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- CRIME AND PUNISHMENT 41
shawls don't add more than twenty roubles a year to her htin-
dred and twenty, I know that. So she is building all her hopes
all the time on Mr. Luzhin's generosity; 'he will offer it of him-
self, hewill press it on me.' You may wait a long time for that!
That's how it always is with these Schilleresque noble hearts;
till the last moment every goose is a swan with them, till the
last moment, they hope for the best and will see nothing wrong,
and although they have an inkling of the other side of the pic-
ture, yet they won't face the truth till they are forced to; the
very thought of it makes them shiver; they thrust the truth
away with both hands, until the man they deck out in false
colours puts a fool's cap on them with his own hands. I should
like to know whether Mr. Luzhin has any orders of merit; I bet
he has the Anna in his buttonhole and that he puts it on when
he goes to dine with contractors or merchants. He will be sure to
have it for his wedding, too! Enough. of him, confound him!
"Well, . . . mother I don't wonder at, it's like her, God bless
her, but how could Dounia? Dounia, darling, as though I did
not know you! You were nearly twenty when I saw you last:
I understood you then. Mother writes that 'Dounia can put up
with a great deal.' I know that very well. I knew that two years
and a half ago, and for the last two and a half years I have
been thinking about it, thinking of just that, that 'Dounia can
put up with a great deal.' If she could put up with Mr. Svidri-
gai'lov and all the rest of it, she certainly can put up with a greatdeal. And now mother and she have taken it into their heads
that she can put up with Mr. Luzhin, who propounds the theory
of the superiority of wives raised from destitution and owing
everything to their husbands' bounty — who propounds it, too,
almost at the first interview. Granted that he 'let it slip,' though
he is a sensible man, (yet maybe it was not a slip at all, but he
meant to make himself clear as soon as possible) but Dounia,
Dounia? She understands the man, of course, but she will have
to live with the man. Why! she'd live on black bread and water,
she would not sell her soul, she would not barter her moral
freedom for comfort; she would not barter it for all Schleswig-
Holstein, much less Mr. Luzhin's money. No, Dounia was not
that sort when I knew her and . . . she is still the same, of course!
Yes, there's no denying, the Svidrigailovs are a bitter pill! It's
a bitter thing to spend one's life a governess in the provinces
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