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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...."

"But I think, if you would not do it yourself, there's no justice about
it.... Let us have another game."

Raskolnikov was violently agitated. Of course, it was all ordinary
youthful talk and thought, such as he had often heard before in
different forms and on different themes. But why had he happened to hear
such a discussion and such ideas at the very moment when his own brain
was just conceiving... _the very same ideas_? And why, just at the
moment when he had brought away the embryo of his idea from the old
woman had he dropped at once upon a conversation about her? This
coincidence always seemed strange to him. This trivial talk in a tavern
had an immense influence on him in his later action; as though there had
really been in it something preordained, some guiding hint....

*****

On returning from the Hay Market he flung himself on the sofa and sat
for a whole hour without stirring. Meanwhile it got dark; he had no

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