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- 292 CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
CHAPTER III
The fact was that up to the last moment he had never expected
such an ending; he had been overbearing to the last degree, never
dreaming that two destitute and defenceless women could
escape from his control. This conviction was strengthened by
his vanity and conceit, a conceit to the point of fatuity. Pyotr
Petrovitch, who had made his way up from insignificance,
was morbidly given to self -admiration, had the highest opinion
of his intelligence and capacities, and sometimes even gloated
in solitude over his image in the glass. But what he loved and
valued above all was the money he had amassed by his labour,
and by all sorts of devices: that money made him the equal
of all who had been his superiors.
When he had bitterly reminded Dounia that he had decided
to take her in spite of evil report, Pyotr Petrovitch had spoken
with perfect sincerity and had, indeed, felt genuinely indignant
at such "black ingratitude." And yet, when he made Dounia
his offer, he was fully aware of the groundlessness of all the
gossip. The story had been everywhere contradicted by Marfa
Petrovna, and was by then disbelieved by all the townspeople^
who were warm in Dounia's defence. And he would not have
denied that he knew all that at the time. Yet he still thought
highly of his own resolution in lifting Dounia to his level and
regarded it as something heroic. In speaking of it to Dounia,
he had let out the secret feeling he cherished and admired, and
he could not understand that others should fail to admire it
too. He had called on Raskolnikov with the feelings of a bene-
factor who is about to reap the fruits of his good deeds and to
hear agreeable flattery. And as he went downstairs now, he con-
sidered himself most undeservedly injured and unrecognised.
Dounia was simply essential to him; to do without her was
unthinkable. For many years he had voluptuous dreams of mar-
riage, but he had gone on waiting and amassing money. He
brooded with relish, in profound secret, over the image of a
girl — virtuous, poor (she rnust be poor) , very young, very
pretty, of good birth and education, very timid, one who had
suffered much, and was completely humbled before him, one
who would all her life look on him as her savioiur, worship him.
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