latter replied, running up.
"And there is twenty copecks for vodka.
See what a lot of money!" he held out his shaking hand to Zametov with notes in it. "Red notes and blue, twenty-five roubles.
Where did I get them?
And where did my new clothes come from?
You know I had not a copeck.
You've cross-examined my landlady, I'll be bound....
Well, that's enough! _Assez cause!_ Till we meet again!"
He went out, trembling all over from a sort of wild hysterical sensation, in which there was an element of insufferable rapture.
Yet he was gloomy and terribly tired.
His face was twisted as after a fit. His fatigue increased rapidly. Any shock, any irritating sensation stimulated and revived his energies at once, but his strength failed as quickly when the stimulus was removed.
Zametov, left alone, sat for a long time in the same place, plunged in thought.
Raskolnikov had unwittingly worked a revolution in his brain on a certain point and had made up his mind for him conclusively.
"Ilya Petrovitch is a blockhead," he decided.
Raskolnikov had hardly opened the door of the restaurant when he stumbled against Razumihin on the steps.
They did not see each other till they almost knocked against each other.
For a moment they stood looking each other up and down.
Razumihin was greatly astounded, then anger, real anger gleamed fiercely in his eyes.
"So here you are!" he shouted at the top of his voice--"you ran away from your bed!
And here I've been looking for you under the sofa!
We went up to the garret.
I almost beat Nastasya on your account.
And here he is after all.
Rodya!
What is the meaning of it?
Tell me the whole truth!
Confess!
Do you hear?"