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- 144 CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
He did not know how to rob; he could only murder. It was his
first crime, I assure you, his first crime; he lost his head. And he
got oflf more by luck than good counsel!"
"You are talking of the murder of the old pawnbroker, I
believe?" Pyotr Petrovitch put in, addressing Zossimov. He
was standing, hat and gloves in hand, but before departing he
felt disposed to throw oflf a few more intellectual phrases. He
was evidently anxious to make a favourable impression and his
vanity overcame his prudence.
"Yes. You've heard of it?"
"Oh, yes, being in the neighbourhood."
"Do you know the details?"
"I can't say that; but another circumstance interests me
in the case — the whole question, so to say. Not to speak of the
fact that crime has been greatly on the increase among the
lower classes during the last five years, not to speak of the
cases of robbery and arson everywhere, what strikes me as the
strangest thing is that in the higher classes, too, crime is increas-
ing proportionately. In one place one hears of a student's rob-
bing the mail on the high road; in another place people of good
tocial position forge false banknotes; in Moscow of late a whole
gang has been captured who used to forge lottery tickets, and
one of the ringleaders was a lecturer in universal history; then
our secretary abroad was murdered from some obscure motive
of gain. . . . And if this old woman, the pawnbroker, has been
murdered by some one of a higher class in society — for peasants
don't pawn gold trinkets — how are we to explain this demorali-
sation ofthe civilised part of our society?"
"There are many economic changes," put in Zossimov.
"How are we to explain it?" Razumihin caught him up.
"It might be explained by our inveterate impracticality."
"How do you mean?"
"What answer had your lecturer in Moscow to make to the
question why he was forging notes? 'Everybody is getting rich
one way or another, so I want to make haste to get rich too.'
I don't remember the exact words, but the upshot was that he
wants money for nothing, without waiting or working! "We've
grown used to having everything ready-made, to walking on
crutches, to having our food chewed for us. Then the great
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