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- 462 CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
secret. But she has had no share by word or deed in the murder;
she was as horrified at it as you are now. Don't be anxious, she
won't betray him."
"It cannot be," muttered Dounia, with white Hps. She gasped
for breath. "It cannot be. There was not the sHghtest cause, no
sort of ground. . . . It's a lie, a He!"
"He robbed her, that was the cause, he took money and
things. It's true that by his own admission he made no use of the
money or things, but hid them under a stone, where they are
now. But that was because he dared not make use of them."
"But how could he steal, rob? How could he dream of it?"
cried Dounia, and she jumped up from the chair. "Why, you
know him, and you've seen him, can he be a thief?"
She seemed to be imploring Svidrigailov; she had entirely for-
gotten her fear.
"There are thousands and millions of combinations and pos-
sibilities, Avdotya Romanovna. A thief steals and knows he
is a scoundrel, but I've heard of a gentleman who broke open
the mail. Who knows, very likely he thought he was doing a
gentlemanly thing! Of course I should not have believed it
myself if I'd been told of it as you have, but I believe my own
ears. He explained all the causes of it to Sof ya Semyonovna too,
but she did not believe her ears at first, yet she believed her
own eyes at last."
"What . . . were the causes?"
"It's a long story, Avdotya Romanovna. Here's . . . how
shall I tell you? — A theory of a sort, the same one by which I
for instance consider that a single misdeed is permissible if the
principal aim is right, a solitary wrongdoing and hundreds of
good deeds! It's galling too, of course, for a young man of gifts
and overweening pride to know that if he had, for instance, a
paltry three thousand, his whole career, his whole future would
be differently shaped and yet not to have that three thousand.
Add to that, nervous irritability from hunger, from lodging in
a hole, from rags, from a vivid sense of the charm of his social
position and his sister's and mother's position too. Above all,
vanity, pride and vanity, though goodness knows he may have
good qualities too. ... I am not blaming him, please don't think
it; besides, it's not my business. A special little theory came
in too — a theory of a sort — dividing mankind, you see, into
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