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- 64 CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
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 oflScer,
"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 oce^n 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 jus-
tice 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 im-
mence 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 candle and, indeed, it did not occur to him to
light up. He could never recollect whether he had been thinking
about anything at that time. At last he was conscious of his
former fever and shivering, and he realised with relief that he
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