Fyodor Dostoevsky

“ If I ruin anyone, it is only myself. . . . I am not committing a murder. Why do you look at me like that? Why are you so pale? Rodya, darling, what's the matter?"
"Good heavens! You have made him faint," cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna.
"No, no, nonsense! It's nothing. A little giddiness—not fainting. You have fainting on the brain. H'm, yes, what was I saying? Oh, yes. In what way will you get convincing proof to-day that you can respect him, and that he . . . esteems you, as you said. I think you said to-day?"
"Mother, show Rodya Pyotr Petrovitch's letter," said Dounia. ”

“ Well, that we grant, was through illness, but consider this: he is a murderer, but looks upon himself as an honest man, despises others, poses as injured innocence. No, that's not the work of a Nikolay, my dear Rodion Romanovitch!"
All that had been said before had sounded so like a recantation that these words were too great a shock. Raskolnikov shuddered as though he had been stabbed.
"Then . . . who then . . . is the murderer?" he asked in a breathless voice, unable to restrain himself.
Porfiry Petrovitch sank back in his chair, as though he were amazed at the question. ”

“ No, no, that cannot be!" he cried, as Sonia had just before. "No, what has kept her from the canal till now is the idea of sin and they, the children. . . . And if she has not gone out of her mind . . . but who says she has not gone out of her mind? Is she in her senses? Can one talk, can one reason as she does? How can she sit on the edge of the abyss of loathsomeness into which she is slipping and refuse to listen when she is told of danger? Does she expect a miracle? No doubt she does. ”

“ Everything there was as before, the chairs, the looking-glass, the yellow sofa and the pictures in the frames. A huge, round, copper-red moon looked in at the windows. "It's the moon that makes it so still, weaving some mystery," thought Raskolnikov. He stood and waited, waited a long while, and the more silent the moonlight, the more violently his heart beat, till it was painful. And still the same hush. Suddenly he heard a momentary sharp crack like the snapping of a splinter and all was still again. A fly flew up suddenly and struck the window pane with a plaintive buzz. ”

“ He pounced upon Raskolnikov as greedily as though he too had not spoken to a soul for a month.
"Honoured sir," he began almost with solemnity, "poverty is not a vice, that's a true saying. Yet I know too that drunkenness is not a virtue, and that that's even truer. But beggary, honoured sir, beggary is a vice. In poverty you may still retain your innate nobility of soul, but in beggary—never—no one. For beggary a man is not chased out of human society with a stick, he is swept out with a broom, so as to make it as humiliating as possible ”

“ It's simply physical derangement. Just a glass of beer, a piece of dry bread—and in one moment the brain is stronger, the mind is clearer and the will is firm! Phew, how utterly petty it all is!"
But in spite of this scornful reflection, he was by now looking cheerful as though he were suddenly set free from a terrible burden: and he gazed round in a friendly way at the people in the room. But even at that moment he had a dim foreboding that this happier frame of mind was also not normal.
There were few people at the time in the tavern. ”

“ But Myshkin's heart is not good because it cherishes illusions. He does not expect to find Paradise on earth, and he does not like people because he thinks them better than they are. Seeing very clearly what they are, he likes even the worst of them in spite of it; and to read Dostoevsky's books throws us for the time into Myshkin's state of mind. When we are confronted with some fearful wickedness, even when we read about it in the newspapers, it shakes our faith in life and makes it seem like a nightmare in which ordinary comfortable reality has suddenly turned into an inexplicable horror. ”

“ Raskolnikov went on walking beside him. His legs felt suddenly weak, a cold shiver ran down his spine, and his heart seemed to stand still for a moment, then suddenly began throbbing as though it were set free. So they walked for about a hundred paces, side by side in silence.
The man did not look at him.
"What do you mean . . . what is. . . . Who is a murderer?" muttered Raskolnikov hardly audibly.
"You are a murderer," the man answered still more articulately and emphatically, with a smile of triumphant hatred, and again he looked straight into Raskolnikov's pale face and stricken eyes. ”

“ Avdotya Romanovna could not finish. Her breath literally failed her.
"Sofya Semyonovna will not be back till night, at least I believe not. She was to have been back at once, but if not, then she will not be in till quite late."
"Ah, then you are lying! I see . . . you were lying . . . lying all the time. . . . I don't believe you! I don't believe you!" cried Dounia, completely losing her head.
Almost fainting, she sank on to a chair which Svidrigaïlov made haste to give her.
"Avdotya Romanovna, what is it? Control yourself! Here is some water. Drink a little. . . ." ”

“ Why, you have shed blood?" cried Dounia in despair.
"Which all men shed," he put in almost frantically, "which flows and has always flowed in streams, which is spilt like champagne, and for which men are crowned in the Capitol and are called afterwards benefactors of mankind. Look into it more carefully and understand it! I too wanted to do good to men and would have done hundreds, thousands of good deeds to make up for that one piece of stupidity, not stupidity even, simply clumsiness, for the idea was by no means so stupid as it seems now that it has failed. ”

“ Another minute passed.
"You don't get money every day?"
Sonia was more confused than ever and colour rushed into her face again.
"No," she whispered with a painful effort.
"It will be the same with Polenka, no doubt," he said suddenly.
"No, no! It can't be, no!" Sonia cried aloud in desperation, as though she had been stabbed. "God would not allow anything so awful!"
"He lets others come to it."
"No, no! God will protect her, God!" she repeated beside herself.
"But, perhaps, there is no God at all," Raskolnikov answered with a sort of malignance, laughed and looked at her. ”